Autumnal Musings

Attuning with Nature's Cycles Creates Alignment
Attuning myself to the patterns of nature is, for me, the most beautiful path to alignment. And when I’m aligned, I match the vibration of all the things I’ve been wanting, and none of the things I have not. So the unwanted things fall away, and the wanted things come rolling into this experience I call reality.
Fall feels like crossing the finish line
There’s just something about autumn, isn’t there? Especially where I live, here in the Northeastern US. Cortland County, New York rivals the best Vermont has to offer as far as spectacular fall foliage. I am so lucky to live where I do. Apples polka dot their trees with vivid red color. The other trees shower in spray paint before the sun comes up each morning. The colors, right now, are just about to burst. I can see them in there, straining to get out. Any day now, it’s going to be eye-popping.
I love the smells and tastes and visual delights of Autumn. Pumpkin Spice everything. Oceans of higher-than-my-head corn, heavy tasseled heads swaying in the breeze. Every farmer seems to leave few clusters of lonely stalks here and there like an offering back to nature. The big mint tinted blue hubbard squashes and bright orange pumpkins, stand proud in their fields long after their vines have shriveled and retreated back into the earth. Sunflowers nod their heavy heads, too tired to hold onto their swelling seeds any longer. So they exhale, and the seeds rain down to feed happy-hoppy little birds. I love how blue the sky is this time of year, how green the pines against it. It’s thrilling to me.
The energy of Autumn is the energy of the ripening, of the harvest, and of giving thanks. It’s the energy of finally manifesting what we’ve spent our entire spring planting and our entire summer tending. It’s the big payoff we’ve been working toward. The reward and the gratitude. Maybe that’s why it feels to good to me.
The Part We Get Backwards
We get one part of this Season of Gratitude thing, backwards. We think of it like this: First we harvest, and then we give thanks for what we have harvested. And that’s actually in reverse order.
The truth is that what we are going to harvest depends largely upon what we have been appreciating all summer long.
First, let’s define appreciation. Yes, gratitude and giving thanks go hand in hand with appreciation. But they aren’t it. When something appreciates, it increase in value. So the act of appreciation isn’t just adding things to your gratitude list.
The act of appreciation is seeing what you already have, and stopping and staying right there. Look at it. See it from every angle, in every light. Feel the joy this thing brings you. Touch it and taste it and feel it. Truly bask in whatever it is you’re focused on.
That’s appreciation.
And too, it’s the act of seeing what you most desire as a done deal. And stopping right there. And looking at it, and seeing it from every angle, in every light. It’s feeling in advance the joy this thing will bring you. Truly bask in the knowledge that it must come to you. It’s inevitable. It’s already done.
Now, Give Thanks
And from that place of absolute appreciation for that which we have and that which we soon will, we can truly give thanks.
And from that place of delight and basking, we become beacons for things that will make us delight and bask all the more. This is how reversing the order, how being grateful ahead of time, can increase the harvest to come.
So bask. Back in all you have, and even more, bask in those dreams and relish them as if they’ve already have come true. And then they will.
This is magic. This is the heart of all magic. And magic is very powerful this time of year.
I wish you all a bright, blessed and beautiful Season of Harvest, Season of Appreciation, Season of Change, Season of Abundance…
Season of the Witch.

YOU ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU’VE EVER IMAGINED!
“For years, YEARS I’ve read and tried these practices. Tried to understand the philosophy. In one chapter she put it all into place for me and suddenly my heart and my soul feel…like I’ve come home.” ~Amazon Verified Purchase Reviewer
#harvest #festival #maggieshayne #mabon #fall #givingthanks #thanksgiving #autumn #autumnalequinox #appreciation #Gratitude