September Siren Calling...

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

September is a rather seductive month, at first warm and sunny; at night the windows can still be thrown wide open in most parts of the US, and the sounds of the night creatures-crickets, katydids, owls, an occasional barking coyote or bob cat are soothing to  us Nightkind ( meaning those who function better at night, no woo woo stuff implied). As the month progresses, the evenings lengthen and cool, and leaves turn and begin to fall, the flannel PJs come out, and the windows are closed down a bit ( I am hard core about this, because I love open windows and have been known to crack them a bit even in January!)

Around here, we have both a Pumpkin Festival and an Autumn Jamboree. As you can guess, I'm all about Fall Festivals, and I spend a lot of time going to them to get in the mood for the season. Fortunately, most of Appalachia still celebrate its agrarian roots, so we are awash in apple cider, apple and pumpkin butter, pumpkin pie and cake, apple pies and other seasonal treats. The scarecrows and chrysanthemums begin to appear, sunflowers not given up to seed are tucked here and there, and even an occasional early pumpkin makes its appearance.

Ah, Autumn!

And then...There is the sound of the Veil opening. If you are attuned to it, it's a unique sound that begins as a nearly undecipherable thrum increasing in intensity and pitch and is lost in the late October/early November winds. The signs of it are subtle: unexplained gusts of frosty air which clatter the bare bones of tree branches, whirling dervishes of dried leaves around your feet. The is the 
cognizant feeling of not only the end of Summer, but The End, the Great Step we will all face one day...welcome Death. The eternal circle of Life that is the seed coming into fruition, blossoming, and dying. Autumn is the time of gradual winding down to the Great Sleep of Earth and Men. Even animals know this a prepare for the change in seasons with increased eating and thickening coats of fur. Boo the Cat, a ragdoll variety who is already fat and fluffy, becomes gloriously lush this time of year; she grooms for hours, stopping to fix me with wise eyes that seem to say, " We need to cuddle more, the nights are growing long and  cold."


With the windows open less, my space needs refreshing more often, and the way I do this is to make a heavenly potpourri of apple peels, cinnamon sticks and whole cloves boiled in water. I leave a pot on the back of the stove, and find that adding a bit of rum or vodka to the mix preserves it well enough to be saved in a glass jar and stored in the back of the refrigerator for multiple uses. Keep adding water and refreshing the peel, which may mold ( you don't want those spores in the air!), and it will keep throughout the season.

Another thing I do is gather fallen acorns for spell crafts and decorating. I have also made acorn flour from them, but it is very time consuming, and if not done exactly right, is a waste of effort. If you really want acorn flour for yourself, purchase it online from a reliable source such as Amazon-it is very expensive, but the unique nutty flavor should be experienced at least once.Use it in Native American and Korean recipes. My adventures with acorns is limited to using them in magical preparations where the protective properties of oak are needed, and for decorating. Acorns painted with metallic paints are especially attractive ( gently pry the caps off, pain the nut, then glue the natural colored cap back in  place). Or, spraying them with sealer such as Krylon brings out their natural color and gives them shine. Use these nuggets scattered on your altar during the Autumn months, but especially during Mabon and Samhain, to take advantage of the divine energies of Cernunnos and Diana. Acorns are considered a a sacred food in the Otherworld, so leave them in a bowl as an offering.

The unique colors or this time of year can be had by preserving fallen leaves by dipping them in hot liquid wax ( be very careful as burns are common and wax is flammable at high temperatures!) or in a glycerine mixture which can be found here:https://www.todayshomeowner.com/how-to-preserve-fall-leaves-and-branches-with-glycerin/. The preserved leaves/branches can be used to decorate through the Autumn season up to Thanksgiving in November; some work them together with evergreens during the Yule season, too. Leaves can be strung as garlands to hang around your altar, or placed on the altar itself  to represent the dying God and Summer.

I love the scent of burning leaves, but more and more there are burning bans against this practice, so I have found several varieties and brands of candles that make a satisfying substitute, such as Autumn Leaves or Fireside by Yankee Candle, and  Feu du bois  by Diptyque (which smells like burning wood); Goose Creek Candles also has one called Under the Oaks that is slightly sweet. I've found that sandalwood and pine candles burned together give a wonderful vibe.


This is also a great time of the year to start collecting those elusive black candles: Walmart carries them in votive size and eight packs of tea lights for Halloween. Since I use black candles throughout the year, I start buying them as soon as they hit the shelves in September ( don't wait for them to go on sale after Halloween, they're usually gone!) The same goes for any really nice black fabric you may want for decorating or clothing. I actually found a rather nice small, black table runner last year at Dollar Tree, and with the addition of black and dark rainbow beads, it made an outstanding altar cloth for Samhain and my Ancestor Altar.


And so now I will leave you, with September's siren voice calling, to back to my workroom and get on those things to make the season beautiful...remember to listen to the wind. The Veil, too, calls...

