I made a wish this year. A wish that was shortly answered with an unexpected call from the Universe in the form of a premonition to prepare myself.

On the whole, I dig my enchanted little life. I adore my cottage and wilderness living, but I also recognize my season is changing. Any good witch knows…you can’t fight the seasonal shift. You can’t push it back, or run away from it. Seasons are a part of our nature.

My new season is loitering the garden gate. It’s time to put down my gathering basket, find some shoes (I think I have some shoes around here somewhere) and venture forth. To where, I don’t know. How long? I’m not sure. I only know the feeling of being asked to surface into the harsh light, and release a song, or word, or some kind of…flare? I don’t know yet. It’s unclear.

For now, there is enough time to prepare. There’s a transition window that is allowing me to pack and ready myself for this new sojourn into unknown realms.

The packing should be light. As I set about pondering what to take, I realized my life has become so simple, so uncluttered of old baggage that there’s not actually much to take with me—save a few relationships, and those could use some fine tuning and work before the journey. Mind, I’m still not sure where I’m going, but better relationship awareness is never amiss.

I sat on the deck hypnotized by the forest and closed my eyes. The creek burbled. The mossy maple limbs swayed and groaned. A crow cawed on the ridge above my glade.

It’s time.

I sat with it for a while. I have been truly happy here in the Elder Glade. I hope it will remain my haven for many years come; even as I venture out and touch the world again. I hope the glade will be mine to return to, snuggle in and recover as needed. There is a sadness in the shift, in the call to a diamond world I don’t understand yet. When I send my senses out to query the journey, it feels cold, hard, brittle and sharp. Each time I reach out to try and touch the path forward, I yank my hand back with concern. The diamond world is everything I am not. Why would I be called to that? I don’t know, but the pull is insistent. The calling is clear. It’s where I’m supposed to venture next.

The healing and whole-ing I’ve been able to accomplish during my enthrallment with this space has brought the most fulfillment to date, the most creative inspiration and output; the longest surrender and most delightful lullaby of soul. I hope this seasonal shift will allow me to remain connected to this sanctuary. It’s the first home I’ve felt havened by since leaving the wild Northern lights.

But the diamond world is calling. There’s a mission to be accomplished. The diamond world is not my world. I don’t know exactly how to get there, or what exactly I’m supposed to do when I arrive—but I’ll pack and be ready anyhow. When the wind blows open the garden gate and the full moon shines upon the wintered herbs—it’s wisdom to put your tools away and pull out a travel bag, else the shift will catch you unawares and leave you scrambling to catch up.

All I’ll be able to take with me are my inner and outer relationships. At first, I assumed I’d need a very small bag, but as I began thinking about it…perhaps a bag of holding with a bottomless space to fit all my loves—and there are many.

I love so many things, people, places, ideas, and dynamics that I cannot fit them all in a material space—only in my emotional carryon. I cannot fit my fairyland acreage, the mystical trees, my muddy boots, and my meandering mushroom trails in the sack, but I can fit my love for them and my treasury of memories within the pockets of my jacket, tucked in my bra, and stitched into the lining of my purse.

I will need them in the diamond world. More importantly—I feel like the diamond world needs that love and connection to these marvels of the wildwood. If I am to be venturing onto the cold sharp lines of diamond paths, I will gladly be leaving mossy trails and fern patches in my wake. My disruption will likely be noticed, and looked upon with mixed expressions as I lay lichen and snail trails, and scatter seeds to grow flowers and call in the bees.

My relationships to my people, my body, my spirit and creativity, my animals and the habits I sustain…all part of the light packing. Those relationships will continue to be nurtured, tended, and grown as all wonderful relationships should be. The perpetual caretaking of community will still be a priority.

However, my relationships to unhealthy habits need to be purged, released, and left behind. They should be dropped in the forest like so much mulch to be churned into the nutrient of the next cycle. Such is the way of the wooded life.

