The Changing of the Seasons
Walking through the forest this morning, I could sense the autumn season that is now upon us. The air is crisp as the northern sylphs make their presence known. Dancing wildly, about as they press on into the depths of the forsaken woods.
The leaves are taking on a plethora of colors, reds and yellows and orange hues too.
And like the changing of the leaves, bittersweet thoughts of years gone by go floating through the depths of my mind.
Distant memories that is all but gone, of a precocious child, wandering about the hills under the watchful eye of the Dryads. Just five years away from birth, he stumbled upon a witch in a mountain glen. Known at times as Grandma Ina and at others as the matriarch of our clan, she was standing there with the soft summer breeze caressing her shimmering dark hair. A stout Irish woman, witch born and witch bred. A product of the mountains she loved so dearly.
Candles were all about; the bluish flames unmoved despite the gentle breeze. Without turning to look, her words still seared into the pages of my mind, “now you seen and now you get!” And so with that first step another witch was born.
I think back on how we had to remain in the shadows while others basked in the sunlight. Fear and ignorance was the way of the land.
Thoughts of how surely the seasons would turn, and the fears eventually fade. Where there were so few are now so many. Like wildflowers sprouting all about.
I think of my own children born into the Craft, unaware of the cries of pain and desperation that went before them. And how I am without the courage to explain the twisting paths of this world that has led to the freedom of what was once a furtive path. A mystical path, that had to be hidden in the mists from the hatred that would surely destroy it with water and fire.
I think of my son who passed through the veil shortly after visiting this realm. Are you with our Sacred Mother now, my dear child?
I think of the Elders of my family who are now with that child. Thoughts of my mother as she pored over her charts, a gleam in her eye of ancient wisdom passed down. And like the leaves of bygone days faded memories of my uncle walking quietly amongst the trees, with a distant look in his eyes. One could hear the Devas softly sing as he wandered by. Thoughts of my grandfather, as memories of his own brought misty tears to his hewn face.
My father, whom I did not know, forever lost through the vagaries of life before my own awareness took hold.
Like the changing seasons they have come and gone.
Each one having served a purpose in life.
And like the old oak whose branches are gnarled and gray, all things shall come to full circle. As surely as the seasons change.
