Fire and Rain in The Season of Mellow Fruitfulness

A second amazing autumn weekend this year just came to a close. I'm blessed to have spent some sacred time in this big noisy city with its huge population, majestic buildings and so many trees. Blessed also for my reason for being here, that is, to be journeying with such a group of beautiful souls. The square I've been sitting in over lunchtimes during the past year, must be one of the noisiest squares on earth! - pigeons, orchestras & bands, sellers, fountains, buskers, dancers, traffic, colours, smells, flags in the wind, festivals, fire, water, protests and all these faces passing by - a carnival of celebration of a vibrant city life. Sitting on benches in the open air with kindred spirits - all that laughter, warm friendship, the sharing of philosophies and the challenging and acceptance of our ideas and questions, fresh air and food, coffee-to-go and miracles-to-come, the courage of being present, with ourselves and each other. Sometimes that search for a quiet space in the noisy, traffic filled places (we often find ourselves in), is a wonderful reminder that we still have a long way to travel before we find the kind of space we're looking for. A new journey begun many moons ago, to reach what I thought was my destination, (at that time), has been slowly transforming itself into the biggest and most beautiful stepping stone--------to somewhere much farther away than I had originally anticipated. I love long distance travelling, on both inner and outer journeys. These past few months I've been really listening carefully to the messages, coming to me in all sorts of ways as I journey onwards. I hear now. In daring myself to look, I now see everything I need to see, as here it is, right in front of me. The most sacred messages and signs have a lovely habit of arriving at just the right time in life don't you think? On saturday night I didn't sleep well, waking every few hours to the same song playing in my head, a song I've not heard for a long, long time. I wondered why? I promised myself that when I got back home, I'd listen to a recording of the song and use it for some inner work. It's called "Fire & Rain" by James Taylor, a very moving song, I think about loss. And having listened to it when I got home I remembered that its a song often played by a very special friend of mine, a friend I've not been in touch with for some time. Later in the day, when I contacted him, it was so wonderful to hear his voice again and as we talked, he laughed as I relayed my story of the song waking me up. When I rang him he was chopping wood for the fire! An abundance of signs and messages arrived so unexpectedly over the weekend, colouring and enriching the time and space of that special 48 hours. It's funny, I've been feeling these changes so much so recently on my journey----more so this weekend gone, than ever before. Autumn, the season of the Soul is here. And yesterday, for me, Her presence permeated the air. I wonder if others felt it too? Outside, those leaves falling in currents of sunny October air, ---------unstoppable they were, like tears that fell down faces over this special weekend. Leaves and tears just love to fall don't they? Special people. My fresh air walk and 'time out' time is spent in the middle of the city, around the corner from the hotel where we're working, sitting under shimmering, breeze filled trees of maple. Here I am, meditating on the scent of crushed leaves and the taste of certainty in the air. And what is happening, now, is how its meant to be. In this space, the little mists of the past few months rise. The veil has lifted and everything becomes so much clearer, so "full on" - yet so quiet and ever so light. A New Moon in Libra approaches this coming Thursday - a time for reflection and reorientation. Every thing in its own time. Autumn, like this silence today turns so very golden in the moment of being here now. More leaves are falling and the clock strikes, chiming the hour's end, as the cycle of the season turns and in time, completes itself so beautifully. A time of remembrance. Shadows and light. "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose". On the surface of a red-golden-orange fallen leaf, a tiny seed of something settles onto the sacred earth. Into its presence, it will enter now.