We are deep in Autumn. A season of transformation, transitions, and release.
I feel blessed to have been able to sit in a circle, with two of my dear teachers and friends, Michelle Cassandra Johnson and Amy Burtaine, honouring the holy honeybee as we prepared for the Autumn equinox – this feels like so long ago now. We found ourselves reflecting on how this time of year offers us this liminal space of both reflection of where we’ve been, and preparation for the winter ahead. As I settle into the deeper rhythms in this turn of the wheel I am once again reflecting on that sacred circle.
A time of tending to tasks that are needing attention and also deep in the energy of dreaming, all the while prioritizing being right where I am in this moment.
As the brilliance of the season is slowly being blanketed with gentle snow falls, the first whispers of winter, and the days lengthen into darkness, I notice a steady slowing of rhythms which I realize the gift in surrendering.
This is a welcome time of bringing into my body what is needed as nourishment through warm soups and stews, sweaters and cozy socks, singing in circles, and bringing wood indoors to warm our hearth through the coming winter months. I love the return of this fire into the centre of my home, reminding me to nourish my own internal flame.
This is a powerful time to pause if you’re able, it feels to me like stepping out of time for a while as there is an increased depth in my dreams these days. It’s in this profound pause of integration that, it never fails to surprise me, we often find our way to clarity for what is needed in this season of our lives.
I wanted to share a poem I wrote in my oncologists waiting room a few weeks back now. I posted this on my substack page this morning, and felt inspired to share it here too, as an offering to community – I know many share this lived experience of cancer and sometimes these connections can help.
Thank you for being here with me
I was sitting in the waiting room a few weeks ago waiting to see my oncologist for my 3 month check in. As I sat there, I became acutely aware of the sound of the lights, a gentle hum, the breath of the person sitting next to me – inhaling and exhaling, and then someone marked their ending of treatment, as the moment was defined with the gong.
A marking of endings, an affirmation of life, a time of so many emotions.
When I hit that gong a few years ago, I literally fell apart – everyone’s eyes on me. I’m not going to romanticize that moment, it was weird and in that strike it was an upheaval of everything I was carrying.
The vibration traveled deep.
As I sat there, I felt the gong once again reverberating through every part of me, words sung themselves together from the memories in my body into the journal on my lap,
The Hum
Waiting room
Lights hum
No one speaks but we all have something in common
Connected by our shared humanity
Cancer has chosen us as its host
Relentless in its mission to take over
Reminding us we are mortal
That nothing lasts forever
This life
In this body
Is temporary
What will survive
I wonder what the person next to me feels
How they’re coping
How they’re managing
I reach out as I close my eyes
No words are spoken
No words are needed
We wait
They call my name
I cross the threshold
The needle comes
Veins close
My body
Knows
This poison
Vessels harden
Blocking entry
I whisper It’s okay to let parts of you die
And
Then
They find the place, the needle enters
Burning
Deepening Breath
Bleached from the inside
Burning away not only the cancer
Please
I whisper
Take it all
I offer
The entanglements
The stories of harm
The heaviness that I was unwilling to put down
Everything that has held me back
Until
Now
The fire moves through the crucible of my body
Leaving only what supports life
I think about the Earth
How we poison her body
Our bodies no different
Leaving only what supports life
Tears fall
Breath Deepens
Heart Beating
Feeling the pulse
The hum continues
And still, no one speaks
All of us changed
– written by me, November 2025
Thank you for sharing in this intimacy in this precious life, remembering we’re not alone.
Much love
Amber