Of Signs and Seasons

Well, hello there! You're reading this because-once again-the Christian Fundamentalist wingnuts were wrong about the full moon/supermoon/blood moon being a sign of the end of the world.

But oh how they tried to convince us! John Hagee, the founding pastor of the infamous Cornerstone Church in San Antonio,Texas, authored a book titled Four Blood Moons: Something Is About To Change. In his book, Hagee attempted to forge a link between the full lunar eclipses and the fabled "blood moon" described in the Biblical book of Joel, 2:31:"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come." Hagee has created his own version of  the ancient history/ apocryphal future of Israel as it applies to modern Christianity. Using a theory poised by fellow  pastor Mark Blitiz of El Saddai Ministries, Hagee equates the dates of past lunar eclipses with what he sees as significant historical events in Jewish history. It all looks good on the surface until you do more exploring and delve deeper into the actual written text of the Bible verses they reference, because yes, the two reverends have been cherry-picking the Bible-something those of their ilk has made into a hallmark of their respective faith traditions.

There are several references to the "blood moon" in the Bible, most notably in Revelations, Ezekiel and the Gospel According to Matthew as well as Joel. To be sure, the sight of the moon turning from silver to red and disappearing in the sky would be a frightening sight to the ancients. The phenomenon is still impressive to us today, although the majority of us now approach it from a scientific angle and not one of taboo and superstition. The reasonably intelligent among us know that there is nothing more going on than a particular aspect of orbit between the Earth, Sun and the Moon, and dust particles in the atmosphere. The fallacy of Hagee and Blitz's religious hocus pocus is that the same Bible they quote also states that not only will  the sun and the moon go dark, but  "the stars shall withdraw their shining" (Joel 2:10). The whole thing will be proceeded by a cataclysmic earthquake of a magnitude that not only the Earth, but the heavens will tremble. Ezekiel 32:7-8 is unmistakable in stating this will be a final, Universal Darkness:"...And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD...". Even to a layman, it is obvious there is a vast difference between the phenomena of a lunar eclipse and what is being described in the Book of Ezekiel. Yet Hagee and Blitz have chosen to omit the parts of the text that doesn't fit their agenda.
Once again, an example of cherry picking sacred text and bastardizing it into saying something entirely different than what was intended by the original writers in order to control the masses. The wingnuts have been so insistent they are right this time around that the Elders of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) actually issued a statement telling it's members to carry on as usual because nothing supernatural was going to take place on the Night of the Blood Moon.2015 

Let's move on and change the subject...

The Autumnal Equinox is one of two times during the calendar year when the day and night are of equal portion.This occurs on or around September 21-22; the next day the darkness is slightly longer, and this increases in measure until the Vernal Equinox.( Pretty much all of us know this is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere; that's why the terms September Equinox and March Equinox and becoming popular in some places because it's less generally confusing.) The Agrarian calendar- the calendar of the seasons followed by farmers, also known as the ancient Celtic calendar by some-marks the times of planting and harvesting. The ancient Celtic calendar names three harvests- a grain harvest, a vegetable harvest, and a final harvest that includes the culling of livestock for meat. A majority of practicing Pagans refer to the first harvest as Lughnasadh and the third as Samhain; it's the name of the middle harvest that's a bit problematic to some. It is called different names according to the version of the Wheel of the Year you are using. Harvest Home and Alban Elfed  are but two of many names.

The version of the Wheel of the Year we generally consider most standard refers to it as Mabon, a reference to Mabon the son of Modron from Welsh mythology. Occultist and author Aidan Kelly interjected the name into the calendar in his book Crafting the Art of Magic [1991] so it's use is not as ancient as we supposed...and there is the rub for some who say the name for the holiday is not authentic. It can only be traced back as far as the 1970s, when, I suppose, the early NeoPagan movement needed a word that gave the Sabbat celebration an ancient feel and concept. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, and in fact I don't personally think it is, considering that NeoPaganism is commonly based on the reconstruction of ancient religious traditions. ( I'm probably going to get some argument on this point because some, as always,will disagree...I mean no disrespect...But this is my opinion, and my blog.)

I have an affinity for the song Harvest Home, which I believe fits this time of the year much better than at our American Thanksgiving. I like the old-fashioned image of farmers threshing and gathering in the fields, tying corn into upright shocks," ...All is safely gathered in, ere the Winter storms begin..." So I prefer the name Harvest Home-but I am not married to it. I honestly don't care what we call  the day, because I think it is far more important to celebrate the essence of the season. In NeoPaganism there has been a reoccurring group of individuals who fancy themselves as Craft purists, and their insistence that the rest of us do as they do is nothing short of forcing dogma. This movement surfaces for a time, stirs up a lot of controversy, then settles back into the flow of things. The ripple of disturbance they cause only lasts for little while, until our community finds something else to hammer on.You can't say we aren't a macrocosm of the larger Pop Culture at times. It is so with the dynamics of most groups.

