Seasonal dispatch – from summer to fall
Now in October looking back at what has happened over the summer, I’m gathering it together to store and apply to the contemplative months of late fall and early winter.
Fragments that had been noted for further expansion can now be addressed, along with other ideas stored for future uses in the year to come. It’s a significant practice, creating a plan or schedule to work with these pieces and bring them into a cohesive whole. Even if just as cards, each one holds a specific group of symbols that come together as a seven-card emblem system, distillations from the summer fragments.
So I put together a slide deck with the help of AI to mark these shifts, and have included it here as the main content of my quarter 3 overview. The third quarter of the year has been devoted to writing, study, and helping James with his artwork.
As always, I am emphasizing my own contemplative work at this time, but am still open to working with others, and have a few client projects on the go.
Sufi Presentation In July
I gave a talk on the Sufi Shamcher Beorse at Dervish Coffee, an online gathering. My focus was on INTUITION AND SILENT REACH, with discussion.
You can see it HERE.
The Wands
In July and August, most of this summer on Salt Spring was devoted to helping James K-M with his remarkable sculpture project, The 14 Numbers. Painting 55 wands per day,to add to the many he was creating, brought it all to a close near the end of August. You can see them HERE.
Myth and Poetics
This summer I also applied and was accepted for the North American School of Myth with Dr. Martin Shaw – an immersive 2 year program, Connla’s Well (also known as the Well of Segais, is a sacred source of wisdom, knowledge, and poetic inspiration.)
So I began reading to prepare for the first immersion weekend in October. Books included the fascinating Singing Story, Healing Drum and The Tree of Meaning.I’m still going through The Dawn of Everything, and a few others wait on the book pile.
More reading and writing
My personal reading featured George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, reminding me of how novels can show what’s going on in someone else’s mind. And a chronological illustrated biography of the great Salvador Dali, whose work I’m fascinated with.
Writing continued with Project Wunderkabinett, and I intend to provide a better update on this at the end of next quarter. It was put on the back burner for a bit.
Continuing my Substacks – Personal Papers Substack, the Shamcher Bulletin and the Sufi Circle Canada Chronicles – through all this summer and early autumn, I’ve also spent more time in Substack Notes – something I really recommend.
Platonism
This fall-winter I’m once again continuing online study courses with the Prometheus Trust. The fall studies, Platonic Forms and Ideas, and Proclus’ Theology of Plato involve reading and biweekly philosophic discussion.
September woes
September brought me two setbacks in online life and work. First, my Facebook was hacked with no possibility of appeal. I lost so many photos and connections built up over 20 years. Soon after, a cascade of other hacking incidents forced me to rebuild this website and a couple of others as well.
In all this, I’m looking for language to address new information without vocabulary.
Poem
My words fall away
flow away
barely formed
fall like all the dry leaves
of the arbutus
and here we sit beneath
these ever-falling leaves
a book unbound
All the cards align to prepare for the new season.
2026
Link below to past quarter reviews