We marked the Spring Equinox to the sound of the waves and the warmth of a fire on Sunday evening. Creating space for reflecting on what’s beginning to emerge for us as we move through this year. There’s something really special about taking time to pause and reflect, especially in community with others.

I love reading about women from the past, those whose paths helped lead the way for me to live and breathe the way I want today. I am privileged in many ways to be able to say that, as we know millions of women globally have yet to experience freedom to the extent I have being a white woman in my forties in the UK.

Whilst we still have a long way to go to achieve equality in all corners of the world, and at times it feels as though we are moving backwards rather than forwards, I remain deeply grateful to the women who came before us and simply refused to stay inside the boxes they were born into. For anyone who knows my story, it’s clear I have been inspired by the rebels that came before me.

I had an experience recently that has stayed with me.

I offered a simple creative activity in a small group of women I know well. It involved coloured paper, scissors, glue sticks, and an invitation to create a portrait of another person from our group based purely on “vibes”…what this person inspires through colours, shapes and textures. A playful attempt to reflect how we experience one another beyond physical appearance.

For some, it was joyful and unexpectedly moving. As often happens, people began cautiously, thinking their way through the task, before something softened and creativity took over.

Imbolc asks us to notice the first stirrings of energy shifting around us, and inside us. As we approach spring with lighter days, more energy and the first sparks of life making themselves known, Imbolc provides a moment to reflect on what is beginning to start within us that we’ll soon bring into fruition in the months ahead?

Most of us live by a calendar that has very little to do with how life actually moves.

We mark time by deadlines, school terms, tax years, and diary appointments. The months pass, the seasons change, and often we barely notice. We feel out of sync, tired in winter when we think we “should” be productive, restless in summer without knowing why, and slightly unmoored from any real sense of natural rhythm. The Wheel of the Year offers a different way to mark time. One that is rooted in the earth, the seasons, and the steady, reliable turning of nature.

An attempt to make sense of what does not make sense.

I get the impression there are a lot of people who are not intentionally choosing the lives they are living. They are responding to what is in front of them: deadlines, responsibilities, news headlines, financial pressure, social or family expectations. Life becomes a series of reactions rather than a series of conscious decisions. And over time, a quiet misalignment sets in. It is hard to name, but it can feel like being in a constant struggle with yourself, a misalignment.

This is rarely a motivation problem, or a time management problem. I think it is often a values problem.

The act of making something: writing, stitching, collaging, painting, etc. engages parts of us that don’t always speak in clear sentences. Creativity allows our interior world to surface without needing to explain or justify it. It’s a language of colour, shape and texture that often feels safer, especially when touching on grief, identity, memory or endings.

As the year draws to its quiet close, we gather to mark the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year and the turning point toward the returning light. Across cultures and centuries, this has been a time to pause, reflect, and honour both the darkness and the promise of renewal.

As we enter the Christmas season, let’s consider our priorities and how we can be more intentional in our gift giving.

A little insight into our recent Samhain Gathering at the Front Room theatre in Weston-Super-Mare. It was a magical evening of community and remembrance.

There’s a quiet revolution taking root, not in corporate boardrooms or our government’s offices (sadly!) but in gardens, art studios, neighbourhood parks and community projects. It’s a revolution that begins with small acts of care and imagination, where people are daring to envision a world that prioritises life, in all its forms, over profit.

As the year turns and the light begins to fade, we find ourselves standing at a threshold: the space between autumn and winter, life and death, what has been and what is yet to come. Across centuries and cultures, this time has always been understood as one of reflection, remembrance and renewal.

Here in the northern hemisphere, Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. It is a moment to pause, to take stock and turn inward to honour the cycles of life that hold us all.

Twenty years is a long time, and yet it passes so quickly. Today marks two decades since I first set foot in the UK. What was meant to be a ten-month gap year became something altogether different and unexpected. If I’ve learned anything over the past couple of decades, it’s that life rarely unfolds as planned.