Tag: Autumnal Equinox

The Wicca Book of Days for Wednesday, November 11th – Peace and Remembrance

Veteran's Day Comments
November 11th

Peace and Remembrance

 

This is the original cross-quarter day between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice. It is known as Martinmas, after St. Martin, and is observed with a traditional meal of salted(or preserved) food. Peace vigils are held at 11:11 AM to commemorate the 1918 for or meditate on peace on earth. The numerological significance of 11/11 is particularly powerful, since 11 is a “master number,” signifying both good and evil, while the combined numerals give a key of 4, representing the earth, the seasons and the phases of the moon.

 

Tune In

Harness today’s numerological power by meditating on peace throughout the world. Women should invoke the planets Pluto and Neptune, the element of water and the darkness and silence of the night to connect with the inner goddess, men should focus on their anima or feminine side.

 

 

The Wicca Book of Days
Observances, Traditions, and Lore for Every Day of the Year

Selena Eilidh Ash

 

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Your Daily Planet Tracker: Sun in Libra, Now Until October 23, 2015

Planet Tracker

Sun in Libra

Now Until October 23, 2015

 

Libra, the Scales, is the sign of the Autumnal Equinox. It marks the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere, arriving at the moment when the nights become longer than the days. This is not a time of turning away from the world. It is, rather, a period when relationships take on greater importance. Perhaps it is the lengthening night that reminds us of our dependency on one another and puts the focus on partnerships.

Socially sensitive
Ideally, Libra represents the dynamic balance of a healthy couple. This sign includes the principles of fairness, diplomacy and the recognition of others as equals. Librans, therefore, are very socially sensitive. They notice who is getting his or her share and who isn’t. They understand the role of give and take in the creation of harmonious communities.The desire for peace, though, can be so strong that honest communication becomes stifled. It is vital that we remember that moments of challenge and conflict are sometimes necessary for relationships to grow.

Venus-ruled Libra is traditionally associated with a sense of beauty and good taste. This is a period in which we benefit by paying more attention to how we are affected by our environment. It’s a good time for making your home or workplace more attractive. Outer harmony supports inner peace.

Libran battles
Libra has a sense of justice that can lead to non-violent political activism as expressed by Mohandas Gandhi, Lech Walesa, Jimmy Carter, Eleanor Roosevelt or Jesse Jackson. There are, too, more acerbic Librans, ranging from Oscar Wilde, John Lennon and Lenny Bruce to Janeane Garofalo, Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

Famous Libra singer-songwriters are Sting, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Paul Simon and Will Smith. Many Libra actresses are doing well these days, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenna Elfman, Mira Sorvino, Neve Campbell, Alicia Silverstone, Joan Cusack and Kate Winslet. Matt Damon is another Libra who is prospering in the movie business. There are even two double Libra movie couples: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

The world of sports has Librans Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Mark McGwire and Evander Holyfield. Barbara Walters, Anne Rice, Sarah Ferguson and Luciano Pavarotti are other celebrities born under this sign.

 

@Tarot.com is a Daily Insight Group Site

Equal Light & Equal Darkness

Autumn Comments & Graphics
Equal Light & Equal Darkness

“In late September, the sun crosses the celestial equator and there is a day where the length of the day and night are approximately equal. These days are called equinoxes, from the Latin meaning “equal night.” The autumnal equinox marks one of the lesser Sabbats, called Mabon, occurring around September twenty-second or twenty-third. Astrologically, this is when the sun moves into Libra. This holiday is the second harvest festival, falling during or at the end of the European grain harvest. It also known as the wine harvest, and often marks the beginning of hunting season. In one old Craft tradition, the fall equinox was named “the Night of the Hunter” and farmers would slaughter livestock too weak to survive the winter on this night. Druids know this celebration as “Mea’n Fo’mhair” and honor the Green Man, God of the Forest, and his trees with poured offerings of ciders and wine. Norse pagans celebrate this time as Winter Finding, a time period that runs from the Sabbat until October 15th. This night is known as Winter’s Night and is the Norse New Year. The Wiccan New Year is also approaching at October’s end. It is known the ancient Mayans observed this date as well. At the pyramid at Cihickén Itzá, seven triangles of light fall on the pyramid’s staircase on this date only. In Japan, there is a six-day celebration around the equinox. This holiday is to honor Higan-e, the “other shore” and is based on six “perfections”: giving, observance of the precepts, perseverance, effort, meditation and wisdom. By this time of the year, the days are visibly waning, the temperatures begin to cool and it is time to start preparing for winter. Many people like to refresh their altar(s) for this time, adding elements in autumn colors (orange, brown, gold, dark reds, rust) like acorns, pine cones, leaves, dried plants and herbs, apples, pomegranates, ivy and horns of plenty.”

