My Equinox in Pictures

Action seems to be my mantra.  Don't just "practice" religion, live it.  So, today, on the Spring Equinox I spend the day getting my hands dirty, literally. 

I mentioned in my last post that one of the things that I wanted to get accomplished on this first day of spring was to bottle our newest beer.  I will start off by saying this task did not get completed.  And it was for entirely practical reasons.  We have 8 beers left in our first batch and I need those bottles.  But if you are interested in reading about the eventual progress, don't forget to check out my beer blog.  With that being said, here is the evidence of what I did do today. 

We started our day by heading out to gather our supplies.  We stopped at Whole Foods to get some organic potatoes to be able to plant in our new balcony container garden.  While we were there, we picked up some tilapia, and fresh beans to make for our Spring Equinox dinner (which Matt will be starting shortly).  We will also roast up the remaining fingerling potatoes that we didn't plant.  I also grabbed some cut daffodils to decorate the altar and the house.  Then we stopped by a garden supply store and picked up containers, top soil, fertilizer, a shovel and our plans.  We chose tomatoes, sweet banana peppers, and jalapeno peppers to go with our fingerling potatoes. 

When we got home, I started by putting the flowers on the altar for Persephone.  We also cracked open a beer, which I am sharing with her as well.  It isn't a homebrew, but I still felt it was an appropriate offering. 

Then, Matt and I got to work with our balcony garden. 

Praise to Persephone and may she bless our newly planted green growing things. 

Daffodils, Beer and Potatoes: How I'm celebrating Spring

In spite of the title, this is really nothing to do with St. Patrick's day.  Though I did go out and celebrate on Thursday and enjoyed myself quite a bit.  Beer and Potatoes refer to something all together different.

Last weekend, I was up in Asheville and was excited to see that the daffodils I planted last year had made it through the winter and were beginning to bloom.  The hadn't quite bloomed yet, but I thought they were beautiful. I can't wait to go back next week and see the flowers.

But this weekend, we're in Atlanta.  Today, we are going out with friends to see the Atlanta Roller Derby. It seems like a great way to celebrate the return of the Goddess. Tomorrow, on the day of the equinox, I am going to bottle my newest beer, an ESB.  Matt also wants to start container gardening on our little apartment balcony. I know he wants to grow potatoes and poblano peppers and I think something else too but I don't remember what.  I also want to get some flowers to decorate Persephone's altar. 

I also keep reading about the Supermoon.  I've never been a very lunar oriented Pagan, but it is still always cool to see a gorgeous moon in the sky on the first night of Spring.

So, on this Equinox I encourage you to get out there.  Go outside.  Revel in the new Spring.  Revel in the return of the Goddess.  You can read your hymns and say your prayers, but don't stop there.  Do something.  It doesn't have to be bottling beer or planting potatoes, but it shouldn't just be nothing either.  Persephone is returning.  Rejoice.

First Days of Spring

I am counting down to the Spring Equinox and the return of Persephone. I was recently introduced to this song and I think it is perfect. I don't know whether it is Persephone or Hades I hear in the lyrics. 

It's the first day of spring
And my life is starting over again
Well the trees grow, the river flows
And its water will wash away my sin
For I do believe that everyone
has one chance to fuck up their lives
Like a cut down tree, I will rise again
I'll be bigger, and stronger than ever before

If I'm still here hoping, that one day you may come back
If I'm still here hoping, that one day you may come back

There's a hope in every new seed
And every flower that grows on the Earth
And though I love you, and you know that
Well I no longer know what that's worth
And I'll come back to you, in a year or so
And rebuild ready to become
Oh the person, you believed in
Or the person that you used to love

If I'm still here hoping, that one day you may come back
If I'm still here hoping, that one day you may come back

Who Am I?

Recently, I completed a project where I was exploring the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in the style of Lectio Divina. I use to fall back on that project when I hadn't had any other original ideas for writing. Without that discipline, sometimes I feel like I am not sure what to share. I thought it would be an interesting exercise on this blog to explore some of the things that make up who I am exactly.  There are a lot of things in my life that make me uniquely me - just as they are a lot of things in each of your lives that accomplish the same thing.  We are each made up of multiple decisions.  These things create the core of our beings.  They create our essence.  Occasionally, we rethink and reconsider the decisions and processes that brought us to a certain place and we make a course correction, but there are some things that make up the core of our beings.

These life influences can come from a lot of difference places.  It can be music that touches our souls, people who have made a difference in our lives, books that changed the way we think, and places that we call home. I want to inventory some of these things in my life and the turning points they brought about and why they make me feel like they do.

