At no time loose sight of your creative footprints, feed your inner child’s desire of expression, unfurl your artists heart to the great work, fuel the spark that inspires the life of a divine nature. 
~ © Astarté Earthwise.
Work by Debra Bernier.
A young arabic man I share philosophy with into the wee hours via phone for over a year now, texted me this morning to ask me what I was doing, I replied “Today I am romancing a new beautiful limited edition book from Canada…How I long to lay in tall field grasses, on a rug, with a beloved, sharing verses and divining our very souls.”
( the book is Aurore By Gabriel McCaughry)
He then said “sounds intimate?” To which I replied “I thrive on intimacy”
He asked “What kind of a connection?” I replied “Every level”
He said “True Intimacy” “What are a few qualities you put in that?” I answered with thoughtfulness “Vulnerability, truth, love, beauty, and my submission.”
He replied “Love is varied and so is beauty, but I get the others. I like them also”
I responded “that is why I share my intimate self with you, over the phone, even though we have never met, and I don’t even know what you look like.”
He then said “I think our minds are undefinable”
The afternoon shadows call to me, they stretch out across the lawn and the paddocks before me. I hear a frog behind me; the breeze is gently blowing from the south-east. Afternoons like this are precious to my soul. Peace and quiet and the sounds of Nature around me. Butcherbirds compete, flies buzz around me, one wispy cloud in the sky to the east, crickets chirp from the paddocks in the north. The fruit trees are losing their leaves; the grass is damp under foot, still holding the mornings dew at its roots. I close my eyes, I breathe in the air. Tomorrow is the New Year, and the celebration of the Deepest Autumn when the sun is at 15 degrees of Taurus the exact point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, Therefore the cross quarter day.
Since I’ve moved onto the land I have no need for fancy names to celebrate the place where Autumn and Winter meet and come together on the round between Water & Earth. Here I sit very aware of the mud beneath my feet, things slowing down, and the rotting starts as the veil thins and death is sent in a message on a walk and hour before I started writing. As I approached a couple of gum trees, a top notch pigeon fell out of the tree and to its death before me. I reached down and picked up his limp body, he has a wound to his chest and blood coming from his right eye; I embrace his warm fragile body in my hands with compassion in my heart. The messenger bird arrived at my feet in a very violent, confronting way.
I let the shadows take my fears as they stretch out before me and dissipate as the sun’s strength diminishes and takes them away. I thank Nature for the ritual, and the blessings of this place. In a few days forward it will be a completed cycle of a year since I came onto this land. The teachings are subtle and the lessons cherished as each day brings such joy , living as my ancestors did on the land away from the chaos soothes the soul and gives so much more to cherish. Deepest Autumn Blessings and may Tomorrow be the beginning of a great new year for those that follow the Earthwise Path.
Wise & Blessed Be
Astarte
There is no moonlight yet, as the lunar light has not emerged over the distant hills, it’s nearing 8.00pm and all is dark moist and still here. I reflect on my day, and the Nature in it. I walked my arthritic dog at first light this morning, encouraging him to come with me; he has been giving up in the heat lately. It was lovely and cool, fresh and invigorating as we headed up the gravelled dirt road that feeds the property. Walking over the usual fox, hare and rabbit droppings that leave their foreign mark in the native landscape, light spills gently on the red gums that line the road, planted when this place was established back in 1849. They stand as the protectors, the keepers of the secrets of generations, each wise, majestic and aged for they have held the earth here for 110 years before I was born and I will be 54 this year. The newly born calves are running around in the paddock to our right, kicking their shiny black hoof’s in the air with delight as they run as far as they can till they realise it’s time to head back to mum, and they turn and dart right back. This makes my walking companion excited, he loves the little babies, and it gives him renewal and onward we continue. We make it through the gate, up past the lime orchard and the neighbours cows who stir as we approach, to the top of the second dirt stretch onto the tar road where I walk over to check the letterbox. We turn for home, and the vista before me takes my breath away, as the light from the sun still behind the hills of the national park is silhouetting the clouds with a golden redish aura…magic!
Before me is a beautiful valley filled with emerald green paddocks, with dams that shine like mirrors in the morning light. The paddocks studded with angus bovine and one merino ram, sweep down the hill to the hundreds of giant and ancient Lily Pilli’s that hug the rivers banks, sometimes in depths of two’s and threes, a haven for birdlife, and a retreat from the midday sun.
Living here for the last ten months has meant the world to me, it’s like waking up in a suburban home and walking outside into a camping area that you don’t have to share with anyone else. It feels like I am a thousand miles from anywhere and that I was planted into one of the most beautiful corners of the world.
15 years ago at the age of 40, I gave up just about everything I owned, I put my life into three suitcases, one was my computer, and I moved to live on the other side of the world, apart from my partner then I didn’t know a soul, and I went to what felt like the scariest place I’d ever been. I moved into an apartment that was archaic, half renovated, and unbeknown to me it was the local crack house. My only neighbours I shared the hall with were drug dealers and prostitutes, I was in a black neighbourhood in a very dangerous city in the US. I think I cried for the first month, I was terrified, vulnerable, and stunned, like an animal in the headlights. This time of my life seems also like a thousand miles away, what and adventure that cost me so much on so many levels. Life changed so radically for me, I dived into the darkest pools of grief, pain, physical and emotional torture.
Today thanks to the love, patience and understanding of the most amazing man, I now have the freedom to be exactly who I am, and sometimes to his detriment, the past has left many scars and yet this man weathers the storms and the fair weather with me equally.
Mark I love you so very deeply for being who you are, never doubt that xXx
When you live in a place where there are no streetlights, the length of the sunsets, and the rays of the moonrise are lights that dance on every fibre of your being, Nature not only touches you, She caresses your very soul.
And the new moon night sky is your scrying mirror for powerful divination.
Wise & Blessed Be
Astarte
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