– Rae Schwarz, Fall Equinox

General Preparations for Autumnal Equinox Celebration (Mabon, Late Summer Harvest Feast)


Mabon Comments & Graphics

General Preparations for Autumnal Equinox Celebration

(Mabon, Late Summer Harvest Feast)

The Green Man, and the Powers of Summer, must give way, must be offered up in sacrifice, must willingly die, must be released at Mabon.  Do some reading and research on The Green Man (Powers of Spring and Summer): Bibliography, Links, Quotes, Information, Lore, Myths, Role.  We must give something to get something.  Autumn brings up themes of aging, disease, dying, death, releasing, letting go, sunset, sinking into the depths of the watery realm of the Ancestors.

Thoroughly clean, dust, tidy up, refreshen, improve, and add appropriate seasonal decorations to your home altar.  This should normally be clean and tidy, however an extra cleaning before the autumn equinox celebration is a way to express your reverence, create a visible reminder of your thoughts and devotional practices, and to offer hospitality to the nature spirits, ancestors, and Shining Ones. If you don’t have a home altar, read some books and webpages about setting one up in your home or garden, and then establish one this holiday season.

Working and meditating in the garden is an important facet of my spiritual path.  I need to regularly reconnect with the earth and the autumn season outdoors. I live in Red Bluff, California, USDA Zone 9, Northern Hemisphere.  My late September gardening chores might be quite different from yours, depending upon where you live.  Tend your garden daily.  Water your garden each day.  Weed your vegetable garden.  Harvest squash, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables from your garden each day.  Review your own lists of chores for August and September, and act accordingly.

Read about Mabon, Alban Elfed, the Autumnal Equinox Celebration, and late-summer harvest celebrations around the world.  Add notes and links to books, magazines, and webpages on the subject. Visit your local public library or college library to obtain access to books, media and magazines on the subject.  Study about ancient Indo-European religions.  I research and update my Months webpages on both September and October.

Read solitary or group rites for Mabon available in books and webpages.  Create your own ritual for Mabon.  Practice the ritual.  Conduct the ritual at a convenient time for you, or your family and/or friends, as close to the day of the autumnal equinox as possible.  Attend a public Mabon ritual of a local NeoPagan group.

Make a Apple Bell Wand, the Apple Branch, using a branch from an apple tree and bells and coins tied to the branchlets.  This apple branch wand is used to cheer up and praise the Fairies and other Nature Spirits.  Keep the branch in the dark wrapped in a cloth when not in use.  Bells, colored cloth, and meaningful trinkets are tied to the apple wand.  Words are carved into the apple branch using rare alphabets, e.g., ogham or runic. Bring the Apple Branch out at sunset or dawn on the autumnal equinox, or at other times, and shake the branch so as to honor, encourage, or request favors of the Fairies.  Read about this in: The Mysteries of Druidry: Celtic Mysticism, Theory and Practice, by Brendan Cathbad Myers, pp. 109-111.  Some cut willow wands.

Harvest and preserve some fruit, vegeatables, seeds, or herbs.  Preserve by drying, canning, or storing in jars.  Gather acorns, nuts, seeds, pinecones, and other autumn seeds.

Add some appropriate Mabon, Alban Elfed, Autumnal Equinox, or September songs, chants, prayers, reflections, invocations, or poems to your Neo-Pagan Craft Journal, Book of Shadows, blog, website, or Ritual Handbook.  Write in your personal journal.  Most spiritual seekers keep a notebook, journal or log as part of their experimental, creative, magical and experiential work.

Stay at home.  Improve your home, backyard, or garden.  Eliminate long driving trips.  Do you really need to “Go” anywhere?  Do you really need to fly by airplane to another country?  Explore your backyard, neighborhood, local community, nearby city, county wide area, regional area within 100 miles.  Visit a local “sacred site.”  For us, for example, this could be Mt. Shasta, the headwaters spring of the Sacramento River in Mt. Shasta City, the Sacramento River at Woodson Bridge Park, a long walk in the forest below nearby Mt. Lassen, sitting on the shore of Whiskeytown Lake, sitting in my backyard in the moonlight, or visiting a beautiful church or college or park that is nearby.  Watch a DVD on a spiritual subject, sacred place, or inspirational topic.  Learn more about your local environment.