Among the things that I will be exploring will be:

• Being from Detroit
• Living in Atlanta
• Loving Asheville
• How the Musical Les Miserables influenced me
• The Last Unicorn book and movie
• Watership Down
• Music that inspires me
• Building a Tiny House
• Loving and Brewing Beer
• Traveling to Ireland and Italy
• My Partner
• My Sphynx Cat, Piglet
• Persephone

There may be more things that hit me as I explore my own path.  Join me on this journey and I hope it makes you consider the places you've been, the things you love and the things you've done.

The Promise of Spring

There is so much to love about March.  Of course this is the month of Persephone's return and the flowers rejoice and bloom to welcome her.  It is also the national holiday to celebrate beer and all things Irish. I understand that some folks are less than pleased to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but I do not share that perspective. For me, March 17th is all about beer and Irish pride and since I like both of those things I will happily co-opt this Catholic holy day that most people don't even realize is a Catholic holy day. 

That is just the first of things that March delivers.  The second most notable event is the Spring Equinox itself.  Last year, I was able to celebrate the return of Persephone at the glade that I built for her.  My friend and I planted daffodils in her honor and read hymns and poured libations of beer.  I was so excited when I was back at the glade about a week and a half ago and saw that the green shoots of the daffodils were reborn this year. I will be able to visit the glad this coming weekend and am beside myself with anticipation to see if the flowers have bloomed. Persephone's return means a burst of energy.  Every year at this time I feel tingle of this new spring energy all over my body and it makes me want to accomplish something. 

There is one last day in March that is special to me.  My birthday, March 29th. Not only is it Persephone's return every year but I also know that within just a few days of her return I can also celebrate another year in my own life.  I can reflect on all that I have done in the past year and consider all the things I can accomplish in the year ahead. 

What kind of renewal is this spring bringing to you?  What will you celebrate?  What will you plant?  What will you cultivate? 

29. Hymn to Persephone Translation by Apostolos N. Athanassakis

Persephone, blessed daughter of great  Zeus, sole offspring of Demeter,
Come and accept this gracious sacrifice.
Much-honored spouse of Plouton, discreet and life-giving,
You command the gates of Hades in the bowels of the earth,
Lovely-tressed, Praxidike, pure bloom of Deo, mother of the Furies,
Queen of the netherworld whom Zeus sired in clandestine union.
Mother of loud-roaring and many shaped Eubouleus,
Radiant and luminous playmate of the Seasons, august, almighty,
Maiden rich in fruits, you alone are beloved of mortals.
In spring you rejoice in the meadow breezes,
And you show your holy figure in shoots and green fruits.
You were made a kidnapper's bride in the fall,
And you alone are life and death to toiling mortals,
O Persephone, for you always nourish all and kill them too.
Hearken, O blessed goddess, and send forth the earth's fruits.
You who blossom in peace, in soft-handed health,
And in a life of plenty that ferries old age in comfort to your realm,
O queen, and to that of mighty Plouton.

So, Seriously. I'm not a teenage girl.

However, if you look at some of the fiction I read you might think so.  I am currently reading the newest Rick Riordan Olympians book, The Lost Hero. I've written about the Percy Jackson series and the movie here before. Honestly, I didn't know there was a new Olympians book, but I am glad he wrote it.  And I like his particular take on the mythology, too.  I do plan to write a more formal review over at the Juggler once I finish reading it. 

I don't want you to think I don't take my religion seriously, because I do.  But I also think there is a place for a bit of whimsy.  I thought to myself if I had been a teenager who discovered that I was a demigod and sent to Camp Half Blood, who's child would I be?  Being a devotee of Persephone I first thought of her, but my image of her is defined so much by her childless status that I don't want to imagine that she's had any demigod children.

And that led me to Demeter.  In the books she is painted as a little one dimensional, at least so far, but Riordan has a way of turning your preconceived notions on their heads as you read the series.  This is why I think they are such a great primer of Greek myths for kids.  I have a feeling this may yet be explored.  She is the overbearing mother of Persephone, which is not untrue.  Her children are good with plants and food and cooking. This may not describe me perfectly, but I am good at recipes.  I can make beer. This is definitely in Demeter's realm.  I love the seasons, which she brings to us.  And that would make me Persephone's sister, which feels more like the devotional relationship I have with her anyway.  She is not my mother, but my mentor. I look up to her and I want to be more like her. 

I would proudly be a child of Demeter. 

