Dear One,
If summer is a metaphor for the fullness of midlife, Summer-Turning-to-Fall (or Lammastide) is a metaphor for the years just past the peak of midlife, similar to the Disseminating Moon phase just past the Full Moon.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the Blessing of the Reaper from my work-in-progress, the Sacred Wheel Oracle. She has much in common with the tarot’s Queen of Swords (the Gaian’s Guardian of Air and the Herbcrafter’s Madre of Air, seen above). On the Wheel of Life, the season of Summer-Turning-to-Fall corresponds to the season of late midlife — roughly the 50s and the 60s.
The Reaper has wisdom for us at any time, no matter our chronological age. We each have an inner Reaper, just like we have an inner Midsummer Queen and an inner Harvest Elder.