Halloween Time Again

Hope you like my creepy self-portrait. Its been a tough couple of months, and I am busy trying to work on my redraft of my novel, with slow results. Not much time for other writing, hence the lack of posts here. Still, this time of year always starts to get my juices flowing. The clocks go back, the evenings close in, we light the fire and snuggle down. An interior time of year. That is when books are made.

It is also Pagan New Year. I am thinking of all the things I am leaving behind as I leave this year, and the new seeds I want to plant in my life for the next. A time of new beginnings. The veil is thin. I am aware as always of mortality, and the cycle of life, death and rebirth around me. Putting the garden to bed at this time of year is the outer manifestation of this process - putting one's life in order before going down underground, into the Other.

Letting go seems to be the theme that is coming up, over and over again for me right now, whether it is the constant nagging memories of failure from my the past, of emotions, of people (including me) who are getting older, of old patterns of ill-health that no longer serve me or just entrenched patterns of tension and stress. I think that even if we are chucking stuff out, it is important to remember that it was once crucial to us, and to honour the part it played in our lives. So I am trying to do that, slowly, carefully, sitting with what I am trying to release, knowing that letting go will lighten the load.

We all need to let go of things so that we can make room in our lives for new, exciting things. What are you letting go of right now?