I hike in black ankle boots and an amber floral dress.
We climb further and further up the rocky trail in the breath-expansive hope to be continually in awe of the aspen pines dancing down the mountainside in brilliant autumn yellow.
Dust coats my boots and traces the hem of my draping dress, and I welcome the rocky trail dust as a souvenir from a spontaneous trip into the mountain sunset.
The air here dries my lips, straightens my hair, and sweeps the humid swagger of summer of Texas and Kentucky into a far-reaching memory.
We are content seekers who pause at the edge of the trail to honor in quiet witnessing the serene majesty around us. The sky humbly wows in a magnetic blue that looks to be perfectly scooped on top of the pines. A kind-spirited breeze sets the yellow leaves in weaving motion, and I breathe and listen.
Instinct speaks and suggests a slight veer off track. Trusting the inner compass, I follow my feet and find myself circled in the tranquil company of the pines. Sunsetting streams filter through the trees and bathe a heart-center that breathes free.
I sense my past in the yellow crispness of the present. I sense a fresh peacefulness in this past as I recalibrate and receive the fading light that illuminates all of me.
The energy of the new moon in Libra circulates and heightens these sunbeams.
I invite this autumn lunation to harmonize the relationship I have with my past and to strengthen new pathways with how I relate to myself.
This celestial consciousness communicates through the clear, pine-scented air, calling to tenderly traverse fear-forged conditionings and breath-holding patterns to reexamine a relationship to self that mirrors the relationship to life.
I summon the energy of the new moon to help me in forge understanding for a past self who would climb mountains in the fervent hope for answers, in the desperate desire to find a calm in a landscape that could help her fix herself, to be better, more lovable. She hungered to bottle the essence of ease that emanated from nature, forgetting she is nature and the ease is her natural way of being.
Today, I stand in the company of pines and receive the cascades of light. There are no ghosts in my heart. There’s no driving desire to analyze the journey. There’s no ambition to fix and foresee.
The medicine exists in embodied being. The moon magic occurs when I empty out expectations and open my heart.
In the spaciousness, there’s a rinsing and renewal that revitalizes my relationship with myself, and joyously returns me to the flow of life, the flow of this perfectly orchestrated moment of life.
As we journey down the mountain, I revel in the playful ripple of my long dress floating over ancient rocks. I glance over the initials of lovers etched into the bone-white trunks and notice the appearance of carved eyes gazing back at me from the aspens.
From faraway, they look like crescent moons, celestial eyes that wink from the trees, fluttering encouragement as I remain rooted in my boots and heart-open, proceed.