Ask yourself these questions in the month of September:
What is your personal harvest from self-improvement resolutions planted last spring?
In what specific and creative ways can you honor the productivity of Mother Earth?
What is something new that you produced in the last six months?
How can you best celebrate your productive efforts during the year?
How have others helped you to be more creative?
How can you best celebrate the autumnal equinox holiday?

 

 

Source:

Egreenway.com

 

Mabon to Samhain

Mabon Comments & Graphics

Mabon to Samhain

Wiccans and Witches observe the autumnal equinox with a lesser sabbat that many call Mabon. The day and night may briefly be of equal length, but from now on the hours of darkness will grow steadily longer, with the signs of natural life fading a pace. With harvest over, the Goddess of the Waning Moon now descends to the Otherworld, where she will reign alongside the Horned God, who has battled hideous being in his quest to become Lord of Death.

—The Wicca Book of Days
Selena Eilidh Ash

Astrological New Year

Astrological New Year

A bright new cycle begins with Spring Equinox

Maria DeSimone  Maria DeSimone on the topics of spring equinox, new year, astrology, aries

Happy New Year! Oh wait, wasn’t that in January? Well, sort of. According to the Gregorian calendar, the beginning of an actual new year does fall on January 1. Astrologically, however, the New Year is a rather different concept, and it does not begin until the Spring Equinox on March 20. Those astrologers — they just love to complicate things!

But wait. Before you resign yourself to confusion about when to pop the champagne, why not consider the rich symbolism behind Astrological New Year and what it means.

Now think about the word “equinox.” It literally translates as “equal night.” There are two periods each year when the length of daylight hours is equal to the length of time with no sunlight. This will happen at the Autumnal Equinox (or first day of autumn) and again at the Vernal or Spring Equinox (first day of spring).

At the Spring Equinox the day and night are equal in length, but the daylight hours are beginning to soar. From the moment of the Spring Equinox until the Autumnal Equinox there will be more and more time for us to spend basking in the rays of the Sun. That can only mean one thing: new life.

Everything on our planet and in our hearts is once again encouraged to sprout. Something almost sacred is resurrected in our collective spirits and we tend to feel a dynamic urge to begin again with a fresh, perspective.

New beginnings with the Sun in Aries

How appropriate that we feel this way, because the first day of spring also happens to coincide with the ingress of the Sun into Aries, the first sign of the zodiac. Aries is all about beginnings. This is the sign of the pioneer, the entrepreneur, the self-starter. In many ways this is the baby of the zodiac because Aries is classic tabula rasa (Latin for clean slate).

The traditional New Year celebrated on January 1 might be the start of our new calendar year, and it does tend to have that same feel of new beginnings. Still, have you ever noticed how fleeting it is? Within a week or so we’re all back to our daily grind. January is, after all, the month of hardworking Capricorn.

However, if you pay attention to the energy around the Astrological New Year each spring, you may notice something different. There’s a pungent smell of possibility in the air and it lingers. Everything old has been washed away and we’re busy planting seeds of new beginnings everywhere (along with our flower and vegetable gardens).

This is what “spring fever” is all about! The restless energy we feel that haunts students everywhere is because now that the Sun is out the LAST place they want to be is cooped up inside a classroom. These psychological and physical urges have been documented at this time of year and often bring an increase in vitality — and even your sex drive! Not surprising when you consider that Aries is the sign ruled by passionate, assertive Mars.

It’s time to get out there…

The Seasons, 2014

The  Seasons, 2014
 
Vernal Equinox  (Spring begins) March 20th at 11:57 morning.
Sun on Equator,  crosses the line North, enters the sign of Aries.
 
Summer Solstice  (Summer begins) June 21st at 5:49 morning.
Sun Runs High, at  Northern tropic (turn), enters the sign of Crabba.
 
Autumnal Equinox  (Fall begins) September 22nd at 9:28 evening.
Sun on Equator,  crosses the line South, enters the sign of Libra.
 
Winter Solstice  (Winter begins) December 21st at 6:01 evening.
Sun Rides Low, at  Southern tropic (turn), enters the sign of Capricorn.
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The year is divided into  four seasons;
  The first season is  of a frigid complexion, and this is “Winter”;
The second is of the  complexion of Air, and this is “Spring”;
  Then follows the  third, which is “Summer”, and is of the complexion of Fire;
Lastly, there is the  fourth, wherein fruits are matured, which is “Autumn”.
~The Turba Philosophorum,  ca. 12 century.
Straight from
GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast