Most people who follow a Northern Hemispheric based bath see Winter as the ‘death season’, of the Crone, where deciduous trees become bare and snow covers the earth. In Australia, Summer is our ‘death season’ and Summer in the Riverina is different to Summer in Sydney. It’s not as humid, but it’s just as hot to not being comfortable doing anything. It’s a time of inward reflection because it’s too uncomfortable to move, or be active, to leave the comfort of air conditioning.

It has certainly been longer than planned in blog posts and I’m seeing the correlation between an absence with the Death of Summer. The path I’ve been journeying on has been between myself and others I’m Walking with, so I haven’t wanted to be overly public with it. And with that, comes a lack of things to say.

The jist of the last few months has been connecting with Elen of the Ways; connecting with my new home, the energies of the land and the river; and really trying to not take everything so literally.

I know it’s the overused word of the last year or so and I do hate when people use it for emphasis, but mine has been in the true sense of the word – seeing a path as a literal path, rather than an adventure and a time of exploration.

There is ups and downs of Walking a particular path with others, in that everything becomes a comparison, or at least for me it does. It’s harder again when everything is flipped and you struggle to make a connection because you feel alone in what you’re feeling. In some ways it feels like being a newbie all over again and trying to find your way with an education that isn’t quite suited to your needs.

Then you **finally** meet others who share this path, on this land, and these frustrations. All of a sudden there’s pennies dropping everywhere and everything comes together, the metaphorical metaphysical hearing aid gets turned on, the blindfold comes off, and voila – the voices you couldn’t hear are suddenly screaming in your ear, and the signs you couldn’t see are suddenly in neon lights and the world makes sense.

New sights and sounds and smells allow you to feel that joy of wonder and exploration all over again, in perfect timing with the cooling weather, allowing you to properly explore once more.