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When your heart is heavy and needs to be uplifted, when your head is muddled and needs to be cleared, what better way to achieve those needs than to get out into the fresh, crisp autumn air for a leisurely walk?

The sky is bright blue and invigorating after two days of soothing overcast and rain, the cotton clouds are swift and shapely, and an enchanting breeze is singing through the lofty boughs of multi-colored trees...

Ah, all the elements are alive and stirring! What message has the wind for me? What words of wisdom and comfort can I hear in the dancing branches of the tr -

BRRRRRRRR! BRRR, BRRRRR, BRRR! BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Not just one invasive, pervasive leaf-blower on one block, not just two over the course of a few blocks…but seemingly endless leaf-blowers on any and every block! Leaf-blowers, leaf-blowers everywhere! And nothing else to hear!

Have none of you anything better to do on such a gorgeous afternoon? And just what is it you are even accomplishing?

Here is one guy (always a guy) just standing in his yard, blowing a small pile of leaves over the curb and into the street. Here is another a couple blocks later, I kid you not, just standing in the street and blowing a small pile of leaves over the curb and into his yard!

There are others on those blocks over there that I can’t see, but oh I can hear them, and what difference does it make which direction they’re blowing the leaves that the blessed wind is going to scatter however it wants as soon as they’re done?

What are you accomplishing and why? Is it a contradictory idle chore because you truly don’t have anything better to do? Is it a male thing? A "muggle" thing? A male muggle thing? Is it the pleasure of holding and pointing around yet another phallic tool and having even a modicum of fleeting control over one tiny, yet ubiquitous, part of nature?

Is it because those cheeky leaves can’t just lay where they fall, not on your watch? Are the ones in the street blocking that Escalade from getting through? Are the ones in your yard upsetting your dog and making him bark? Surely you want the leaves to do their job and decompose on your lawn and nourish your trees' roots and other growing things, right? No..?

Why can’t the leaves be left alone? And for the love of the gods, why the noise? Ever hear of a rake? Why the endless, merciless, accosting noise pollution, needless burning of fuel and the wasted minutes of barely rearranging the precious jewels of autumn? Can the leaves have no peace? Can I? 

If you want to truly enjoy the season, if you want to connect with nature and hear her subtle whispers, or if you even care enough to let others do the same, then please, I beg you…

Just leave the leaves alone!


© 2018 Meredith Everwhite - All Rights Reserved

Featured image: "Fire Red and Gold" by Eyvind Earle

In 1992, on the 300^th anniversary of the Salem witch trials, the largest number of witches in history congregated to “reclaim” Salem.  Many stayed and have become model citizens and business people with retail outlets, bookstores, workshops, and all manner of successful enterprises.  This footnote to our pagan history reflects our high regard for our religious history and how it matters today more than ever.

Another dramatic time in what I call “Witchstory” or Witch history” took place in colonial America.  When two adolescent girls began having seizures and screaming out, the local doctors immediately declared the ailing girls to be Satan’s handmaidens and said that the entire community needed to fast and pray for the two fallen girls.  One of the cures for this affliction was “Witch Cake”, a hideous concoction of rye meal mixed with the urine of the two girls.  This supposedly would cause the girls to reveal the origin of their misfortune.  With the entire village of Salem putting pressure on for a confession, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams broke down and named three women they knew to be witches who had them under a spell: Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good, and Tituba, the Caribbean Indian slave of the Parris family.  While both Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good pled their innocence, Tituba was tortured and “confessed” that there was a coven of witches at work in Salem.

Samhain is when they count us.

That's what my old high priestess back East always used to say.

Samhain is when they count us. And if there are more of us this year than there were last year, then next year we'll be even more.

And if there are fewer of us than last Samhain, then next year we'll be fewer still.

So. If you're wondering whether or not to make the time in your busy, busy life and get your butt out to the ritual this year after all, then I say to you: Do it. It's important. It's a matter of Peoplehood.

Part 1: The Question

It is October,
the veil is thin
the year is waning
the leaves are turning
I am trying to say goodbye
to my grandmother
she is dying.
I do not know what to say.

Cross-posted at Goddessing from the Heart.

This post is the first in a five-part series for #SacredSpiritualGrowth that I will be writing related to my personal conception of energy flow and focus, both internally and throughout the year, which I’ve titled the “Goddessing Cycle."

At the 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World's Religions, former US President Jimmy Carter called the worldwide abuse of girls and women the greatest unaddressed human rights crisis of our time. He stated that this problem is “largely caused by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare.” Carter discussed these issues in A Call to Action.

In my address to the Parliament of World Religions on November 5, I will agree with Carter that religions play a major role in the abuse of women and girls, but I will question his view that religion’s contribution to the abuse of women and girls stems from the misinterpretation of a few selected texts. Rather I will argue that patriarchal ideas permeate most of the so-called great religions.