Is Autumn your favourite season? Good for you! Here's why...

Autumn time we forage, we inspect the ground, kick around at fallen leaves and gather what comes to the surface"

Most people love autumn for its colour, for the glorious show nature brings. Perhaps you are driven by the colour orange, empowered by its yellow ochres, enhanced by dark backgrounds as the foliage dies back to reveal naked earth. All colours have value. Autumn, or WEST » direction on my medicine wheel, has its own.

WEST » in my medicine wheel is about the physical, the land, the body

​Call me weird but I've always loved the dark nights drawing in. I find this time of year very soulful, which not everyone finds as alluring or appealing. I think that quality shows in the paintings I produced in a session this week.

​Forms and faces often come to me in my painting sessions from out of nowhere, they appear on paper as if they have a story to tell. When I produce these types of paintings I question whether to reveal them, since they are not technically my 'normal style' yet now seems the right time:

​This time last year I found it difficult speaking about WEST » direction, and this year it is much trickier due to 2020's events, followed by my own recent experience.

WEST » is represented by black and by death and endings "

Maybe that's why I've been putting off working in this direction. In 2020 those single two words – black and death – hold a whole load of connotations, controversies and 'stickiness' on many different levels to discuss and transmute into the positive, personally and in the wider world.

​I have often not known what to say or not. Are there right words? Maybe no words is better? No, I can't sit with that either, my whole life has been about keeping silent and not allowing the truth out. However sometimes we need to take a pause, which is where we are at this time of year »

Other aspects to WEST » direction are early evening/sunset, maturity, ancestors, harvest time, earth energy, the body, the land, the physical, self-acceptance, introspection, pause, perseverance.

If you are an autumnal person I applaud you. You are not afraid to watch the cycles change, you have it in you to appreciate life and death as it comes and goes. You are grounded, present, full of gratitude. Or those are the qualities that draw you in, consciously or unconsciously.

Perseverance is a quality 2020 has tested and upheld. To persevere is to prove resilience. We stay true as we hold to what has inner value. We find out what lies beneath us, what is buried and needs to gathered and tilled through harvesting. 

​We forage, we inspect the ground, we kick around in fallen leaves and notice what comes to the surface. We collect dropped seeds – acorns, conkers, keys from the ash, each item is as intricate and tangible as it was in spring, but now with such delicate fragility that it requires cradling gently in our hands. It invites closer inspection, observing what lies beneath and within – the pattern – appreciating value in all energy spent. Appreciating each other and what is.

Click here and sign up to my free newsletter for suggested crystals and colours you might use and wear to tune into autumnal energy – October's issue out shortly! 🍁🌾🥀

NEW: If you are interested in a commission portrait via Zoom or Skype please enquire I am looking for guest volunteers to help me experiment in my art while exploring human connection