There is a profound intelligence at work in the garden during the final, golden hours of summer.

But recently, my lens and my heart were pulled toward a quieter, more sacred interaction, a moment of deep shamanic medicine delivered by a beautiful visitor.

 

The vivid greens of her body blended so flawlessly with the leaves of the rose bush that she was completely invisible at a casual glance.

 

You wouldn’t notice her until you stopped and looked a little more carefully, a detail I am so excited to share in a video snippet of the encounter.

As I zoomed in with my camera, capturing screenshots from the footage, I caught a moment that took my breath away. Her tiny eyes turned, looking right into mine. In that brief pause, there was an unmistakable, ancient intelligence looking back at me. It wasn’t just an insect on a bush; it was a deeply conscious soul-to-soul connection.

Far from a weapon, this anatomical marvel is her egg-laying tool, used to gently insert the seeds of the next generation into plant stems or soil.

 

 

What struck me most was her behavior. This green matriarch was not nibbling on the fresh, vibrant rosebud still clinging to the stock. Instead, she was consciously feeding on the most faded, decaying, and dying rose on the bush.

From a shamanic perspective, this is a profound teaching on the sacred cycle of death and rebirth. The Katydid did not see decay as a failure; she saw it as nourishment.

In the medicine of the earth, the “dead” phases of our lives are not empty time. They are rich, fertile ground. By consuming the faded bloom, she honored the completion of a cycle. She reminded me that before we can give birth to the new, we must fully digest, honor, and integrate what has passed.

This encounter felt like a cosmic marker of fruition. Sometimes, our intentions and manifestations undergo a long, unseen period of gestation. They are real, they are alive, but they exist in the subtle realms before they fully anchor into our three-dimensional reality.

 

The female katydid, with her prominent ovipositor, is the ultimate archetype of this gestational wisdom. She does not rush the spring; she prepares her eggs to weather the coming winter.

 

Following her departure, I felt a strong intuitive nudge to complete the ritual. I pruned the two remaining stocks, clearing away the old to make space for what is to come. I brought the roses inside as a sacred offering to Hermes, the deity to whom I am most deeply connected.

As the god of the crossroads, the liminal spaces, and the guide of souls through transitions, Hermes is the perfect witness to this moment. He is the master of alchemy, moving fluidly between the visible world and the underworld of the unseen.

Placing the faded roses on his altar felt like a physical acknowledgment of a threshold crossed. What seemed like a dead end was actually a message of transformation.

 

It is a living testament to the fact that when we honor the endings, life immediately begins to reorganize itself toward a beautiful new beginning.

As the weather cools and we approach the milestone of this year-long journey, I carry the Katydid’s medicine and Hermes’ guidance close to my heart: trust the timing, honor the decay, and know that new life is always brewing just beneath the surface.