So, I'm going to do this: I'm making up my own holiday that reflects the feel of the season, one that evokes the image of the last of the vegetables being harvested from the garden and farmers baling grains in the fields, and while I'm at it I'm making up a god who changes the colors of the leaves and who is the patron of my holiday. I'm calling it...Autumnus. So, here's hoping all of you have a Blessed Autumnus!

Early One Almost Autumn Morning

This morning I got up before dawn. To be truthful, I am a night person and rarely get to bed at what genteel persons call a civil hour, so being up at dawn for me is notable. I had made a pot of coffee , took a shower, dressed and was sitting on the balcony listening to the gentle rain and bird calls well before the sun came up over the mountain our building backs up to.

The heavy silver mist hung over the buildings and trees like a gossamer veil this early post-Lughnasadh morning. On the way to town yesterday morning, I noticed some round bales of hay in the fields and a few browning leaves, but otherwise the summer isn't ready to let go here. It's been an unseasonably cool summer with a few truly cold nights-not that I mind. The tourism folks tout the " natural air-conditioning" of this part of the Appalachians, and  have christened the nearby town of Bluefield as "Virginia's Tallest Town". If and when it ever gets up around 90 degrees, all the local businesses give away free water and lemonade; they luck out because it seldom does.

The crows were rather active this morning. Their infernal cawing drowned out the songbirds(but not the damned locusts!) They wheeled and swooped over the trees and an abandoned house, sounding off every time one of them was lifted by a thermal; a companion would immediately answer in the distance. They disappeared quickly into the trees when the rain picked up.

I love the smell of rain and wet greenery, and I love to sleep by the sound of rain falling. Nothing kept me from laying down to indulge in this favorite pastime, so I did...and instead of dozing, my mind began to wander...I haven't planned anything special for Mabon, but today I will bake bread, I will strip the husks off the ears of corn I bought for dinner and make corn dollies out of them, I will clean through the apartment and dowse it for 'stuck energy, then smudge everything with sage and sweetgrass...and then, only then, will I feel ready to welcome the coming harvest season. One of my favorite things about living in this part of the country is that we actually do have four distinct seasons; so this will be a Summer Harvest of apples and garden vegetables. In just a few weeks, the whole community will become as much like Norman Rockwell's America as we can muster in a place where a duck walking across the street can cause a traffic jam. On Labor Day weekend, what few railroad workers and coal miners left among the living will celebrated their contribution to local heritage with a march down Center Street, and listened to old-fashioned political stump speeches and then shared a free ham and brown bean dinner. Only in small town America, folks.

Raise the song of Harvest Home! These words have always held special meaning for me, much more so after 20+ years as  Pagan. It's not just the seasonal shift, but the mental one- from urgency and growth to relaxing into who I am and have become. I do 'magickal' things now without the tools and often by second nature. If I'm making an incense or charm for a specific purpose, I will sort through my herbs and stones and mix them intuitively. Upon later examination, I find I have chosen ingredients with the correct correspondences without consulting one of the many books. Kitchen Witch. Hedge Witch. Labels for a reality I now claim without much fuss. I am so used to referring to myself as a Witch now that I will toss the word out in general conversation without much thought that I can shift into my elevator speech about what that means without the other person having enough time to bat an eyelash...and explain it in such a way that it is acceptable. That's one of the beauties of living in Appalachia...We're rather fond of our granny women, root workers, hedge witches and common parlance doctors.

Raise the song of Harvest Home! The leaves have begun to take on color in the cooler nights; right now most of them are a yellowish green, but in a few weeks they'll be orange and red. This afternoon, someone decorated all the telephone poles with corn stalks and big orange bows, and scarecrows are beginning to pop up around town. The grocery stores are stocking field pumpkins to be turned into jack-o-lanterns. Dollar Tree has the largest selection of Halloween merchandise that I've seen in years. Our Summer hasn't been overly hot or humid, but I think we all need the change and to move on. Where has the year gone? Here, to Autumn.

Mabon has always been an awkward holiday for me, sandwiched between Lughnasadh and Samhain as it is. What do we do? We celebrate. At Lughnasadh we celebrate the Harvest; at Mabon we celebrate the turning season and at Samhain we celebrate Life and Death. It is that simple. We celebrate where we are and the fact that we've gotten here at Mabon, sans the mythology. We celebrate change and newness. We know that the time is short and the year is dying around us, but the trees have changed their colors and the nights are crisper, and we feel a certain urgency to complete whatever it is we were doing during Summer so that we can embrace what is coming. The Veil is slowly opening, it's edges billowing toward this world. The wisp of cool air makes us shiver and draw our resolve around us, and we wait for....what we do not know. The beauty of Mabon is not knowing what will happen when the nights begin to lengthen and darkness gathers earlier and earlier.
The beauty of Mabon are the candles we light and the cups of warmth we share. The beauty of Mabon is being suspended between Summer and Winter, of being between the worlds. That is the magick of the season.