It’s the time of letting go, the season of releasing.

No longer held tight to branches, leaves swirl and twist with new found freedom. At night, the owls whisper of winter; the earth sighs and exhales after a season of productivity…

As the year winds down, we face both forward and back, like the Roman god, Janus. We gather the harvest of the year that’s been—seeing to fruition the things we’ve put into motion—while simultaneously peering into our own becoming, beginning to plan what will be.

This time is in-between, balanced between past and future.

In Ireland, we celebrated the close of the year on October 31, called Samhain in the Celtic tongue. While ending the year now makes little sense to the modern mind, the farmers of old had just brought in their crops and laid in their stores for the winter. The time of life and growth was ending, and winter, the time of death and incubation, was coming. read more…