A pool of lamplight, a steaming cup of tea, a pen in the hand. Writing in one’s journal is the essence of privacy, unburdening oneself of tangled thoughts and feelings in a stream of words onto the page. But will it remain private once you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil?
The Wheel of the Year turns now toward Yule. The days grow shorter and the light more precious.
I have not come to the great grandmother oak tree for a long time, but I have been feeling lost, spinning, the world is too much. The old tree’s bark is rough against my hand, but the portal is open, a smooth mandorla scar that invites me to slip into the trunk.
My harvest in the garden this September has been the humble calendula. For centuries she was known among herbalists as marigold or pot marigold, a charming homage to the Great Mother of Christianity, pairing her with that most precious of metals. In the oldest herbals she is referred to in the plural simply as Goldes.