Solstice Blessing 2018
May you cherish your loved ones May you cherish the earth May you cherish your own dear self As the wheel turns at Solstice Amidst the busyness, remember to slow down, breathe, and open to blessings. With love, Juliet Remembering what matters Blessings on you...
Erratic seasons
Erratic seasons, they can turn around and bite you just when you thought you could breathe a sigh of relief at the unfurling of leaves, buds, and your pain. A growth spurt is followed by a blasting storm and promise is killed on the twig, dashed from the branch or...
Spring surge
These children are full of the joy of spring. Yet at the end of October their schools and kindergartens will be encouraging them to don witches’ hats and commemorate death. What are we on about? How did this happen, that a northern hemisphere festival crept in...
How nature heals
I heard the chainsaws and knew the arborists had come back for the flame tree. From my window I could see its upper branches shaking and swaying. The men had fastened ropes to the branches as they sawed through, and lowered them one by one to the ground. Pieces of...
Spring struggles
Do you struggle with the uncertainties and changeability of spring? Alongside bare trunks and branches, new grass flies through the earth, and I marvel at how these delicate blades can find their way through such water-logged soil. Above,...
Time to refresh
Are you ready for a change of season? In the northern hemisphere, summer will soon be melting into autumn, and I have an autumn message for you. Here in the southern hemisphere, winter is yielding to spring in fits and starts. Weeds are pushing through the earth...
Glimmerings at First Light
Do you ever have times when you run low on patience, or even hope? — when it seems you've been struggling with something long enough, and you feel the situation may never change? There is a season that knows all about this. It takes place in the six weeks that...
Matariki Moon Time
As Matariki returns and opens the season when Maori would go into the dark forests to snare birds, I plunge into my own dark to catch new ideas. For me, winter is a creative season, a time to catch and preserve new life so it can safely gestate in the still earth....
Winter Fire
How do you maintain your inner fire at winter solstice, when thunderclouds rumble through the sky and cloudbursts drench the air, bringing plummeting temperatures that set you shivering? If you are in the northern hemisphere, you will soon be celebrating summer...
The space between seasons
The song of the tui had changed. As I walked up the steps to my bach, I took time to pause and listen. No chortles, gurgles or rasps. The tui were singing a clear song, just two notes, one long and one short, with a rising inflection. This was new. I’d never...
Honouring Last Light
My granddaughter and I wandered through the park, picking up anything that was dying or dead: tiny pine cones that had been shaken down in the storm before they had ripened, mature cones, silvery sticks, autumn leaves, maple seed balls and more. Here, on the...
Gathering Pearls
The Queen of England said a surprising thing recently. She was being interviewed for a BBC documentary as she watched film footage of her 1953 Coronation. Out came the crown jewels, and as the Queen held two pearls in her hand, that were said to have belonged to the...
Equinox turning
The woman sitting next to me at the concert pulled a paper bag out of her handbag. ‘Would you like two pears from my tree?’ This was rather surprising, first as I knew her only slightly and hadn't seen her for two decades. Second, we were sitting on pews in a church...
Preserving and giving
I was on a quest. At first it seemed a simple enough thing to ask: who does home preserving, and has jars of produce that I might photograph? What would you have said? A few replies arrived on Facebook. Avrael has preserved 17 jars of pears and some apricots,...
First Fruits
As First Fruits arrives, I am aware of how much ripening is taking place in nature. This is the season when I enjoy luscious tastings of apricots, nectarines, plums and blueberries. It feels wondrous that the sun's warmth can be stored in such a juicy form. I feel...
Rhythms of creativity
My creative spirit is breathing more freely, reaching more deeply, stimulated and revived by two things: immersion in nature, and connection with children. The summer outflow, or the winter drawing-in — both take us beyond our usual edges and into new awareness. ...
Solstice Blessing 2017
Imagine if . . . at this time of year, for every person who is speeding up, disconnecting and behaving erratically . . . there is someone who is slowing down, connecting deeply to the still centre within, and taking special care. Imagine what the lead up to summer...
Two kinds of solstice
As we approach the sacred time of solstice I am holding hands across the world with my northern hemisphere readers. On December 22, it will be summer solstice in the southern hemisphere, and winter solstice in the north. It is time to celebrate both. Solstice is...
Stability in springtime
A tui is singing, persistently from the top of the flame tree. It's one of those bird calls that proclaims 'all is well.' It's a reassuring message in this wild and changeable spring. After weeks of rain and wind, suddenly it seemed as if summer had pounced in...
Kiss of spring
Does your garden talk to you? Reach out to touch you, even? I was weeding and removing dying leaves from the spring bulbs that were well past their best. Only a few weeks ago the freesias were bursting with fragrance and blossom. Now the flowers were gone and the...