Oh sweet twilight, I didn't realize I'd been missing you until this newly warm air reminded me to dally a little on the way back from the barn. "No need to rush back", your gentle breeze reminds me, "stay a moment while I melt around you".

A break in the rain invites me to step outside. My lungs are instantly filled with life force, that vibrant, pulsating, energy of wet earth and spring green leaves. I'm alive, yes, for now.

A bright, white, star shining amongst the debris of last year's life. Golden centered it reaches towards the sun, it's red, root, anchored deep in the forest floor. Bloodroot.

I stop on the trail to gaze at it, seemingly so out of place in its home of drab, brown, crunchy leaves. It is regal and vibrant, a miniature queen in a wasteland. I want to capture this moment in my mind, a pointless grasping at the ever moving flow of the forest.

Walking the deer trail in this tight valley I'm protected from the wind that ravages the ridge. I can hear it roaring up there, see the clouds moving fast and the trees swaying. But down here in the moss clad glen it's all but still. The sun easily penetrating all the way to the forest floor, the branches still bare of leaves.

Gone are the days of my youth when I'd reach towards the sun of a new idea without a thought for the effort, pulled along by the promise of a bright future. My wings have melted too many times.

I am working on finding the same trust inside myself, a knowing that I will, one day, become who I aspire to be. That too, can feel like an impossible dream some days as I watch myself perpetuating old patterns of reactivity, judgement and blame.

The forest is still now. The raging wind of yesterday remembered only by fallen branches and ruffled leaves. Crisp underfoot, clear above. A blanket of cold silence pressing the life force further down, further in.

We have a tendency to seek clarity, we want to know what is where and where here becomes there. Mist invites us to surrender all that striving and to be present to what is, here, now.

Springs have always been sacred to the Celtic heart. An offering of life from the Otherworld, they sit between this realm, the known, and the Great Below, the unknown. Springs bring us drinking water, essential for life. Our ancestors reverence for the spirits of the springs is deeply entwined with the practical need for their gifts.

A time to honor the ancestors they say, those old stories. A time of reckoning with what was, what has been, what can no longer be undone.

Everybody else is doing it. This letting go thing. It is the season for it, apparently. The wind is whispering, "let go of what you no longer need". The trees are dropping their old leaves, humans are letting go of their old stories and patterns. But she just can't seem to let go. Her leaves are an integral part of her, they are her.

What old stories are pulled up for you by the falling of leaves? And what versions of them will serve you best going forward?