I love my garden in every season, but things take on a special aura come autumn...
There is something about the autumn that I find to be especially enchanting...
When the thick recedes, things and long forgotten treasures resurface by way of magic...
Rosebuds get to be frozen in time forever...
The butterflies would migrate south; the chrysanthemums would be in full bloom and bright orange and yellows would glow in the mellow light of late October casting their autumn spell.
Ah yes, autumn's enchanting. Is it any wonder the season of enchantment and witches is celebrated in the autumn? From Halloween right on through Thanksgiving!
Autumn is sending messages for me to discover. Is it doing the same for you, in whatever part of the world you are? I mean have you seen anything out of the ordinary happening in your garden lately?—a sign, a message from the natural world, a hidden note amidst fallen leaves, perhaps to be discovered?
Long ago and far away, wise woman in my lineage made predictions based on their observations of the natural world. Frogs croaking more than usual, moles digging up soil more than usual, cats not wanting to go outside, owls hooting and screeching during bad weather... every thing spoke to them in marvelous ways... swallows flying near the ground, robins coming near the house, sparrows chirping a great deal, sheep turning into the wind, oxen sniffing the air; restless horses and swine... all and everything in Nature had a meaning to them. They knew what was about to ensue just by observing the world around them. And thus, last evening, the autumnal leaves were telling me something… the colors of fall conveyed some mysterious secrets; strange happenings were about to mingle with the changing of seasons.
In fact, some minutes later I saw something very peculiar from my kitchen window… sparkles twinkled low in the ginger sky and… hail, thou garden of fairyland filled with beckoning apparitions!
Ah yes, there was someone strolling the gardens... But who was she? A witch? A ghost? Perhaps some apparition from the past? Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, anything and everything can happen on the onset of Halloween... spirits would roam the neighborhoods at night, and witches and ghosts are let loose upon the Earth…
I had this strange feeling the woman in my garden had to be someone from my past… she looked so familiar to me… could she be my great-great-great-grandmother Arabella, Countess of Aragon? Or perhaps was it the spirit of the intriguing Otilia Micaela de Luna? Oh I didn’t want to miss a single thing she would do, or was about to do. So I hid behind the curtains of my kitchen window as best as I could... silently observing every one of her movement; the body language, listening to the silent swish of gypsy sarong skirts as she strolled the gardens...
She was so mysterious looking, and moved so silently... She made me think of Miss Havisham, the character in the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. Dickens describes her as looking like “the witch of the place.” And certainly the witch of “this” place—I would say. For that’s exactly what she seen to be to me.
She collected autumn leaves over in the enchanted area known as Rosewood. She made wishes into the wind... she smelled the fall, the leaves, the wetness, the crabapples on the lonesome tree and whispered a prayer of thanksgivings too…
Was it a dream? Did I dreamt all that, or was it all real? Hard to tell if you ask me. The only thing I can say for sure is that dreams do come true sometimes… why, could you believe what I found in the garden right after the apparition vanished… like that, like a whiff of magical air? Yes, her gypsy shawl!
A most bewitching tune swirled through the trees. It pirouetted through the leaves, like a warm summer breeze, and when I went outside to see that really had transpired out there, then that’s when I saw it—the loveliest of things I would say… left on a tree branch.
Left there by her, of course… it’s the truth, and I have the remnants of proof from the tales to show you…
I wrapped the witch's shawl around my body and made my own wishes into the wind... I smelled the fall, the leaves, the wetness, the crabapples on the lonesome tree and whispered a prayer of thanksgivings all of my own into the autumnal wind…
What more can I say? Enchantment is all around us, if only we would open our eyes and see, really see... so, enjoy this enchanted season while it last my friend. Enjoy autumn and all it has to offer. Breathed the air and imagined that maybe the same particles had circulated through the lungs of angels. Imagine, believe, wear a leaf draped skirt and dance under the full moon. Whisper memories and wait on the edge of dreams...
See you soon!
