The Dark Half

So, after some neglect blog-wise, the wanderer returns. 
The above pic was taken a few mornings ago, from one of the few windows at work. Of the dawn sun breaking through the darkness that is now the reality going to and from work.
I feel like a mole, like I always do this time of year.
The dark of the year seeping into everything, stealthily. 
Not depressing but inevitable. 


It's been a busy few months. Assignments to be completed, work, more learning, catching up with folk not seen for a while, holidays to be had, birthdays and the odd crisis to deal with.
You know-'normal' life.


I don't find it a time of rest when the season shifts to the dark, there is a lot to be found in it, a lot going on. It's not necessarily comfortable-though I like the sloppy jumpers, stews, mist and fog, bonfires and fireworks.


I look back to look forward.
In the dark months last year I wanted to achieve lot's of things, many of which I really have, and many of which were seeds planted that will continue for many years to come.
Learning about heritage, an ever present resource-looking back for the future.
Building on relationship formed with the local land and working with it, slowly developing skills with wood.
And there are changes on the home front-lot's of potential, but a couple of possible directions.

So there is still much to be done.
Obstacles to be navigated, blockages to be opened, paths travelled, challenges met.
It is in the dark where illumination might be found.


More and more this year, I have had increasing difficulty with words. Peculiar that it should be being as it's been a year where I've also dabbled with social networking in it's many forms (albeit as a techno-pleb novice)-or perhaps that's what might have made it all the more noticeable.
Twitter, Tumblr, forums. I have enjoyed lot's about them-there are truly many inspirational folk out there that I wouldn't have known about otherwise-and they have provided a place simply to be amongst others-which I really do appreciate.
But it's made it all the more difficult this word thing.
Perhaps it doesn't help that naturally I'm not a wordsmith, I'm a keeper of secrets by nature.
I like them-with secrets I'm amongst friends. It's my most natural instinct. You don't need words for secrets either, they exist without them.
Those secrets are'nt mysterious, arcane knowledge or power, or anything necessarily special at all, they are thought,  feeling, instinct, intuition. 
I have though at times felt that perhaps this really isn't right, I should be sharing much more for my own benefit, and who knows-someone else's perhaps?
If it hadn't been for others sharing, then perhaps I'd have missed quite a few things?
Perhaps those secrets are a cop-out, easier to keep than give physical form?
So perhaps it was Fate-led that I happened across the interesting guest articles by Robin Artisson on the lovely website American Folkloric Witchcraft.
Well worth a read, and food for thought and practice for me over the dark months.
And who knows? By spring I might be ready to spend less time with my secrets..perhaps.


And I wonder what else the dark will bring....

"Widdershins whirleth the Dance of the Dead;-
I go back to my bones.
Great Lord of the nighted graveyard and the tomb,
The Spade, the Coffin and the shady Yew,
Thou are Reverser, Separator,
Unveiler of that which is concealed from the beginning.
Black Lord of the Skull and Cross'd Bones,
Send thou the scouring black wind of the North,
To tear away times transient rags,
Laying bare the timeless seed within"


From 'The Ceremony of the Red Bones'  The Masks of Misrule-Nigel Jackson.