Autumn Tales

Autumn is slowly drawing to a close, with the winter solstice around the corner.

Our walks are getting more wet and muddy. The sky displays gorgeous and ever changing artwork reflecting the light of the sun, hiding somewhere behind the clouds…

What if people think I’m crazy?

Dear friends,

I hope you are well and that you are enjoying Autumn wherever you are.

I’m now getting ready for my next 6 day workshop which will start in exactly a week from now.

My last workshop at Emerson College was in early June. It was the end of Spring, the days were longer and the promises of a hot summer were in the air. The temperature was going up, the natural world was in bloom and all the insects were very busy.

Now it’s Samhain – A time to celebrate the spirits, past and present – Halloween is in only a few days and Autumn is definitely here. The trees have shed their leaves, the insects activity has slowed right down, getting ready for winter. It’s the opposite time of the year.

I love receiving emails from previous workshop attendees. I love reading your stories and how animal communication may have enhanced your connection with the natural world and the animals in your life.

Promenade dans un jardin anglais

Wakehurst is one of my favourite place around here… I always enjoy spending time  there, it’s such an inspiring location…

Especially at this time of the year. Here are some photographs of our day there…

Autumnal Milestones

Well it’s Autumn. I have a real fondness for Autumn. I tend to wrap things up in Autumn. For me it’s a time when things just come together, when all of my ideas and ‘works in progress’ come to fruition.

This last week saw a couple of important milestones for me.

Autumn Equinox catch up

Hello my dear friends,

I hope you are all well and that you all enjoyed Spring, Summer and the Autumn Equinox, wherever you are!

Here life is like the tide. In and out. Gentle rolling waves. Storms. Winds. Then deep, blue and calm again. My thoughts and ideas are like seagulls. Sometimes they blend in the scenery, with just a few passing comments. Sometimes they shout too loud or steal my chips.

Warm ups…

The weather has been exquisitely hot here and we have been enjoying the summer.

I have been quietly knitting and crocheting away, starting to prepare for my stall at the Christmas fair at the end of November.

I spent quite a while last week teaching myself to crochet as I have been making leaves and flowers to go on garlands and fairy head dresses.

Here is one of them, what do you think?

Around the fire…

the fire never quite goes out.

stories reveal themselves,

songs are made up or remembered

spirits are dancing around us.

potatoes are cooked in foil,

hot cocoa sipped

slowly, or not.

embers are red and hot

at the end of sticks.

the heat on our faces,

the smell of fire in our hair and clothes…

the night draws in early

and we stay out in the dark

sat around an autumn fire

trying to hold the warmth of summer back

in our bare hands,

trying to make it stay longer…

tonight feels like a summer night

 even if Samhain is just round the corner,

regardless of the season

The fire never, ever…

quite goes out.

Autumn

 

mori girl

the heating is on

The heating is on,

the cupboard is well stocked, with

almond milk, cocoa and xylotol.

my watercolour paints are out

and the CD player is not skipping,

for once.

a few good books to catch up with,

warm wooly socks,

a good film for later

and a big thick duvet to cuddle under.

come on autumn, come on winter

bring your long grey rainy days,

your early night falls,

your long dark rainy nights

now that i live in a town

in a warm and cosy nest

you’re welcome to go on and on.

now that i can walk to the library,

and to the local coffee shop,

now that i can ride my bike to the next village,

now that i am pretty much back pain free…

now that, know that, now what?!

 

Welcome Autumn

Since writing this post at the beginning of the summer, Thom has been through a few sketch books and quite a large amount of paper… I have been a bit more savey. I’m still using the same book, and it looks a bit tattered now from being soaked with water wash for all sorts of water colour, clay or pastel experiments.

Dear Thom,

You have spent the entire summer thinking about and drawing dragons. You have drawn, painted and modelled an impressive collection of different species. We have been spending hours reading together the How To Train Your Dragon books, by Cressida Cowell, as you loved the films so much. You told me that the dragon on picture number 2 (above) is a fire dragon.

Prior to dragons, you were fascinated by pirates, as we read Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie. We even met a real pirate in Eastbourne, during a Pirate gathering. You were dressed in your fine pirate outfit and this big grown up Pirate surprised you, when he drew out his dagger out of his belt, in between waiting tables to start a play fight with you. You got a bit scared and decided that you would rather take your pirate outfit off and just go to that Pirate gathering in normal day clothes.

To my surprise, you got really captivated by the story of Pinocchio retold by Michael Morpurgo that we read after Peter Pan, just before we entered the Dragons Era.

We had a recent butterfly interval, during which we spent a few days making butterflies in all the ways we could think of, covering the doors of our craft cupboard.

We have only lived here for a few months but the patio has already hosted numerous creative endeavours…

Such as a few action painting projects…

and some large scale chalk creations…

You have also been showing a very keen interest in photography and I have let you play with my camera quite a lot.

You seem to really enjoy making your own short videos. In one of them you keep repeating: “The caterpillars are singing along with the birds”. I thought it was beautiful.

While I have been struggling with back issues, spending a lot of sunny days bed ridden, or being seen by the osteopath or the physiotherapist, you have spent a lot of time riding your bike back and forth on the cycle path to get gelatos (“strawberry cream ice cream in a cone, with chocolate sprinkles please”) with Daddy (and sometimes with me too).

The Tooth Fairy paid us a visit for the first time, as you lost your first milk tooth. It was exactly around the same time you managed to ride your bike without stabilisers for the first time, at the beginning of the summer… and you have been riding it steadily ever since!

It was the day of the football World Cup final and we ended up watching it in a pub that evening as we were celebrating your bike riding success with a pub dinner. You asked me questions all throughout the first half of the game, getting us a few looks from irritated football fans.

Yesterday we came across a few dressing up bins outside a charity shop near us… and we found a couple of very cool outfits… so now you are waiting for Halloween :)

Your current favourite place is the Rock Climbing site. As two climbers pointed out to me this afternoon, you seem to be a “natural”: you just climb up and down trees and rocks with such ease and speed to the dismay of  everyone around.

You and Tara are both really good climbers and such a combo! It’s sometimes hard to keep up with you two! You have just spent the afternoon together, paddling in a stream, playing with stones.

I hope that you are enjoying this journey as much as I do, and remember:

“To live will be an awfully big adventure!” (Peter Pan/J.M. Barrie).

With lots of love,

Mum.