🌙The poet and the huntress🏹

🪿...and musings on geese and the Libra solar eclipse⚖️

Sunrise over the River Wye

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

Happy National poetry day! To celebrate, I thought I’d begin by sharing the beautiful poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver which has been on my heart this week. I’m writing to you with a feeling of deep gratitude and peace after a beautiful weekend in the wilds of the Wye Valley followed by a week punctuated by daily cold water dips as I attempt to complete Surfer’s Against Sewage’s Dip a Day challenge for the month of October. The essence of this challenge is so dear to my heart - highlighting the intense neglect faced by our waterways, along with the incredible benefits of adopting this daily ritual for boosting our mental health and nurturing our social connections.

Before we sink in here’s a summary of some terrestrial and celestial events to orientate you for the first half of October:

2 October: New Hunter’s Moon in Libra (19:49 BST)

2 October: Annular Solar Eclipse (19:46 BST)

2 October: Orionids meteor shower begins

2 October: Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year)

3 October: National Poetry Day (U.K)

10 October: Old Michaelmas Day

17 October: Full Hunter’s Moon in Aries 12:26 BST

1-31 October: Dip a Day (U.K)

31 October: Rituals for Rest begins

Sun remains in Libra until 23 October

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🌍The first half of this newsletter looks at the terrestrial - the news and events that are happening on Earth over the next few weeks. The second half looks at the celestial - what’s going on up in the skies.

🪿Old Michaelmas Day

2 weeks ago I saw (or rather heard!) my first skein of geese making their way to the U.K from Northern climes to spend the Autumn and Winter here. Observing this natural phenomenon always sparks a fizz of excitement and adventure, as though I imagine myself joining them in heading to new horizons for the Winter. Canada geese are common now, and although there may be still some who visit from Winter to Spring, many more have chosen to stay here year round. I’ve been following a family of Canada geese on our local lake where I swim, as the pair hatched 5 chicks and have raised them to adulthood over the Spring and Summer. They’ve now disappeared from our lake (perhaps heading further south from Yorkshire), and we miss them hugely.