I am deep into the energy of the Solstice as I experience my physiological, emotional, and spiritual responses to the ancient tide of swelling darkness that occurs during this potent seasonal portal. During this seasonal movement of energy, one that portends the new year and invites us to review all matters of life, I am thinking about vision, about seeing, and the way we understand the world around us. I am thinking about looking deeply into the world of form and finding the illuminated sentient nature of our wonderful multiverse. I believe this means cultivating our curiosity, our empathy, and our patience.

The picture above is a gorgeous passion flower that lives in my  neighborhood. I am blown away by it because when I look at it with an open heart and mind, and slightly expand my vision, I can see a living being expressing itself, for its own purposes, in intelligent patterns that attract and delight.

This year I have been actively expanding my relationship with plants I have grown in my amateur garden. I have spent hours tending to them, and watching what they do. Here you can see the swirling pattern in the flower in one of my pots as it is about to open. I was able to catch this brief moment before it bloomed when it looked like a pinwheel. What is striking about this picture is that it catches the sunlight that is in play with this flowering shrub. This elemental dance reveals a sacred relationship between the plant and the living components in the environment.

Beyond being a trick of the light, this interplay of photonic energy and matter is a tell-tale sign of Faery realm activity. That means something else is going on here on a spiritual or etheric level that reveals a relationship between conscious aspects of the elements of nature as they are busy going about the business of their life-ways, exploring, interacting, and growing.

Above is another display of the light and plant Faery dance in my humble garden. This is one of my magnificent kale plants who really took a liking to their environment — in which I worked the soil with love and decaying matter, and who grew into stunning, regal plants whom my entire family, including my rabbit, has the honor of dining upon. It is a real gift to have this great kale community in my garden.

Below is a fantastical cauliflower, one of a community of beings that thrived in the soil environment in which I planted them. Watching the great leaves grow and then ensconce spirally around strange brain-like cauliflower heads that just keep getting bigger with the rain has given me me a huge thrill. Look closely you can see it growing in there.

And lastly here is one of the many potatoes that are also thriving in my winter garden. Look at the light play here and the energy being generated through the relationship of the plant, the soil, the recent rain, and the glorious sun that now adorns our Xmas season in Northern California. That is some photonic power as we watch the potato plant turn light into matter which will result in a potato tuber that I am going to turn into a meal in the coming spring. Hot damn! That is real magic. It is the alchemy understood by our ancestors. Light changing form in the material world with an interplay of the elements in a seasonal life-cycle. Thank you plant and Faery beings.