Today, I am smelling cigarette smoke. Nobody in my family is a smoker, nor have they been around anyone who smokes. I don't recognize the cigarette brand and my husband abhorred smoking. My dad quit many many years ago. I have no idea if this is a visitation of sorts but it's strange.

🍂 Community Connect: The Turning Toast — Today! Just a little reminder that we'll be gathering today for our special Mabon/Autumn Equinox Community Connect. We'll be doing our Turning Toast Ceremony together—a small, home-brewed ritual for standing at the threshold between seasons, honoring what we've gathered, what we're carrying forward, and what we're allowing to become something new. If you'd like to prepare beforehand, here's what you'll need: 🥃 One drinking glass — anything you have 🥤 A separate container with a drink of your choice — whatever calls to you 🕯️ A candle — optional We'll move through the ceremony together, one turn at a time: 🌑 The Dark — glass upside down A moment for what's currently uncertain, unformed, or unknown. 🌕 The Light — glass upright What has become clear, illuminated, or understood. 🍎 The Harvest — turn the glass to the left What you've cultivated this past season—the fruits of what you've planted, tended, or worked for. 🌱 The Cold Crop — turn the glass to the right What you're sowing now for the darker half of the year ahead—the things that need winter to grow. 🍂 The Compost — pour your drink into the glass What you're releasing, surrendering, or conceding. Not what's discarded, but what's given forth—the old material becoming nourishment for what comes next. 🥂 The Toast — raise your glass We'll each have the opportunity to offer a word or two to the circle, if we'd like. 🍷 The Drink — together We'll take the first drink in unison, marking our shared turning toward the season ahead. You don't have to prepare anything in advance. The ceremony will guide you through it. But if you'd like to spend a few minutes beforehand thinking about your own Dark, Light, Harvest, Cold Crop, and Compost, you'll have those thoughts ready when we get there. And then we'll simply spend some time together afterward—no agenda, no pressure. See you at the threshold. 🍂

I woke without a piece of me, Some fragment of my destiny; And, all at once, the world I knew Was upside-down, and sideways too. The morning came, but something strayed, A shadow where the light once stayed. The sun rose pale, then slipped from sight, An umbra of forgotten light. The windows opened on the street, But nothing looked the way it seemed. The houses leaned, the sidewalks bent, No path leads where it once went. The trees grew downward, roots grew high, Reaching up into the sky. The crows flew low beneath the ground; The mockingbirds, they made no sound. The rivers climbed instead of ran, Up every hill and back again. The rain fell upward from the sea, Into the silver clouds above me. I watched the argent of the moon Bruise the sun at half-past noon - For since my fate's forsaken frame, Nothing has been quite the same. And yet, beneath the altered ground, Some things remained as they were found. The wind still whispered through the trees, The earth still turned beneath the seas. The flowers opened with the dawn, The night arrived; the night was gone. The world kept moving, undismayed, A constant impetus, unswayed. Still, somehow - defying desire - The stars still burn familiar fire. The whole of heaven, rearranged - And yet, the sky hasn't changed.

I had never heard of this word until Meaghan wrote about it. Now it's like the Subaru effect. It's popping up everywhere. Found it curious.

Greetings and Blessings, my friends. ✨🪷✨ I've been thinking about WonderWander lately. Not because something is wrong. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm really happy with what this little corner of the internet has become. We've wandered through Tarot, astrology, psychometry, symbolism, spirituality, creativity, strange questions, personal explorations, and all sorts of curious rabbit holes. I've added things to the Classroom, experimented with different kinds of posts and activities, and watched this community slowly develop its own character. And somewhere along the way, I realized that WonderWander has become something a little different from the thing I first imagined. Not different in the sense of having lost its way. Different in the way that living things become different from the seed they grew from. When I created WonderWander, I had a fairly simple vision: I wanted to create a place for people who are curious. People who like to wonder out loud. People who aren't necessarily looking for certainty, doctrine, or someone to tell them what something means, but who enjoy exploring the questions, symbols, ideas, experiences, and mysteries that make life a little more interesting. That vision hasn't changed. I don't want to turn WonderWander into something it was never meant to be. I don't want to impose a rigid curriculum, build a content machine, or create structure simply for the sake of having more structure. But I do think it's time to start thinking about what comes next. Because WonderWander is no longer just an idea I had. It's a community. And that means its future shouldn't be determined entirely by the person who happened to have the original idea. I've been thinking about expanding the Classroom, experimenting with different kinds of community experiences, creating more opportunities for conversation and participation, and generally giving WonderWander a little more room to grow. But before I decide what any of that should look like, I want to hear from the people who are actually here.