Beware The Ember Season

It’s Ember season and the veils are thin.

The warmth of summer and September days long gone,

A golden harvest gathered and shared.

Nights lengthen while damp, dark skies creep in.

Ghouls, ghosts and goblins rush out to play

In a frenzied riot around Halloween.

Tomfoolery, deception and delusion abound,

Tricking the mind in a maze of distraction.

Old fears resurface to haunt and spook,

The inescapable trauma, the inevitable bouts of chronic pain.

False beliefs rear up their ugly heads,

Entrapping you in a quagmire of fear, panic, shame.

Until you remember,

To return to the source of the Beloved within,

Feel the boon of His Presence and find the courage 

To look the reaper of death in the eye and wink,

Dance with the troll of doom,

And tickle the furry belly of the giant spider,

Dispelling her web of illusion.

For all this dross that is surfacing

Is yours to burn on Bonfire Night.

Effigies of past selves that no longer serve you

Feed the flames of fire, turn to embers

And transform in the crucible of love

To become the fertile ash of your awakening.

A Re-membering.

November nights draw long and autumn hues dull

As the stark chill of mid-winter approaches.

It’s time to reflect on your harvest

For all is laid bare in December,

A reckoning for the Soul,

Where you glimpse your truth,

And choose to step into your magnificence.

Or not.

Behold the Ember Season,

Trick or Treat

Fear or Love

Be aware.

A time to Re-member

Your Divinity.

Rewilding into Grace

There’s something about her, this magical pond,

Deep in the heart of acres of rewilded land,

Where the farm’s fences have been pulled down,

Penned-in animals are no more,

Once-ploughed fields left fallow,

Taken over by brambles, dog-rose and sallow.

Now Longhorn cattle are free to roam,

Droves of Tamworth pigs rootle the ground and

Herds of wild Exmoor ponies run free, 

All tending the grass, the bushes, the earth.

Wild swimming pond at Knepp

Within this magnificent splendour of nature,

The pond invites me into her autumnal embrace.

I glide with mallards, bask with moor hens,

The ice of the water chilling deep into my cells.

The branch of an oak extends over us like a graceful arm,

Adorned in leaves tinged with orange, yellow and brown,

Gifting acorns in gentle plops, rippling the still reflection.

Squirrels scamper by our side, a robin hops, a redwing watches.

A peregrine falcon soars in the sky above,

Where gathering clouds roll in to drop their burdens. 

From deep within, I too am replete with harvest.

The depth of Grace from this year’s reaping, 

Has given space for so much grief to surface.

The grit, the muck and mire of life’s daily toil,

Past and present, float like jetsam to my attention,

Where upwelling Love recognises the gifts they are.

The bile, the aches, the pain my body holds,

All just a signal to call in the Grace,

To look Grief in the eye,

And walk me home.

I hear Love’s whisper in the wind as I swim,

Feel Her soak deep into my being.

Allow Her to rewild me to my true nature,

Surrender to the breaking down,

Of boundaries within,

Unshackling beliefs, concepts and unhelpful patterns,

That have gripped too fast for too long.

There’s a lightness now to my stroke. 

I too am living wild and free,

 Immersed in this boundless pool of divine Love.

Comments and contemplations welcome

Re-membering

This is for those of you tending your wounds,

Not just the cuts and the bruises, but

The hard long-held welts hidden deep inside,

Too harsh to forget, too frozen to weep.

rudall30

I see the pain you stashed there, your aching sorrow,

The voids in your childhood where love wasn’t felt,

The harsh words which siphoned the sparkle from your eyes,

The well-concealed traumas, shrouded in mistaken beliefs.

I see where your needs to be heard were neatly paved over,

The gaping disconnect between authenticity and expectation,

The truths you swallowed and caged inside of you,

Drenched in grief and cloaked in darkness.

And now you stand in the empty halls of your being.

I see you change your stance as you call for His guidance,

Move from the shadows of distress into your divine indomitable light,

Finally ready to love yourself whole and set yourself free.

I see you draw on His strength to raise your sword of truth,

Cut through the shackles of fear and self-loathing,

And beam with a Love so strong it melts the orphaned parts of you,

The fragmented capsules of stardust awaiting liberation.

Some call you wounded, but I see you as blessed,

With the courage and power to embody,

His great Love for this sacred re-membering.

You have been chosen, Dear One.

This is for you.

Comments welcome