Samhain is coming

Simple ways to stay connected to the year | And All Fours recording!

Hello,

How are you? I’m writing this in the early hours after the third or fourth early wake up this week - not my kids, but me :-( I’m not sure if I blame the moon or my hormones, but after a few 3.30am awake-for-the-day moments, today’s 4.30am felt like a positive lie-in. And at least I can get up, make a fake coffee, sit and write. I have a candle and no lights on and it feels very autumnal, very Samhain.

On Friday night I had the total pleasure of joining

Lindsay Johnstone

,

Caro Giles

and

Layla O'Mara

for a chat inspired by Miranda July’s novel All Fours. We covered body image, wanting to shed our need to feel desired by men (and sometimes failing), creativity, the split between our “woman” and “mother selves” and big and small awakenings. It was a rich and interesting conversation and such a pleasure to talk with these courageous, wise and inspiring women. You can watch the replay here (with passcode w4*$i?r*).

Now onto the reason for today’s post: my next online circle is Tuesday 29 October at 8pm, a few days before Samhain/Halloween. I’m so excited to be starting a new year-long cycle with some of you! One thing I’d suggest for paid subscribers is to buy or allocate a notebook that you’ll be using just for our Wheel sessions. That’ll make it much easier to glance back at what you wrote in previous 6 week cycles and remind yourself of where you were, before turning to where you’re at/will be.

Today’s post is for members of The Wheel, my paid subscription, in anticipation of Samhain to get you in the (ahem) spirit. I hope it provides you with some quick and easy ways to ground you in the season we’re in, with a couple of recipes at the end for the kitchen people amongst you. Scroll to the end for the list of suggestions (read the paragraph before if you do), start below for the ramblings! And please tell me in the comments whether this is useful, or what works for you in terms of seasonal celebrations. I’ll be back before our Samhain circle with a short information post about the festival and the themes we’ll be exploring, and the Zoom details for the session - I’m really looking forward to it.

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One of the most powerful gifts of offering space to explore the Celtic Wheel is the way it turns my own attention to the cycles around me. I’m learning (that is, sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding) to inhabit the sweet spot between looking forward and looking back. There’s planning and pondering the next part, there’s being in the present, there’s reviewing and looking back. None of them at the expense of the other, and certainly not feeling that any of it is a to-do list.

If I’ve learnt anything in the last decade,