September!

I love September!

It makes me feel giddy inside, open to possibilities, ready for something new.

It’s that childlike anticipation of a new school year: brand new clothes, fresh notebooks and pencils, the smell of chalk and erasers, the joyful sound of kids on the playground, the excitement of reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, the challenge of finding my way to unfamiliar classrooms and opening my mind to previously unexplored subjects.

The school year now starts well before September, earlier every year. It’s been ages since I last sat in a classroom and I don’t even have any kids to see off to school in the morning. Here in my desert home town there’s not a hint of Autumn in the sultry air. No gold and bronze to grace the trees.

But, the light is shifting and I feel September in my bones. I’m ready for change, adventure, learning, growing. I’m ready to let go of that branch I’ve been clinging to like it was the whole Universe and to spin off into a bright blue sky with no roadmap, no plan and no worries about where I might land.

Wouldn’t it be glorious to just enjoy the ride?

My inner castle holds . . .

My inner castle holds
ancient wounds
and ancient histories
mysteries
older than the sands of time

I came here with my work boots on
to dig down through
the timeworn layers
of the pyramid self
back down to the bones
the ancient circle of standing stones
my origins
my Truth

Most masks have fallen away
yet still today
secrets lie
behind fortressed gates
waiting for me
to turn the key
and set the child
completely free

My Wild Things,
benevolently and loosely ruled,
have found a place
to safely roam
their color and form
dancing through unlined pages
filling book after book
with my own
Sacred Story

Now
for every fallen or broken heart
I find a dozen more in the sand
and the one that beats
in my chest is bound
and balanced
dancing between
the falling apart
and the coming together
destruction and creation
and all of it Love

In the end
which is the beginning
what remains is the sea
and the ever blooming tree
that is Life

~Claire, the Artful Alchemist