I have fallen a little behind with my Art Cards for the Turning Year.
But perhaps “fallen behind” isn’t quite the right way of putting it.
When I began this practice, I never wanted it to become another set of deadlines or another list of things I had failed to keep up with. The idea was to use the turning points of the year — moons, seasonal festivals and personal markers — as opportunities to stop, notice and make.
And sometimes you are simply too busy living a season to document it while it is happening.
That has definitely been true of the last few weeks.
So I have returned to four markers from the end of July and beginning of August and made their cards together. Looking at them now, they feel less like four separate moments and more like one little chapter:
The path continues.
I am still growing.
I notice what is abundant.
Let the quiet return.
28 July — 50
The first isn’t a moon or a traditional festival at all. It is one of my own markers.
On 28 July I turned fifty.
I had been thinking about this birthday for such a long time that it had started to feel almost like a destination. There were things I wanted to have achieved by fifty, things I wanted to have made, ways I thought I ought to look or feel.
And then I realised something incredibly simple:
Fifty isn’t a finish line. It’s a marker along the way.
So I painted a landscape.
A path winds through it towards a huge golden sun, and beside the path is a small stone marked 50.
The path doesn’t stop there.
It carries on.
Intention: I honour how far I’ve come, and keep following the path.
Practice: Take a few quiet minutes to look backwards and forwards. Write down five things from your journey so far that you want to carry with you, and one thing you are curious about discovering on the road ahead. Not a goal or a resolution — simply something you want to remain open to.
29 July — Buck Moon
The following day brought the full Buck Moon.
The name comes from the new antler growth of male deer at this time of year, and once I started thinking about that I knew exactly what I wanted to draw.
A buck stands quietly in front of an enormous full moon, his new antlers branching upwards.
Coming immediately after my fiftieth birthday card, he seemed to say something I needed reminding of.
Growing isn’t something we do only when we’re young.
There is no point at which we become the finished version of ourselves.
Intention: I am still growing.
Practice: Notice one place in your life where something is quietly growing — an idea, a skill, a relationship, confidence, a habit or a creative direction. Give it a little attention without demanding that it becomes anything yet. Name it, write about it or sketch it. Simply acknowledge that it is there.
1 August — Lughnasadh / Lammas
At the beginning of August comes the traditional first harvest festival of Lughnasadh, also associated with Lammas.
My card became two open, cupped hands holding a sunflower.
Initially I had been thinking about harvest in the obvious sense — grain, wheat, fields and late-summer abundance — but while making the card I found myself thinking much more about receiving.
This summer has been extraordinarily full.
There have been people and journeys, family and friendship, making and celebrating. My fiftieth birthday became not simply a day but a whole period of gatherings and conversations and people showing up.
Perhaps a harvest doesn’t always mean something we have produced.
Sometimes it is recognising what has grown around us and what life has placed into our hands.
Intention: I notice what is abundant.
Practice: Make a small inventory of your own harvest. Not achievements, but things life has given you lately: people, conversations, experiences, places, things you’ve learned, moments you’ve enjoyed. Choose one and mark it with a tiny act of gratitude.
12 August — New Moon, Eclipse and Perseids
And then, finally, darkness.
On 12 August the new moon coincided with a solar eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
My final card is almost entirely deep blue and black: a dark circle surrounded by the pale rays of the eclipsed sun, with stars and meteors crossing the darkness around it.
It feels very different from the blazing sunlight of the first card.
And that is exactly where I have found myself.
After weeks of celebration and movement and people and plans, things have finally become quiet again.
The decorations have come down. Things have been put away. The house is returning to normal.
And I don’t feel that I need to immediately fill the space that’s appeared.
Intention: Let the quiet return.
Practice: Do nothing for ten minutes. No phone, making, planning, tidying, catching up or deciding what comes next. Sit outside, beside an open window or somewhere comfortable. Notice the sounds, the light, the temperature and your thoughts. You don’t have to turn any of it into something.
Sometimes the living comes first
Perhaps that is the thing these four cards have taught me.
I didn’t make them on their proper dates.
I was busy.
I was living the things that eventually became their meaning.
Had I made my birthday card on the morning I turned fifty, I don’t think I could have known quite what that marker would feel like from this side of it.
Had I made the harvest card on 1 August, I couldn’t yet have seen quite how abundant this summer would become.
And perhaps I needed the noise before I could understand the quiet.
So I am going to resist calling these cards “late”.
They arrived when I had enough distance to understand what I wanted them to say.
The turning year isn’t a timetable.
It’s a practice of noticing.
And sometimes we notice while something is happening.
Sometimes we have to live it first.
Ena Green Designs 