It’s that time of year once more when nature shows off in all its splendour and abundance. Crops are growing up well in the fields just down the road from my house and the forest is full of bird song, brambles, flowers and budding berries. In days to come there will be foraging trips for making wines, cordials, jams and chutneys while my friend’s front garden is full of chammomile flowers and her greenhouse plants are thriving from the sunshine and from being looked after well.

I’m not much of a gardener, I’m really not very good with plants at all, but I always appreciate this gift in others. While they are busy with the beginnings of their harvest, I’ve been busy in other ways. Over the many years that I’ve been doing open rituals and workshops, I’ve become one of the people that newcomers often turn to for guidance and advice, so workshops and talks have been one of things I’ve been able to ‘grow’ in order to offer that to others. I’ve done several mind, body, spirit events and a few talks and workshops at shops locally already this year. I attended Pagan Pride and did a ten minute slot on eclectic witchcraft in the community area and a workshop on the Cauldron of Cerridwen in the speakers forum. This weekend brings me to Woodspirit Lammas Camp where I’m running two workshop slots and then – I am pleased and proud to announce – I’ll be at the Artemis Gathering running a workshop. I’ve been asked to take one of the positions in the witch’s panel too – I think I must have impressed Cathbodva and Merlin at Pagan Pride – so that’ll be a new experience for me but certainly one I’m looking forward to. It feels like a real measure of how far I’ve come since I started this Witch’s Journey thirty years ago. Witchcraft & Wicca magazine is now out featuring my crafty witchcraft article and it looks fab so maybe that had something to do with their decision to put me in the panel too.

I think of all the things I’ve ‘grown’ this year, my friendship with N is the most valuable. Other things I am grateful for this Lughnasadh are my family’s support, that my husband wasn’t as seriously ill as we feared a couple of months ago, my daughter doing so very well at school. My writing has taken a bit of a back seat due to various other committments and some unexpected disasters in other areas of my life, some ongoing, but there have been more workshops over the last eighteen months than the previous couple of years and I’m glad I’ve got back into the swing of doing these. It’s very special to be helping others on their path and I get really positive feedback. Being invited to the panel at the Artemis Gathering is another measure of how much I’m being valued by others – not something which is always easy to see in oneself!

Lughnasadh – I’m grateful for so many things that are coming to fruition in my life, all of them seemingly unrelated or insignificant. Add them all up and I get a life which is full and vibrant and varied. I’m grateful for everything and everyone who has contributed to my life turning out the way it has.

Blessed be.