Autumn Equinox

It seems the little person is making me turning back towards myself. I am very grateful for this. For so long I have spent my lif doing things, creating and manifesting things, scheming and working for things, also achieving things, but I have at the same time frighteningly forgotten to nurture myself. The upmost thing I did to treat myself, was lying in bed for a while reading a novel. For me this was a big improvement, since I havn't read any novels while I was in Uni, only books on my subject. I have now realised that I have not done any of the things I wanted to treat myself to. I havn't done the scuba diving course I wanted to do, I haven't gone back to dancing class, I have for several years not taken the singing classes I was going to take, and I have postponed taking up Yoga again for 12 years now! I can't believe I have actually for 12 years believed there were reasons why I couldn't go back to Yoga now, I was always going to do it sometime soon.
Now I'm doing Yoga for pregnant ladies, and I love it. It's so good to do Yoga again. Even though this is of course different from the Yoga I did when I was 18, I still find it exhausting. My beautiful friend Graell reminded me that I am growing a human inside, so I guess I'm ok. I'm loving the Yoga Class.

I have been struggling with severe headaches since the Goddess Conference and I know that these are drawing my attention to how imbalanced a life I have been leading. I love how I am taking time for myself again now, paying attention to a better diet and making sure that I give myself the time to be with the Lady in meditation, in song and in the dreamtime. Working with the energy of the autumn equinox I have realised which parts of my life need to be nourished more and my friend, the wonderful Elaria, has helped me a lot with this, sharing her wisdom as a mother with me, and elped me to truly understand, that this is not the time to work to achieve things, but to do things with curiosity and joy, and not because the serve a purpose.

I am so grateful for the gentle changes that are happening and all the healing I receive. Belinda facilitated a beautiful Mabon ceremony by the Rhine, where we were giving thanks for the harvest in our lives.

Harvest Altar at the Autumn Equinox

That evening really marked a home-coming for me, coming home to myself. I am so grateful to my baby, for pulling me back inside. She is now very active, dancing and hopping around a lot inside her happy ocean womb. I sing to her evryday and Mitja and I love feeling her little movements.

The Mother at Lammas

As the Wheel turns and we are approaching the Festival of the Autumn Equinox, where we celebrate Banbha, the Mother of Earth, who is Hertha/Nerthus in Germany, and the Harvest Mother Tanfana, I realise I am somehow still waiting for the Lammas energy to arrive. It feels like we've gone straight from Domnu into Banbha. I was planning to paint the Great Mother Goddess in her season, when the days would be hot and golden, when the sunlight would seem endless and I'd go cycling through Her crop fields, watching Her golden hair spread over the land in the summer.
Instead ist's been cold and rainy and gray and dark.
So it is time to find the Mother not outside, but within. What a joy, since I am pregnant with my first child. At my beautiful Blessing Way ceremony in Avalon, facilitated by my friend, the wonderful Katinka Soetens, the women looked at me and they SAW the Goddess. What a humbling experience. I am now in my 18th week, can't yet feel my baby moving, but am showing very much. I love it. I can't wait to be a mother. I am so looking forward to having my baby. At the same time this seems to be a time of facing the fact that I will eventually have to let my own mother go, and that this is killing me. I want to be a mother, that doesn't mean I don't need to be my mother's daughter anymore. I need my own mum. I am very much walking a path of light and darkness at the same time right now. I can't do much except for sitting with what is and letting my baby and my mum know how much I love them. Maybe the Equinox will help me accept and find balance.
I am still planning to paint the Great Mother Goddess. And as my baby grows and as I change and experience the Mother Goddess on a whole new level the idea I have of this painting will change until I will eventually paint it.

The central altar at my Blessing Way Ceremony.

The ceremony was incredibly beautiful. It gave me so much strength and when the women sang a beautiful song by Sally Pullinger for me, I felt transformation happen.