So, I expect in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be waiting calmly by the garden gate with my carryon full of relationship treasures, and my animal familiars. I don’t know what the ship will look like that’s coming to fetch us, but I’ll recognize it when I see it, no doubt.

I’ll try to clean up a bit, so as not to startle the diamond worlders with my unkept appearance, and shaggy shape. I’ve let myself become a bit overgrown, and ragged. I’m sure I have shoes around here somewhere? Do not let my adaptation fool you. Even if I manage to blend in, my eyes are full of wildwood promises, and my heart beats with the evergreen pulse of untamed trials. My song is ever the song of this little pocket of hinterlands. My words will ever be laced by the joys of this lingering dream.

It may be a journey of miles, or just of thought—but a journey it will be. It’s strange, I had a dream once, perhaps 15-16 years ago. I only just now remembered it. I was leaving the busy hubbub of city living and stumbled onto a dark and overgrown path into a forest. Everyone warned me not to go, that I would die and be eaten by feral creatures and digested by thickets overgrowing my flesh. “I have to go,” I told them all. “I have to. My future is in that dark unknown place.”

I ended the dream walking into a dangerous timberland Mirkwood. I knew I had to go it alone. I knew it was part of my becoming, even if it meant death—of ego or all that I claimed as myself. It was the path I couldn’t ignore.

Ten years later I did just that, wandered into the forest alone. Against all better advice and the fears others had for my safety. I dropped my stilettos and gowns, and handbags off at the secondhand store, and purchased seeds, and gardening tools, chocolate, and wine.

It’s funny now, looking back. I didn’t know I would be hiding out here for so many years, or that I would find so much bliss in the becoming. There was a lot of myself dying—but not of anything that I lamented becoming rid of—and there was far more birthing and anchoring, and blooming. I remember the girl who walked into the woods—but she’s like a fantasy, a memory of another world.

I don’t feel like I’m “leaving” my glade forever—but the land is no longer a Mirkwood. It’s no longer dark and scary and ready to devour me. This forest is an extension of my connection to etheric worlds, the conduit to peace and tranquility. It’s my source of happiness.

But last year, as I was wrapped in overgrowth, buried in moss, and trailing my fingers in the creek as I daydreamt and magicked my way through the ethers—I cast a wish up to the new moon, smiling at the idea of its seeding. What a wonderful adventure that would be, right? No sooner had I yearned, my eyes fluttered back to dreaming and the alders bent, the firs stepped aside and light broke through the canopy revealing a trail out of the bracken.

I sighed, and lamented…but not yet, right? Just a little longer, please? I’m so happy here.
The path resealed, and my dream continued, until the night of the storm when the garden gate blew open, and the full moon shone on the winter herbs. “It’s time, Athena.”

It’s my fault. I cast the wish. I knew it would come eventually. Once is an invitation, twice is a premonition—thrice is a shove. Wisdom lies in moving before being shoved.

I wondered if it was too late to retract the wish and go back to sleep in the bramble. I knew it was too late. More truthfully…I didn’t really want to go back to sleep. There’s an invitation, a calling beyond my boundary lines, just over the borders to the sea. An adventure stirring across the horizon that whispers to me promises of yet more magic to come. That magic is hidden though, in the diamond world, trapped like a bee in an amber prison. It may take a bit of woodland charm to set the poor creature free; nothing a little fairyland enchantment can’t fix, I imagine.

And so…I’m packing. Singing the songs of relationships to keep, and magics to take with me, and wondering what this new adventure will bring.

It was impossible to predict, plan or even project through 2020. Hot damn if I didn’t try, though. I even hosted a 2020 planning workshop last January. Go figure. That said, I was in good company with much of the world scrambling to re-structure, re-think, and manage the almighty pivot. During the quarantine I wrote, sculpted, and plotted new creative community collaborations. Those should be rolling out in the near future. Until then, Happy New Year!!

May this year bring love, light, and all sorts of new and wonderful adventures for us all.

​XO
Athena