Late in November

[seal]

"The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all. It's a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you've got in as many supplies as you can. It's nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own. Then the cold and the storms and the darkness can do their worst. They can grope their way up the walls looking for a way in, but they won't find one, everything is shut, and you sit inside, laughing in your warmth and your solitude, for you have had foresight."


"There are those who stay at home and those who go away, and it has always been so. Everyone can choose for himself, but he must choose while there is still time and never change his mind."


"The forest was heavy with rain and the trees were absolutely motionless. Everything had withered and died, but right down on the ground the late autumn's secret garden was growing with great vigour straight out of the mouldering earth, a strange vegetation of shiny puffed-up plants that had nothing to do at all with summer."

The pictures I took in the south of Sweden made me want to quote one of my all time favorite books; Moominvalley in November, a strange book which always makes me happy to re-read.
I met up with my friend Kristin and her daughter Nanna, my beautiful god daughter, and we took a forest walk into memory land. It was the right season and the right day for it.


Svaneholm's Castle - a place where I often went when I was in my late teens, with my group of pagan "sisters". We would go into the castle gardens during night and listen to the big tower clock tolling, waiting to see the lady ghost show herself.


We rented the smoking cabin, on the other side of the little lake, and had sleepovers there a couple of times a year. Marshmallows and wine, promises and stories, rituals and tears. Some of us were closer than others, some of us are still fairly close today, others not so much.


Some people stay important


some don't...


A beautiful oak that meant a lot to me once, I still love it


a cool dead tree, fitting for the month of november


Kristin and her family own Icelandic horses, the same kind of shaggy, sturdy and strong little animals that used to carry around viking warriors on their backs. Sometimes I think they look a little otherworldly, like troll-horses


Kristin's horse is called "Frenya" which I was told means "mean bitch" or something like that, in Icelandic. The mare herself couldn't be further from her name, she is a sweet, mild mannered and very social little horse.


This year has been a difficult one for me, being away from people I love for so long has taken its toll, becoming a student again didn't feel so grand, some disappointments in people from the past, but many things have been good, exhilarating even.
Some things are too sad to cry over, too joyous to laugh about and too heavy to put down. Just like some things are entirely too light to hold on to.
There will be locked posts again in the future, in this journal, if you're still on my list, and if you still read, we'll talk.