• Illuminations
  Aleesha Stephenson
  
• About the Cover
  Celtic Wisdom Tarot
  
• A Blessing for TSM
  Nahi Guzman
  
• Interviewing Aleesha
  MeeWah Reynolds
  
• Our Choices
  David Reber
  
• Chakras
  Donna Doherty
  
• Step into
  Imagination!
  Jay Baron
  
• Opening Our
  Creativity
  Chelsa Roy
  
• First Language: A
  Journey into Animal
  Communication
  Dawn Brunke
  
• Belly Dancing, The
  Original Women's
  Movement!
  Janet Privett
  
• World Kindness Day
  Brian Willis
  
• A Growing Backlash
  Against Waste
  David Suzuki
  
• Letter from God
  Bo Lozoff
  

• The Envelope, Please...
  Featuring: The Tarot Garden
  
• Aunty Nasty
  Nasturtium Blackwitt
  
• Meditate a Moment
  Featuring: Tira Brandon-Evans
  
• Magik'ly Speaking…
  Elizabeth Abernathy
  
• The Tao of...
  Tira Brandon-Evans
  
• Cherishing the Earth
  Toria Betson
  
• Walk Your Talk
  Aleesha Stephenson
  
• Poetic License
  

• The Celtic Wisdom Tarot
  Caitlin Matthews
  
• The Healing Drum
  Yaya Diallo
  
• The Artist's Way
  Julia Cameron
  
• Witches' Calendar
  Llewelyn
  

Walking through the woods, looking for inspiration for this article, I found myself wishing it were to be written in the spring instead of fall. I found it difficult to think about 'openings' while my feet were crunching on the dried-up leaves the trees had shed. Now if it were springtime… budding fresh green and new… that would be the time to talk about openings!

I sat down on a fallen log and began to pick off the burrs clinging tightly to my jeans, seeds hitchhiking to a new home. All around me, I noticed seeds still holding onto their branches, seeds blowing in the wind, seeds falling to the earth, full of potential. Nature has already begun her next cycle.

I thought about my ancestors, celebrating the New Year as the harvest was completed. They saw life as a circle with no end. As the wheel of the year turns, death gives way to life, endings give way to beginnings and closings give way to openings. What better time to celebrate newness than after the harvest. This was their time for looking back at the previous year, and ahead to the new. Of course, they had to look ahead and make preparations; their survival through the winter depended upon it.

From the time I was a child, I saw fall as a time of ending, a time of dying. No more fun outdoors in the sun, it was time to go back to school. This was my misconception. My ancestors perceived things differently. They saw this as a time of preparing, a time of waiting patiently. They understood there was much out of sight where I was seeing only the surface. How many other things have I allowed myself to be blinded to, by my own perceptions? I have long understood my old beliefs need to be questioned, but this seems different. This is about how I see or perceive things.

What are my plans for this New Year, this new cycle?

I plan to identify and weed out my misconceptions. I want to plant the seeds of openness. I want to be open to all possibilities. This year I plan to get 'myself' out of the way and allow myself to be open to a much larger world. I want to learn to view the world, not from of place of uncaring, but a place of objectivity, of non-judgment. My! I feel lighter and more open already!

As mother earth begins her next cycle; I wish you all an abundance of happy beginnings!


many blessings,
Toria Betson


Toria lives and learns in the woods with her children and husband of fifteen years. She loves to garden and cook the organic vegetables and herbs she grows. Toria is a Spiritual Counselor, Intuitive, Empath, and Reiki II practitioner. She assists clients through tarot readings and shamanic journeys at her website, Toria's Tarot or you may contact her by email.