Autumn Has Arrived

It’s official, I’m chilly this morning. 🙂 Nice timing with the Autumn Equinox (Mabon) this week. Naples, Italy does have all four seasons as I understand it. Summer was hot and some humid days but much milder than Japan. I’ve heard Winter here is wet and chilly but not cold enough for snow unless you go up in the mountains. The approach of Autumn so far has cool mornings (60’s until this week it’s been down in the 50’s), some rainy days but still gets up near 80 if the sun is out.

Time to prepare for Winter by breaking out the yummy candles, hot teas, hoodies, fuzzy socks and soup recipes. I’m bringing in Fall with a Moroccan Beef stew and some personal changes including refocusing on my health. The novelty of moving to Italy needs to end and living well needs to kick back in. Lowering white carbs – less pizza and pasta *cries a little, less sweets – I’m not too bad with this but cutting sweetened creamer from coffee and watching impulse buying more, and more exercise – cooler weather means I can get out and explore this area more.

This is also a time to prepare for Samhain (Halloween) which is the beginning of the Year for the pagan calendar. A spiritual high point which usually consists of reflecting on the past year regarding successes, failures and thoughts then moving to dedicating what to work on personally for the new year. This time of year I tend to reflect on family and friends who have passed on from this life and this year more than ever on my ancestors because of my close location to our roots and my genealogy work. Preparation is mostly in the form of reflection, note taking, list making and more quiet moments then usual. More on all of this as we get closer to Samhain.