Mabon, September 21: my first creation for the Wheel of the Year project, for the holiday that celebrates the period of rest after harvest, and the autumn equinox. I was a bit frantic when I realized that Mabon was in two days, and if I wanted to start my project I needed to make something without delay. The problem was that I have a strong sense that even though I want to make art now, I shouldn’t force it. Waiting has never been my strong suit, patience not one of my virtues. Yet my intuition tells me though I feel impatient, I need to get to know my new surroundings better before capturing them properly. I spent years building deep knowledge of the Pacific Northwest, becoming so familiar with favourite locations, weather patterns and seasons that this past year I took my camera out every week, sometimes multiple times a week, and succeeded in making something I felt was true to the place I was in. This was a result of countless hours conversing with the landscape. We had an understanding. Now I’m in a foreign-feeling new home. We’ve just greeted each other. England and I don’t yet speak the same language, one I will learn from revisits to delightful discoveries, from watching green shoots sprout between stones steeped with blood and history, then wither, and in turn be subsumed by other green things. My first step is to find some commonalities. I know mountains and wind and trees and the moon and the sun from my home language. I will find those words here and use them to start a new conversation. So although a bit rushed, that’s what I did. I used something I knew from home - trees - and explored these woods for two days before I made these photos yesterday afternoon. I wanted a scene that hearkened the start of fall, with a subtle nod to harvest via my basket of collected rowan berries, and the chestnut trees in the second photo that have been the first to start turning fiery where I am. At the end of our walk we found a field of old fireweed that I will delight in watching bloom next summer.