coming to Midsummer

Midsummer and Christmas occur within days of each other here in the southern hemisphere.

and yearly, I agonize over how to celebrate. Celebrating Midsummer is a personal thing that I do, as it is not embraced by any one else that I know, within my local circle of friends. They are all busy with planning Christmas celebrations and all that goes along with that. And I do that as well, although to a lesser extent.
However, the tradition of me hanging my wreath on the door on December 1st and then, continuing to decorate my home over the following weeks, following Advent within the Catholic faith, still continues for me as well.

to celebrate both may seem odd to some, but they are both a big part of my soul and with each, I celebrate and honour with LOVE. For me, to be able honour both, brings joy to my spirit and yes, both are all about LOVE.

And so, we come to Midsummer. The middle of summer, the heat. The dryness. The snapping of leaves and grass underfoot.

I am not an initiated witch, but I feel deeply within, the moving of the wheel of the seasons throughout the year and I love to try and follow some old ways of my ancestors. I don't understand the lore of each season or the stories, but I do what feels right.  Of course, not knowing what these are exactly, I am at liberty to pick and choose what I can find. And these mostly involve ritual and herbs. And acknowledging the day with special food.

Midsummer for me, evokes a lot of memories - Christmas bush which blooms at this time of year, the blue and white agapanthus, stone fruit in abundance - peaches and nectarines are favourites. The shimmering light of summer, hazy and hot.

Blooming in my garden at the moment are vervain, elderberry, celandine & Valerian.  Herbs are prolific, with mint providing leaves for my jug of water each morning. I have raspberries and blueberries to gather every day.
My apple tree is laden heavily with apples once again and I am forever hosing the cockatoos from the tree.  My plum is abundant and this weekend, I am going to net it, hoping to at least be able to gather fruit in autumn.
Unless one has had dealings with these white cockatoos, you will never know the destruction they can cause in fruit trees. I don't mind sharing my fruit, but they take one bite and drop the apple on the ground. In one day, they destroyed 8 washing baskets full.  The apples are not ready to pick until February, so it is just total waste.

I wanted to have an altar in my home to honour this time of year. I bought myself a couple of bunches of the red flowering Christmas bush and put it into an old jar & tied a gold ribbon around it.
I will make a fruit salad with Cointreau and I will take Joe and go for a picnic on Midsummer night. Down to Echo Point somewhere I think. to give thanks and blessings for all we have. We will sit and sip red wine under the sunset.

Sitting looking at a reflection, in the glass door, of my front garden, I notice umbels of Queen Anne's lace, waving in the breeze, against a backdrop of the ballerina apple trees and wire fence, it could have been a garden in medieval England or France.
For a moment I was transported back, somewhere. For a moment I was in peace. One of those moments that I wish would last forever.

FROM MY JOURNAL DURING DECEMBER:
Birds playing in the early morning, greeting the day with joy. Cotoneaster blooming to remind me of the summers of my childhood, where I would pick a branch for a Christmas tree in my room. Reminding me of my childhood, a girl of 8 or so, dressed in a thin cotton frock, barefoot, sitting in the branches of the tree, contemplating, even then, my role in the scheme of things.
I saw lots of feathers, reminding me of the words 'feathers on a breath of God'.
I arrived at a place that I am making sacred and stood for a moment with my eyes closed and as I did, a magpie alighted nearby and started to warble. singing to me. When I opened my eyes, a feather had been gifted to me. I said my morning blessings and did some Qigong. Gathering in the energy of the Universe and bringing it down over my body.

I often wonder what my 'life purpose' is. As noted in my journallings this morning, I have been pondering this since I was a child. I agonize over it sometimes but this morning, while I was reading some sacred text - the thought came to me:

What if my soul purpose in this life is right under my nose?
What if it is to weave magic wherever I am? To be in my garden, to tend that and to find peace in my own heart and to walk in nature and to find Gods beauty in all that surrounds me. Maybe that is why I incarnated to a land that feels so foreign to my soul. To find absolute peace and stillness.
In most of my homes, I have weaved magic in the home and garden and only last week someone who knew me at Woodford and loved that home, commented on that fact 'I suppose you are weaving your magic in this home as well?'

Here in Katoomba, in the home that I call Avalon, I have created a garden that the birds are visiting. I look out at my garden from my window, and it shimmers with green energy. I can now see my home and garden is actually a kind of vortex, an oasis of some kind. With the large pines creating some kind of circle around the area, my little mountain cottage seems to be right in the middle of a mandala.