The seduction of the season

You feel it, tugging at your hem... it's not just the fallen, leafless branch on the sidewalk.
It's there, on your shoulder... no, not just the leaves in the oranges and reds of their slow deaths.
It's in the air in your lungs... and it's not just the sharp cold that underlies every movement outdoors and then scurries inside behind you to hide in the corners of your house.

It's the spirits.

You hear it. You feel it. We all do - we're witches.

~~
The blog name, Musings of a Kitchen Druid, really did come from the nickname my friends had for me. I wasn't quite a Druid and I wasn't quite a Kitchen Witch. I was somewhere in the middle. I was young in my practice and it was all perfect and new and I had NO idea what I was doing. But I could see my path and it was wonderful. It was home.

Fast forward a few years, past many successful and many, many more unsuccessful holy day rites and across a thousand late night conversations and early morning whispers... and my path was far more clear to me. It was easier to see the turning of the Wheel. I didn't need a calendar to tell me what holy day was coming. My books were references when I was tired or didn't feel like recalling it. It was so very nice. That's when I started writing this blog.

Then I was struck by lightning. Or at least it felt like that. It was a bonfire and I was standing in the middle. And when I finally came out the other side, a year and a half later, I was scorched but knew all that I didn't need was gone. It was quite liberating. I started on my path anew, and KNEW (the way you do when the clue by four hits) who I was and what I was doing. My path was now burned into my skin.

The holy days come now and I don't feel rushed by them anymore. They come and I welcome them as an old friend - you know the ones, those who can let themselves into your house, start a pot of tea and be sitting down with that box of cookies you've been saving before you're even downstairs to greet them. They're so close they're family. My path is never hidden from me these days. It's taken me some time to come to this, and in the emotional turmoil over the last year it's been harder, but as I come out the other side of all this I realize that my path is there to steady me, there to guide me. Your path is a touchstone.

My wish for you this Samhain is simple - I hope your path becomes clear to you.

Blessed Samhain!