The first hint that change was on its was delivered through the firebush in my backyard. Pruned into a lovely tree, this shrub has square stems. Square. Much like the bee balm I planted last year, only it’s a shrub. I’ve planted a delicious garden of nectar-rich plants to keep this sweet firebush company. Impossible for bees to ignore; yarrow, daisies, a richly fragrant rose. Beneath the arching branches, I nestled in hostas and astilbe, foxglove, peony. This is a little wild spot in my garden. So wild, so lovely and untamed that an entire colony of bees moved in sometime this summer. Unannounced, they settled into the natural wooden border of the garden bed, ducking under the gray-green leaves of the sage to return home with their pollen. I was quietly watching these bees bustling in and out, wondering how many of them there were and what sort they were and on and on when I glanced upwards at that constant sentry, the firebush, and noticed a single branch in the belly of the bush, there at the very tip, had started to gain the slightest tinge of red.
This was early August. I stared in disbelief, but I’ve been the guardian of more than one firebush and I knew there was no lying in those leaves. Autumn was steadily approaching. The firebush has gained more and more color each day, demonstrating how well it can live up to its name. Sooner than I can imagine, even though I’ve seen it year after year, the entire bush will explode in reds and maroon. Autumn.
There is a history of magic energy in this time for me. I can feel it in the cooling of the air and the agitation in my fingers. Everything around me is changing and I feel obliged to change, too.
The apples are ripening in the trees. How many years have I plunked around some windy orchard collecting apples to bring home and turn into pies, gallettes, crisp and cinnamon-infused apple sauce? If I had an apple for every autumn I’d done this, how many would rest in my basket?
And so, I have learned to lean into this season. While the natural world around me is busy creating, nesting, ripening, reaching pinnacle production and then settling in, I am compelled to respond in kind. It’s an interesting moment, as the cooling weather asks for a slowing down, more reflection and pause. And yet, there is this sparkling energy in the air, the reminder that colder weather is coming, this moment is passing and not eternal and I have a greater awareness of now. And that sense of now pushes me to translate this reflection into some kind of action.
I stand quietly and observe the bees. I see the apples are ripe.
As Virginia Woolf wrote, “I turn, I change.”
I’ve come to realize that I have all the skills and tools in my body and brain to get through this season, even as the days are shrinking and bits of me begin to dread the seasonal depression that comes on every winter. With these two hands I can create. With these eyes I can observe, and with my brain I can ask and ask and ask. This is how I translate feeling and energy to something akin to a ripe apple on a branch.
I don’t think this is unique to me, or even unique to other creative folx like me. I think this is an innate human thing. We feel the itch to make with our hands, to craft and compose because we are more like the birds building nests and bees building community than we allow.
And so, I suppose I want to leave you with an invitation. How can you feed your magic?
It has just as much been an invitation to myself, as I’ve sat with the question for the last couple of weeks.
Recently, my kiddo and I dedicated an afternoon to tidying up our front porch and resetting our home for autumn. A new tradition. We went to a local thrift store and found second-hand goodies to help us celebrate the coming of fall. In a random bag of whatnots along the back wall, I happened to see what looked like a little stained glass frame with a sort of wind chime on the bottom. Lately, I have been feeling this call to return to so many small joys I’d abandoned over the years. Too frivolous, too boho-cliche, too much of a waste. I’ve been working on reclaiming those bits and pieces, and standing in the thrift store, it occurred to me that if my creativity is my magic, then my creativity for crafting, for home making, for joyful play with bits and bobs – that is also my magic.
I brought home the little wind chime, and when I had a quiet moment to myself, took out my collection of semi precious stone beads I’d been collecting since I was a teenager. The wind chime could become a delicate hanging mixed media piece with fluorite points, these little prisms of striped gemstone I’ve held onto for almost ten years. Later I said to my partner that, now in my mid thirties, I finally get to return to the person who got to love these sorts of things. How beautiful that feels.
These are the moments that I think define our lives. How beautiful, calm, fulfilling and meaningful we find them. How creative. How magical.
What I'm Reading: The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan
Listening To: Inside Out, by Eve Six
Watching: Around The World In 80 Gardens