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...