How are you navigating through these last few weeks of Lughnasadh and Samos, the masculine half of the year? Are you letting yourself surrender and release to the feminine, Giamos and new beginnings that Samhain offers? The leaves are turning, falling, letting go, releasing as they go back to the earth to make compost of the past to make fertile soil for the future. We had a glimpse of the Cailleach at the beginning of October as she brought the winds through her waking up as she started to wander the land. The Cailleach will return fully at Samhain, her name means the veiled one and we will write more about her then. The hours of daylight have reduced to allow more hours of darkness, the masculine is yielding to the feminine. How do you experience this change as we cycle with the wheel as it turns once more? Do you find comfort in the darkness or do you experience discomfort? Cyclical living through the Celtic Wheel offers wisdom with each seasonal cycle as the wheel turns. How we embrace this wisdom is different with each turn of the wheel. Accepting where we are at any time on the wheel can bring a deep comfort to our lives and the challenges we face, internally and externally.

Resting through the Celtic Wheel of the Year offers a deeply nurturing experience as you learn to surrender to the cycles, flow with the cycles and accept where you are. The Celtic Wheel of the Year offers deep wisdom to the human experience in this culture where doing is so honoured. As we learn to rest with the seasonal energies we experience a deeper understanding of what it is to be human. We are cyclical beings that embody both masculine and feminine energies. When we embrace both and we get to witness the depth both offer. The practice of Yoga Nidra is a practice of devotional remembrance to who you are. An opportunity to stop doing and allow being envelope you for a short while. We embrace both and energies as we remember we need them all to fully experience life as it is. The doing yields to the being, the rejecting yields to the embracing, the surrendering yields to the growing, the releasing yields to the receiving and the masculine yields to the feminine. We learn to experience both and energies without distracting or wanting them to be different. We let go of the yearning for things to be other than they are, we learn to accept exactly where we are with compassion.

As the veil thins it is a beautiful time to go on an Imrama, a Soul Journey. Take your soul on a journey to discover something different or to see the familiar with different eyes. A practice where you pause, take a breath, place your hand on your heart and ask your soul where it would like to go. You may get a sense, you may get a vision or you may remember something. Then follow the inner guidance and allow it to bring you on a Soul adventure. It may take you simply into your back garden. It may take you on a walk to the forest, the sea, the mountain or your local park. When you stop and listen for a breath you may be surprised what emerges. A recent Imrama I, Anne-Marie went on took me to my local beach where I had the opportunity to witness birds bobbing on the waves resting on the sea, then back through a housing estate where I found a Book Hotel to borrow a book as I stopped by a tree that had already shed all it’s leaves so I could see a Robin and hear its beautiful song, to Mushrooms growing wildly on the paths I wandered and finally to my sit spot, a Dolmen near my home where I rested before returning home. An Imrama is such a heartwarming experience at this transition where the veil is thinning as Nature descends into stillness. An Imrama offers us the opportunity to descend into the stillness of our soul for a while as we embrace the seasonal cycle.