Shifting Seasons/Perceptions

Last weekend, my middle child and I spent some time together at Blue Marsh Lake, poking around taking pictures, skipping stones, and splashing in a creek in the perfectly warm, last-day-of-September sunshine.











So many plants are still going strong,and the warmth was deceptive, but the slant of the light and the smell of the forest floor tell the true story -- autumn has arrived, and the transition into bare branches and the dark, quiet months is well underway.





Even as a winter-lover, I too feel a pang of loss at this time of year as I look around at the plants that will soon die back or go bare for several months -- and I feel it especially sharply when I think ahead to that end of February slump, where the only signs of life are the buds on the trees swelling at an infinitesimal rate. But this year, I'm embracing this seasonal shift with renewed passion, because it corresponds with a significant changing of seasons in my life, and it's a shift to be celebrate, if all continues to go well.





I've only had two weeks of massage school so far, but god this feels so right, in a way that nothing in my work life ever has before. So while I'm trying to guard my heart a tiny bit here, I'm also pouring every bit of myself into this, because I absolutely must succeed, and I want to, so very badly.

On the Eve of the Equinox...

If you've looked through my few posts here, or my Flickr photostream, it may not shock you to hear that I like nature.








And it may also not be a surprise that I have a certain fondness for fungi of all kinds.







I love so many things about the natural world, and I'm truly happiest poking around in the woods or a quiet field somewhere, camera around my neck, and hands dirty from digging gently around the base of some interesting mushroom, or dislodging a piece of milky quartz to examine it more closely.







In my NOT crawling about on the forest floor everyday life, I'm about to take a giant leap into a "new" career. I say that in quotes because I haven't actually had one yet, so it's more of a "first" career I suppose.







I've attempted a few things over the past decade: soap and body product business, herbalism, doing the whole Blogging-while-the-kids-are-young-and-selling-stuff-on-Etsy-and-starving-myself-to-death-because-we-have-no-money thing, but you know what? None of it quite fit. There was a missing piece I could never figure out somehow.

I'm not saying I've found it now, because I don't dare to get my hopes up/put all my eggs in one basket/whatever, but as of yesterday evening, I have been accepted into a medical massage school, and I start classes on Monday. It's an intense nine month program, and it will be hard for a high-strung, family-first mom person such as myself, but it is beyond time for me to further myself and create the life I really want, and this feels so right, it kind of hurts.







And who knows? If I succeed, I could totally see myself offering my handmade products to my clients -- balms, body oils, candles, linen sprays, drawer sachets -- so many possibilities to finally tie together all the things I love and care about so deeply. I've had a lot of dreams over the years, but this is the first one in so very long -- too long -- that I can actually envision becoming my reality, and that both excites and terrifies me, to be quite honest.







It feels so fitting that this journey is beginning under the first full moon of the Autumn Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere (what with me being such a moony, fall-loving, wild woman and all). If dreams were real life, I'd bottle every luscious, silvery drop of crazy energy flying around right now and trickle a bit under my tongue every time I start to feel unsure, or doubt my ability to get through this, and I'd fill up with so much moonlight, I'd shine into every corner of my being and render every shadow so pale, they'd just pack their bags and take off -- if not for good, at least for a good long time...

The Fungus Among Us, or, Amber Prattles On

Having been gradually pulled into in the very instant-gratification world of Instagram and all that excitement over the past few years, blogging, once a passion of mine -- well, it all faded into the background hum of life until I barely remembered that part of myself anymore.







In an effort to stay sane in an increasingly stressful and hectic life,  I've vowed to start slowing some things down whenever I'm able, before I completely crack from a pace I'm not able to sustain.







I'll be taking more "slow pictures". Still digital, but not on a smartphone, so I have to actually take the time to sit down and upload them to the computer, then edit and resize them, then upload them and place them in blog posts. I used to enjoy the ritual of looking at everything off camera for the first time, and I'd lost that for a while there.







I'll be making more "slow food". Convenience foods in times of stress and rushing, when self care goes right out the window, have become my norm, and they're depleting me in every way imaginable -- even the so-called "healthy" ones. My budget cannot afford them, my body cannot digest them, and my mind cannot make sense of why I am intentionally punishing myself, over and over again.







I'll be doing more gardening. I've struggled with how to garden since we moved in here (Raised beds? Containers? In the ground??), and after nine years in this house, I finally know where I'd like to put a real garden. I had the soil tested for contaminants, I have local access to rich mushroom soil, all the poopy straw and wool mulch I could need from my shepherdess friend, and my own two composters are still functioning beautifully, so now we begin. This fall I'll be rototilling a patch at the back of the yard, and feeding and mulching it for the long, cold months, and come spring, I will have the most wonderful gift waiting for me.







I'll be making more time for creating. I knit, I sew, I paint things, I whittle things, I do a lot of things. Not saying I do them all well. But I do them, and I enjoy them, and they help me feel centered and grounded, and because they are a very important part of who I am, I will make time for them.







So that's the plan. Certainly nothing that hasn't been done and said a trillion times over around the world, but I'm putting it out there anyway, because I need to. <3