This week, we celebrated the Sabbath of Imbolc. Today´s pictures is about a light festival, a call to the coming of Spring, and a hope for better times ahead of us all.
It is the first Sabbath with garden blessings, of which there will be many more during the changing seasons. Yet, winter is to be conquered, and they have promised more snow and freezing temperatures this weekend.
This week, I have been able to get a hands-on look at how the natural light is constantly changing. Now, we are headed for a happy time with more and more light coming forth day by day.
On our daily walks with the little wise old dog, who rests comfortably in his basket right next to my feet, the frost and the snow have created a landscape dressed in white.
And the local creek area is a beautiful walk worth these days. The Sun claims more and more moments of pure joy and this good feeling of being alive and well despite a world in chaos.
During the last couple of weeks, I have studied the settings for my novels. I can feel that I once again have to postpone the writing part of the process. The settings simply need more time for me to study them.
So, until further notice, my first day of pure writing will be on March 15, 2021. Meanwhile, I´m busy creating a fictional scenery with solid roots in reality to be as authentic as possible.
My characters are slowly, but surely, being formed in my mind, as the week passes on with preparations, daily writing prompts, and an increasing word count by the hour.
I have decided to lift a little bit of my secretive veil around me as a person, who prefer the solitary path and wants to live as anonymous as it is possible in a modern world.
So today I provide you with a direct link to my writing playlist on Youtube. Yes, I use pen names a lot, and this one came along by itself the day I decided to change my lifestyle permanently:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=writing+playlist+1+louise+laursen
It is the second on the list, just right click the link here.
It is a flexible playlist. If you have any suggestions of great music to write to, feel free to let me know. I listen to many different kinds of music, and I´m always interested in learning what other people listen to and why.
The light at Imbolc is my first indication of a new season arriving soon. King Winter still has a firm grip on Mother Earth, but never mind him being fierce and piercing cold.
Spring is coming, the birds already sing loud on the walks, and the philosophical cats have begun shedding their winter coat. And with a little help from magick, I believe that it is possible to call for Spring.
Take a pretty bowl, fill it with coarse salt, seven bay leaves and your silent prayers for better times, and put it in the window sill, where it will be touched by the rays of the Sun, reborn at Yule/the Winter Solstice.
Sitting at my creative desk, I can see the sun from the window to the street. One of the cats reside in a box from the local grocery shop on my right side of the desk. Another is yet again in the windowsill.
My husband is helping our neighbor and dear friend, I´m preparing myself for the call to my father later in the afternoon, and thinking of my life here at this special place.
Once again, my mood is changing. This time, it feels like an undercurrent of a vague, undefinable sadness, like a touch of frost in the morning. My medication and therapy keep it at bay. But I still feel it.
The funny or strange part of this is that my spirit is still high, and I´m happy and content with my life. Yet it is possible to feel this eerie sadness, and I´m easily touched by the smallest of things.
And five minutes later, I laugh my soul free with a roaring laughter, some times also of things that are not funny indeed. I ascribe it to my menopause struggles more than my mental disorders right now.
But the wheel of the year is moving fast, and I have to move along with it, no matter how annoying my mental health can be at times. I cross my fingers and assume that it is a matter of a couple of weeks.
It is my first turn to the calmer, more passive side of living with a bipolar disorder supplemented with the whole party of anxiety disorders since last fall, so I´m eager to try to keep up my pace with the novels.
Last Spring was a horrible experience with loads of fear and uncertainty about the new reality of a life in a pandemic world. Therefore, I use every strategy available to maintain a healthy balance between highs and lows.
But the light of Imbolc can cure many a negative thought on the way, so I´m alright, thank you. May you be that too, dear readers and followers. Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.
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