Realm Note 1: Taking Stock of this Season
Here in the UK, the days are getting shorter, and the air feels different. I'm noticing the pace of things is shifting in small ways. I'm closing the curtains sooner, curling up under warm blankets, and feeling an urge to make comforting food. It's a time to gather myself in.
It also feels like a natural checkpoint, an invitation to pause long enough to ask: Where am I now? What has this year asked of me? What has strengthened? What needs care? What am I ready to lay down?
September often feels this way for me. I think it's the association with the start of the school year, a chance to begin again. New classroom, sometimes new faces, new learning. I loved the feel of new pencil crayons and empty lined notebooks. It's a different beginning from the traditional January one, which arrives with all that pressure to declare resolutions (and, honestly, how many of them do we actually keep?).
A time to take stock
As the memory of summer fades and this gathering-in sets in, I return to certain cards from the Soul Nova Oracle. One is The Nurturer from the Relationship Realm. The others come from the Manifestation Realm: Discernment, Abundance, and Intention. I use the questions on those cards to invite reflection. (If you are unfamiliar with the cards, know that the questions they invite for contemplation are echoed within the same realms of the Seven Realms meditation practice, which you have access to.) The most relevant questions for me as I gathered myself and looked inward included:
What am I grateful for right now? (Abundance)
Where am I offering more than I am receiving, at the expense of my own energy? What would bring it back into balance? (The Nurturer)
What do I want to focus on before the year ends? (Intention)
What am I ready to release, so there is room for something else? (Discernment)
I like to work with these through a small ritual: a brief meditation, a way of anchoring, and sometimes carrying a single question into the woods. It can take several sittings before I reach the heart of where I am, but I often find truths that inform the choices I wish to make.
For this seasonal review, the prompt from The Nurturer really got me. Where am I offering more than I am receiving?
I spent much of August supporting family members who were struggling. I wanted to be there, and I was there, in practical ways and emotional ones. But it took a lot of my energy, and by September I was tapped out and knew I hadn't been attentive enough to my own needs.
Then the card Abundance gave me a different view, and I noticed another truth. Abundance invites us to acknowledge, with gratitude, all that is available to us.
I am grateful for the relationships in my life that matter to me. I am fortunate to have a loving family. I am grateful for my family's trust, for our conversations, and for the moments when they needed me and I could be there.
And I am grateful for the small things that kept me steady. Walks in the woods gave me time to clear my thoughts. Familiar routines kept me anchored: my simple breakfast, bedtime stories with my grandson, and warm sunshine on my face as I listened to the birds in the garden. These things may sound ordinary, but ordinary things often carry us.
Holding gratitude doesn’t mean I wasn't also tired or that everything was easy. It simply helped me see the whole picture. Yes, I became depleted, and there was also love, care, beauty, and connection.
Holding both feels important.
I am letting go of the need to be constantly visible
One of the clearest decisions I have made recently is to stop posting so frequently on social media.
It comes from noticing how much space it takes up, not only the time spent posting, but also the mental noise around it. The planning ahead. The checking afterwards. The quiet pressure to turn a life into content. What mattered was remembering that I have a choice. And making the choice gives me more time for bigger pieces of writing, where I can show up more fully, once a month.
Saying no to all that posting has let me say yes to more art projects, and that is my answer to Intention: what I want to focus on before the year ends.
I do not know what will come of them. I don't know whether they will become anything shareable or be finished in the way we usually measure things. Right now, that is not the point. They are bringing me joy, and joy is reason enough.
And, of course, releasing things often brings uncertainty.
If I post less, will I fade from people's minds? If I rest more, will I fall behind? If I make art with no clear outcome, is it still worthwhile?
But, those questions come from an old habit of measuring.
Autumn knows better. Trees let go, gardens slow, and we watch nature draw downward, not because growth has ended, but because another kind of work has begun, out of sight.
I find that comforting, and I hope you do too.
I don't need to know what this next season will bring. I can begin with what I know now. More rest. More creative room. Caring for others without abandoning myself. Noticing beauty and letting it nourish me.
That is enough to begin.
For your own taking stock
My deepest wish is that something here resonates with you, that you find your own version of this pause, in whatever shape your autumn is taking.
If you'd like one question to sit with this week, I invite you to work with one from your Nurturer:
Where in your life are you giving more than you are receiving, and what one small thing would bring it back into balance?
Please take your time with it. Carry it into a walk, or a meditation, or the quiet before sleep, and see what surfaces.
You might sit with the Relationship Realm meditation alongside it. It is the one that holds this question. If you wish to work with the themes of Intention, Discernment and Abundance, then the Manifestation Realm meditation is a good one to be with. The Meditations can be found here:
With warmth,
Susan
P.S. If your own taking stock keeps landing on the same realm and you'd like a quiet conversation about it, the first Reveal Your Light Session is on me.
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