I worried I had lost my love of the garden.

For the three autumns and winters before this one I have been outside all day every day, digging, building, burning, planning, tending to Autumn-sown seedlings, craving the outside air in my lungs.

And this year, I notice, I have not.

Instead I’ve been tucked away in the quiet with a paintbrush or buried under a pile of papers studying Human Design or curled up under a blanket reading a book. Craving the warm air of the fire in my lungs.

I’ve also been seeking out the company of women and ceremony.

A week of sisterhood in the Spanish mountains, marking the passing of Samhain.

My own weekly Gathering of women where we start with grounding ourselves and lighting a candle to create a sacred space within which to create.

The releasing of the old with a burning of scribbled post-it notes at Winter Solstice.

Glasses of wine in corners of dark restaurants shared with women where our friendship has lasted one, two or even three decades.

This is the dark soil.

This has been the richening of that so that the roots can grow stronger, deeper as the light starts to return.

I am not a machine. I no longer wish to continue being the same way every month, year after year. Peforming like a shiny one day in day out.

I am not that.

I am woman.

By my nature, tied to the earth and the seasons. The cyclical, the changing, the responsive, the mysterious, the light and the dark.

The bleeding has stopped (I think, fingers crossed), but I feel more woman now than when it began, signifying the becoming of one.

And it is deeply gratifying.

To fill out one’s body, to own your bones and awaken to the sensousness of womanhood.

Where have I been all these years?

In the pursuit of societally-recognised success, mainly. Hitting mega-goals, being the success story, proving myself, asking for recognition and approval, establishing my credibility in the eyes of the other. The production of more, the only way I knew I was on the right track - more clients, more revenue, more followers. A relentless pursuit of consistency in an upwards direction, trying to improve myself as the way to keep on track with that. Because, obviously, as we are taught by all, is the point of it all.

(They don’t actually say that, they say the point of it all is love, but that doesn’t seems somehow counter to the priorities we are expected to have.)

During one of the curling up under a blanket moments I stumbled across Maureen Murdock’s writings: The Heroine’s Journey.. Just seeing this, and reading her words, suddenly it all falls into place.

And as the light slowly starts to return now; I’m being drawn into the healing the mother/daughter split part of the journey.

And three things are here to be woven into my life now.

1. The healing of my heart after the loss of my own mother in the summer. I deliberately chose not to add ‘moving on from the death of my mum’ to any burning ceremony. I want to linger here longer with her still - there is a huge amount of healing since she passed, but still more there and it will take time, I know. I’m good with that.

2. The re-footing of the relationships with my own daughters. They have struggled, I have tried to ‘fix’ them - trials and ogres there have been aplenty. For the past couple of months I have withdrawn even from them, to find my roots again. To have a strong back and soft belly.* To be with them differently now.

3. A re-connection with Mother Earth. To merge even more with the feminine, the sensuousness she offers and the divine timing she demonstrates every day.

I worried I had lost my love of the garden.

In truth she has taught me to be ever more in alignment with nature. She is ‘woman-ing’ me.

And now, as the sun slowly rises this morning, I go to place my hands back into her soil.

* Thank you, Julia, for this beautiful description of what it means to be a woman