Autumn’s Gratitude

Crystal Grids have become an intrinsic part of my life,
helping me meditate, use mindfulness, and set intentions.
They focus me on affirmations, self-care, and ground me when I need it.

October, and Halloween season, offers itself to gratitude and appreciation of nature’s abundance, and this grid is my latest – entwining leaves and nature’s bounty with crystals that glow with fire and autumn colours. This Crystal Grid is for Grounding, Confidence, and Gratitude.

Autumn’s Gratitude © Lisa Shambrook

A central Pumpkin symbolises gratitude, abundance, and generosity. Surrounded by nature’s harvest of Oak Leaves for strength, and Acorns and Acorn Cups for growth and prosperity. The horse chestnut’s Conkers represent growth and attainment, and Sweet Chestnuts for wisdom and hope. Fire Agate represent autumn’s bounty with grounding, courage, and confidence, and Carnelian offers confidence, empowerment, and the pure energy of life with abundance and blessings from Mother Earth.

The Wheel of the Year Crystal Grids © Lisa Shambrook

Samhain is also one of the grids in my The Wheel of the Year collection where I have created crystal grids for each Pagan Sabbat – seasonal festival and celebration – Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, Mabon, Samhain, and Yule. You can buy art prints of these pieces at Amaranth Alchemy.

Stones, grids, and nature have made their way into my life, my writing, my books, my mental health, science, and the history of the world. I recently wrote an article published in Mom’s Favorite Reads, an eMagazine available for FREE on Amazon each month. You can read my article here, but do download the magazine for much more great content.

Let autumn’s gratitude fill your spirit and recharge you for the rest of the year.  

An Ode to November in Silver and Gold

Loosely using the word ode, but I want to celebrate November.
It’s a month that often gets lost between the beginning of autumn
September, October, and the festivities of December.
So, let’s love November…

I set my latest manuscript in the first week of November, and while writing during August, September, and October I worried I’d got it wrong. But November and the dates I was describing came around and it was perfect!

Silver Lining November © Lisa Shambrook

My favourite month is October, which is full of moss and lichen, leaves turning, late warmth, and Halloween. Then comes November, and we usually hurry through it complaining about the cold and rushing about organising Christmas!

Leaves and Hot Chocolate November © Lisa Shambrook

November is beautiful. I think I might be Elsa, as the cold doesn’t bother me anyway, but this month it’s been warm and the chill of winter has only just begun to bite. I love the clocks going back, I love the drawn in nights, the cosy darkness cuddling into the sofa with a hot chocolate and furry blanket.

Silver and Gold November © Lisa Shambrook

I don’t mind turning the heating on. I am Scrooge with it, but the heating helps me check my privilege. I have it, some don’t, and sometimes we all need to be reminded of what we have versus what we don’t.

Misty November © Lisa Shambrook

I love the mist and fog, the ethereal beauty of the end of autumn. The silver mist and the gold leaf of forests full of copper, bronze, and gold. My manuscript contains forests of beech and oak and November is the month they gild our countryside.

Gold Leaf November © Lisa Shambrook

We’re about to enter the glitz and bling of Winter – but I think autumn
with its earthy colours and metallic sheen is my most favourite.

What about you?

 

Art by Instagram – Sharing your Artistic Streak with the World: Colours and Seasons

I love images – photographs, paintings, evocative writing,
and art that create the essence of something real, whether abstract or realistic.
I’m an artist of words, pictures, photographs, and sculpture,
and Instagram has been one of the ways I share my creativity with the world.

I enjoy capturing moments and photography is the easiest way to do that, even easier since the advent of digital cameras, apps, and editing software.  Beautiful images soothe the soul, and I love being able to share them so readily.

Recently, as I scrolled my Instagram feed, I noticed how the seasons rule the colours in my photographs. It’s easy to recognise the season by the colours rippling through the collections of pictures. It’s subtle, but it’s there…

Spring © Lisa Shambrook

Spring erupts across the pictures in deep bluebell lilacs, pale pinks and white of daisies, and blossom and spring flowers, daffodil yellow and clean greens with new growth and hope.

