Tuesday, September 27, 2011

My Equinox Celebration in Pictures

I was up in Asheville this weekend working on our tiny houseSince I was there just a day after the Equinox, I wanted to pour libations and present offerings to Persephone at her Glade.

I offered her some local Asheville beer, the Highland Brewery Octoberfest, Clawhammer. Since craft beer is one of my favorite things, it seems very appropriate for me to offer it to the Goddess.  The autumn seasonal beer was perfect.  I poured most of it out for, her but I certainly had a few sips myself.  I also picked her a small bouquet of purple wildflowers.  I placed the offerings at the base of her statue in the glade.

A really cool black pointy spider had set up shop on the statue as well.  I considered removing her, but somehow she seemed to belong and Persephone didn't seem to mind the company.  I did find out that this kind of spider is called a Spined Micrathena and apparently their are really common. And I just love their name.  Apparently, only the females make webs and all of the ones I seem to walk into with my face are Micrathena webs. 
And to to honor Persephone and the changing season, I wanted to repost this poem

Little girl running
Blonde to her autumn mother
Dancing among the daffodils
Embracing butterflies
Little girl laughing
Springtime laughing

Womanhood come little girl
Blossoming to fullness
Breasts and hips and legs
All full, beautiful
Little girl grown
Summer laughing

Then He come up
Man, misunderstood
Not the mother love
Daughter love
And with him is wed
Autumn laughing

The underworld reached
Little girl becomes queen
Queen of darkness
Last face of sweetness
Little girl is the wise one
Winter laughing

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Autumn in the Air

Even here in Atlanta, I am starting to feel the pull of the seasons. I didn't intend to be away from this blog for so long, but there are just so many other things going on. We have been making a push to finish the Tumbleweed House so it is 100% inhabitable by next Spring.We are also getting ready for our trip to South Africa, which is feel is being looked after by a very different Goddess.  But I still can't deny the beauty of the Autumn Equinox as the time where Persephone descends once again into the Underworld to be with her husband. 

I thought, to honor the turning of the season I would provide a "Greatest Hits" of the past posts on this topic.

Like the song Meet Me on the Equinox by Death Cab for Cutie. Just pretend it isn't tied into the movie Twilight.


There is also the post I did last year on the Equinox.  I had woven a crude crown of orange flowers and placed them on Persephone to honor her return to the Underworld.

And I always do enjoy a good seasonal recipe from the Greek cookbook.

And, last year I also posted this photo I took of Persephone up at the land in Asheville.

And not to mention, the Autumn Equinox marks the two year anniversary of this blog. 

So, Praise Persephone and this changing season. Rejoice in her descent. I leave you with this poem, my favorite by John Keats; To Autumn.

TO AUTUMN.
                                            1.
    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With 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;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
                                            2.
    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
                                            3.
    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.