How are you feeling after these Summer months?
I know for many of us, we're recuperating in the aftermath of intensity.
If Solstice months are the energetic height of a season, the Equinoxes bring a period transition and change. Autumn is often regarded as the tougher as we move from the lighter half of the year into the darker. But it can also be a welcome reprieve with invitation to tend inwardly to our personal well-being.
September's Return to Reverence column in qathet Living magazine offers a means of restoration available to us all, should you feel need for integrating Summer's happenings and getting one's feet under us again.
* This clip is shown as it originally appeared in qathet Living Magazine
I spent the day outside with my phone forgotten somewhere, a jug of lemony water, sandals kicked off, listening to the Ravens hollering, while picking leaves off of dye plants. A multi hour meeting scheduled for the day, one of many this week, had been postponed. There were still deadlines looming - submitting this article actually was one of them, and I could almost feel emails and notifications piling.
After I was finished the dye prep, I spent a little time pulling Flax up from the garden, chatted with my ancestors while sitting in the moss, had a snack, then took to spinning wool. Summer is naturally a busier, more active time, particularly once harvest season sets in. End of Summer is often especially so. School gets underway, new clubs start up, all remaining outdoor projects become urgent. Suddenly new routines need figuring out and daylight is markedly shorter. This season, in my neck of the woods anyway, has seen its fair share of intensities. With so much in my head and heart, the reprieve found while doing slow, casual tending work was just what I needed to get back into my body. It gave me space to delight my senses rather than defend from incoming stressors. There was room to cry. To dance. To ask for, and receive, signs of guidance. What had been tightening, for a little while at least, loosened its grip on my thoughts. It gave time for my spirit to catch up with me.
If you find an uptick in demands as Summer turns to Autumn, perhaps there’s some time tested old ways to help balance and integrate all that’s been happening. I know, I know, no busy person likes to be offhandedly told to “slow down”, especially when it’s not a pace kept by choice. But eating lunch away from the work desk to give your eyeballs a break, maybe a few minutes quietly perusing a mini free library, or the warm watered, gentle repetition of handwashing dishes to let new thoughts rise from the noises of the day - helps build restoration and sustainability into our routines.
“Old ways” doesn’t have to mean dropping into the 19th century to scythe your lawn, it can be old ways “to you”. Perhaps a childhood passion for doodling, or picking up a forgotten novel. Something to pause a frantic pace or rest from current troubles.
Tucked up in her cottage on the west coast of Canada, Juliette Jarvis draws on 15+ years of hosting community ceremonies and immersion programs to write spiritually supportive books, articles, and magazine columns, while also creating handwoven ritual wear, natural ink, & ceremonial ceramics for tangible, soul-level medicine. If you have found resonance within From the Cottage articles such as this one, please consider supporting these written works by moving to an $8 cad/month paid subscription Readers are also welcome to buy her a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/juliettejarvis or visit www.juliettejarvis.com to find more of her offerings.
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