Summer © Lisa Shambrook

Summer hails with beaches, blue sky and crashing ocean waves, deep rose pinks, lilacs and summer flowers, and magical rays of sunshine.

Autumn © Lisa Shambrook

Autumn brings deep berry red, gold, russet, crimson, and brown of crunchy, fallen leaves, warm colours and cosy pets, scarlet apples and night lights, and shimmering silver frost.

Winter © Lisa Shambrook

Winter arrives with night-sky indigos and blues, glittery frost and gleaming snow, jewel tones and hot chocolates, bare trees and the colours of cold and chill and warm blankets.

The seasons have their own colours and tones and I love being able to scroll through them…

You can find me on Instagram @lisashambrook and I share more pictures on Flickr.

Which season owns your favourite colours?  

Reasons to Love Autumn…

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
Humbert Wolfe

Autumn is my most favourite season, closely followed by Winter…
find out why and tell me why you love Autumn too!

Dawn’s blush © Lisa Shambrook

Watching dawn’s sliver of pink spread across the indigo sky…

Autumn’s fruit – conkers and acorns © Lisa Shambrook

Acorns, conkers, horse chestnuts, hazelnuts…
not the actual nuts, but I love acorn cups, shiny conkers and nut shells! 

Ward off the chill © Lisa Shambrook

Hunting out your favourite hats and gloves,
twining soft scarves around your neck and wrapping up in the chill.

Boots… © Lisa Shambrook

Boots…need I say more?

Discover discoveries… © Lisa Shambrook

Apples are finally in season and our trees offer a
harvest of Discoveries and Worcester,
and then I enjoy my most favourite Russets.

Soft woolly jumpers! © Lisa Shambrook

Jumpers. I’m Scrooge when it comes to turning on the heating,
so I grab a jumper instead. Find your favourite cable knit and stay warm.

Time to dress up – way back in the year 2000! © Lisa Shambrook

Halloween, the best chance of the year to dress up and have fun!

Don’t ever miss a hug… © Lisa Shambrook

Cuddles to keep warm, nothing better than cosying up with the ones you love.
Hugs, especially when they last over a minute, make you feel good!
Cuddle on the sofa and enjoy the new season of TV after summer’s screen drought.

Slipping on the leather jacket… gloves, hats and scarves… © Lisa Shambrook

Jackets, leather ones to be precise…
I live in my leather jacket and love slipping back into it!

Twilight magic… © Lisa Shambrook

Twilight and dusk…I adore being able to stand in the chill of evening and stare up at the stars. Darker evenings give me a sense of adventure and awe.

Hot Chocolate…Mmmm… © Lisa Shambrook

Hot Chocolate… hot chocolate with marshmallows (if that’s your thing) and cream,
wrap your hands around a mug and stay warm!

Glitter in the sky! © Lisa Shambrook

Fireworks! Watch the sky light up with sparkles of fire on the 5^th of November!

Autumn crimson © Lisa Shambrook

Leaves…the turning of the leaves as the trees shed their summer apparel.
The colours of autumn delight, inspire and invigorate me…

Soup and bread… © Lisa Shambrook

Soups and casseroles, and fresh bread. My favourite is butternut squash
seasoned with black pepper and thyme…

Dragon smoke… © Lisa Shambrook

The enticing hint of frost that makes our breath swirl like dragon smoke!

…and the fact that after Halloween – Christmas is on its way… Yay!

“It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider
and a sky so blue you could drown in it.”
Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

Why do you love Autumn?

Fall Flash Festival: Autumn Flame

This is for Eric Martell and Daniel Swensen‘s Fall Flash Festival…Autumn is and forever will be my most favourite season! Click here to join in the fun!

