Doing good to others is not a duty, it is a joy,for it increases our own health and happiness.— ZoroasterThe Autumn Equinox is celebrated by cultures and traditions around the world. In some places, this is the Taoist festival honoring the divine principles of Wind, West, and Autumn. Rituals held at this time celebrate the … Read more
Today is the Equinox, taken from the Latin for “equal night.” It is the Autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, and the Spring equinox below the equator. In both cases, today consists of exactly twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness. At 11:45 this morning (Eastern time), the Sun will be directly above … Read more
Peace of Sonoma County © Dana HawleySeptemberHelen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) The goldenrod is yellow;The corn is turning brown;The trees in apple orchardsWith fruit are bending down. The gentian’s bluest fringesAre curling in the sun;In dusty pods the milkweedIts hidden silk has spun. The sedges flaunt their harvest,In every meadow nook;And asters by the brook-sideMake asters … Read more
Chang-O© by the most fabulous Lisa HuntThe garden is very still, It is dazed with moonlight, Contented with perfume, Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies. — Amy Lowell, The Garden by Moonlight In addition to the Eleusinian Mysteries, this week’s Autumn Equinox Full Moon marks the Chinese Moon Festival. Taking place all over … Read more
And I myself will teach my rites, that hereafter you may reverently perform them and so win the favor of my heart.— Hymn to Demeter, attributed to Homer This week’s Full Moon was a powerful one in many, many cultures and traditions. In the ancient world, it is the Moon during which the Eleusinian Mysteries … Read more
In Blackwater Woodsby Mary Oliver Look, the treesare turningtheir own bodiesinto pillars of light,are giving off the richfragrance of cinnamonand fulfillment, the long tapersof cattailsare bursting and floating away overthe blue shoulders of the ponds,and every pond,no matter what itsname is, is nameless now.Every yeareverythingI have ever learned in my lifetimeleads back to this: the … Read more
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core… — John Keats, To Autumn As the season of Samhain fades with the waning light … Read more
The plum tree, dwindling, contains less of the spring;But the garden is wider, and holds more of the moon.— Zen saying Yesterday, I suggested that you consider the wisdom of our Ancestors who observed this as the New Year (instead of at the end of the Saturnalia/Christmas/Hanukkah/Yule revelries). The veil is now at its thinnest, … Read more
You find a flower half-buried in leaves,And in your eye its very fate resides.Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;Soon enough, you’ll sweep petals from the floor. Terrible to love the lovely so,To count your own years, to say “I’m old,”To see a flower half-buried in leavesAnd come face to face with what you are. — … Read more
Do you seek the road to Faeryland?I’ll tell; it’s easy, quite.Wait till a yellow moon gets upO’er purple seas by night,And gilds a shining pathwayThat is sparkling diamond bright. Then, if no evil power be nighTo thwart you, out of spite,And if you know the very wordsTo cast a spell of might,You get upon a … Read more