Autumn Self-Gift Registry is Here!
We’re falling into a new season here in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn is set to arrive on Thursday, September 22nd, at 9:03 p.m. EDT. It’s time for the Self-Gift Registry! To our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, please apply to your season.
I hope that you’ve been healing and dreaming in the extended light of summer and watching sunlight dapple the leaves of the trees. Did you savor an heirloom tomato with olive oil drizzled on it with fresh basil from the garden? Did you eat an ice cream cone with a double scoop of your favorite flavors? Eek out the last few days of summer by eating or doing some of your favorite summery things.
The Self-Gift Registry: I started the idea of a self Gift Registry at the beginning of each season. The gifts are experiential and earn you as many Enchanted Keys as possible. Here’s how it works: You set aside some time to quiet yourself and meditate on the upcoming season. Make it ten to twenty minutes. Immerse yourself in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures of the season. Then you schedule moments to experience these things on the calendar so you feel abundant at the close of the season. Grant yourself Enchanted Keys: Mindfulness, Altered Perceptions, Journaling, Sensory Experiences, Reduced Clutter, Humor, Movement, Art, Nature, and Meditation.
The Meditation: Find a comfortable position. (Preferably at the base of a tree whose leaves may be starting to turn.) Take a few deep, cleansing breaths and exhale fully.
Sights: As your physical body relaxes, envision fall. See pumpkins, gourds, hay bales, tri-colored corn in their dried husks, barrels of apples, and acorns on the ground.
Sounds: Let your sense-memory shift to the sounds of fall that bring you joy, laughter or peace. For me, I hear a crackling fire, leaves and twigs that snap under my boots and the chimes clanging in the strong winds.
Smells: Drift to the smells of the season. Mulled hot apple cider with sticks of cinnamon, chocolate pumpkin bread, smoky, roasted corn and root vegetables, along with fragrant herbs simmering in the soup pot, are among my favorites.
Tastes: Taste the season. See above to match the smells. Of course pumpkin anything is the flavor du jour, but expand your sensory experiences beyond the orange globe.
Textures: Textures feel like sticky, warm marshmallows browning in a campfire, soft, sage leaves rubbed between your fingers and brittle-edged oak leaves that have plucked themselves from the trees to fall among the acorns on the ground.
Autumn's End: Autumn will end as winter begins this year on Wednesday, December 21, at 4:47 p.m. EST. Take yourself to the end of the season and consider what you will have missed if you don’t experience it. Then make a plan to do those things you can. Schedule them on your calendar or the Dragons will make you forget you ever dreamed of them.
Happy Fall Y’all! Stay enchanted.