Autumn Flame © Lisa Shambrook (with pixlromatic)

Autumn Flame

Heat seared, sizzling across parched earth, and the cloudless sky, a hothouse dome, desiccated leaves and flora. Listless and languid, folk wandered aimlessly, unable to bear the sultry oppression and Summer’s impasse.Her eyes darted from house to house; windows wide, porch doors open, and dogs sleeping with lolling tongues and trails of slobber. Inside, people rested hot and sticky, irascible and ornery. Her brow furrowed and she stared across the yellowed hills. Autumn was late.As the sirocco tickled her frazzled mind she swept her jade skirts high up into the hills and sought out a crevice, a deep, dark crevice. She gathered her volumes of green about her and traipsed inside. The welcome cool whispered and the ground sighed with each step she took, until she paused and stared at the vast lump curled up before her.

She prodded the lump.

Light mist rose in the shadows and she spoke, “Wake up!”

…

 

This is a preview to the story that can be found within A Symphony of Dragons. It has become one part of my symphony, a composition, of A Symphony of Seasons… You can find this enchanting book of short stories in many outlets in both paperback and eBook or at my publisher BHC Press.

Autumn Flame won the Honourable Mention in the Fall Flash Festival.

 

Read previews to Spring’s and Winter’s tales: Spring Symphony and Winter Hope.

Blues Buster: The Seasons of Enchantment

Grabbed a quiet hour or two to myself and put this together for The Tsuroka Files Blues Buster, the prompt song is a beautiful tale of Ireland Eireann by the Afro Celt Sound System.

Photograph by Lisa Shambrook Tree Man Clyne Gardens, Swansea

(Please do not use without permission)

The Seasons of Enchantment

As autumn’s chill spread through the gold, and scarlet, and dying green, her voice still wandered across the dewy grass, lifting up into the fading leaves, searching for her lost love. My bursting heart sang and my breath fluttered on the autumn symphony, and in her hair, and I watched as Bronagh moved like a sylvan through the forest. The song on her lips, a mournful lament, matched only by the black she wore from head to toe. I urged and whispered, and she searched.

Winter snow swathed the forest floor, and ominous clouds hung in the sky, and still she walked, soft-footed and lone. Her fur-bound feet crunched through the flurry, and her hands brushed snow from low, bare branches, and I shivered as she moved softly through the trees. She walked like a shadow, dark against white, and I listened, my heart breaking as “Odhran…” slipped from her mouth. 

Light, crepuscular rays shone down through the emerging canopy. Honey-green leaves unfurled and broke through, stretching in spring’s embrace.  Bronagh, still dressed in mourning, welcomed the early sun, gathering bluebells and pale sunshine primroses.  Her feet danced lightly on the green sward. I breathed and my heart swelled like the buds on the boughs. 

When summer brought its glittering jewels, and deep verdant life, she moved soulfully through the forest, resting beneath its emerald awning, taking time to catch her breath. I waved and beamed as the sun bore down, and my heart leapt as she still whispered my name in the breeze “Odhran…” I yearned to touch and hold her, but I waited.

Autumn’s return brought crimson and bronze, and jade and brown, and the slow falling leaves matched her new attire. My heart dimmed and my hearing dulled as the wild, winter wind blew across the fields and into my life. She still wandered, lonely, through the trees, still searching, and I still whispered in her ear, but she no longer heard me.

As winter froze the ground and water the colour of her ice-blue eyes hung from my boughs, I knew she was gone. Only deer wandered, hooves crushing the hoarfrost and bruising the grass like the purple shroud that veiled my heart. I shivered beneath the black, night sky and listened to my splintering heart.

Spring’s warmth failed to reignite my soul. It stiffened and darkened, until I was a shadow of myself, until I became blind. I could not stop the burgeoning joy of new growth, my new cloak of leaves, but my heart was finally stilled. 

Frozen amid summer’s heat, I stood silent and cold, my soul as hard and as callous as the wood I wore.

When she reappeared with recognition, and ruddy, autumn cheeks, and a heart full of joy I felt nothing. Her arms embraced me, but my stone-cold heart was lost and my waters frozen. She cried, rivers of tears like a weeping willow, but there was nothing left of me, the man she once loved, just a lonely tree, tall and strong, but forever bereft of love.

(508 words)