Seasonal Play List

I have said over and over again, the thing that pulls me toward Persephone is the sense of wonder I get with the turning of the seasons.  Today, in Atlanta, it will be 70 degrees in February. That isn't normal, but it is wonderful and I plan to be outside all day long.  I understand the science of the seasons, but that doesn't stop me from experiencing the beauty of them as they cycle through each year without fail.

I decided to put together a Seasonal Play List.  These are 4 songs for each season that aren't specifically about honoring Persephone but do honor the feelings that each season brings to me which in turn honors Persephone.

Since spring is just around the corner, I want to start there.

Spring

Southland in the Springtime by Indigo Girls
I've written about this before, so you can just click the link if you want to read why this song is so important to me.  When God made me born a Yankee, she was teasing.

Poets by The Tragically Hip
I wrote about the album that this song was on, but not about this song specifically.  There is something about it that just makes me feel alive with springtime energy. 

Beautiful Day by U2
This is not my favorite U2 song, but I can't deny it's spring flavor.

The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground
But there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck and you're not movin' anywhere
You thought you’d found a friend to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace

It's a beautiful day,
The sky falls and you feel like
It's a beautiful day,
Don’t let it get away

Celtic Spring by Van Morrison
I never thought I liked Van Morrison.  And I still don't like "Brown Eyed Girl".  But then I heard the song "Into the Mystic" and understood his genius.  His songs are often seasonal and spiritual.  Celtic Spring is no exception.

Wanna dance by you by the light of the moon
I wanna see you there on a bright afternoon
I wanna sing my song, won't you play me the tune
In the regions again

In the Celtic Spring
In the Celtic Spring
Won't you come and go

 Summer

June Hymn by The Decemberists
This is a band new song on the brand new album The King is Dead. I love it.  I love every note and every lyric.  It makes me want to lay back and feel the summer sweep over me. 


Summer's Cauldron by XTC
This band is one of my favorites.  I think they are underrated.  

Trees are dancing drunk with nectar, grass is waving underwater
Please don't pull me out, this is how I would want to go
Insect bomber Buddhist droning, copper chord of August's organ
Please don't heed my shout, I'm relaxing the undertow

Island in the Sun by Wheezer
You may notice a trend when it comes to my summer song choices. I like that lazy feeling of summer.  Sit back, relax, and just let the summer happen. Plus, the video has a kitten. You can never go wrong with a kitten.

Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers
But I can't help but think about how summer comes because of the ultimate sacrifice.  Persephone returns so we can enjoy the sunshine, but she leaves behind her husband and King.  This song is for Hades.

Autumn

Meet Me On The Equinox by Death Cab for Cutie
The only negative thing I can say about this song is that it comes from a movie about sparkly vampires.  

Meet me on the Equinox
Meet me half way
When the sun is perched at its highest peek
In the middle of the day

Let me give my love to you
Let me take your hand
As we walk in the dimming light
Or darling understand

Autumn Almanac by The Kinks

Friday evenings, people get together,
Hiding from the weather.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun,
Because the summer's all gone. 

Moondance by Van Morrison
A little song for Samhain.

And all the leaves on the trees are fallin'
To the sound of the breezes that blow
An' I'm trying to please to the callin'
Of your heart strings that play soft and low

And all the nights magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?
Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?

September Morn by Neil Diamond
Is it a "Guilty Pleasure" when you post about it on the Internet?  Okay, I have a soft spot in m heart for Neil Diamond.  Once I get past the creepy old man feeling.  But this song is a lovely tribute to Autumn love, like when Hades and Persephone are reunited at the equinox. 

Winter

Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel
I have to be a purist and say that the only version anyone should concern themselves with is the original, not the Bangles version from the 80s.  I think this song really brings that sense of seasonal transition.  The leaves are brown and fall has just passed us, the snow is just beginning to fall.  I don't know that it gets much better than Simon and Garfunkel.

Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
This song isn't so much about winter as it is the feeling that winter gives me.  Hades and Persephone know that through this dark season they will once again be separated.  Even Hades makes a sacrifice for the good of all people. 

Winter by Tori Amos
This is probably my favorite song of all time.

When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

Winter Song by Crash Test Dummies
I know a lot of people hate Crash Test Dummies. I am not one of those people. I especially love their first album, The Ghosts that Haunt Me which is where this song comes from.  I like the nostalgic feeling I get when I listen to this song. 

And there you have it, my seasonal playlist.  Some songs for Persephone, some songs about Persephone and some songs that just make me feel the sense of wonder about each season as the wheel of the year keeps turning.