Viewing posts by Thexalon
This spring equinox, both I and the group I'm a part of have decided to focus on the wonderous Earth Mother in all her glory. Whatever you call her, this time of year is always a great time to think about her amazing beauty, especially as the plants start to wake up, and water, soil, and sun make their magic happen in the form of early spring flowers and seed germinating as we get ready for planting.
We're now in the time that passes for winter in this time of warming climate, so it seems appropriate to focus on what can be experienced huddled indoors. It can get cold and snowy, but there's also clear signs that spring will be coming soon. There is more sunlight each day, which is a symbol of hope for the future. And there is also the possibility of a flame that marks the mental center of your home, marking it as inhabited by the only creature on Earth that can control fire. It is a time of preparation, of readying yourself for the work that will be coming sooner than you think.
It's the season of Yuletide once again, a time of darkness and dreary weather, but also a time of partying inside every home. The harvest is gathered in, and the folk are mostly lounging around eating and staying warm and doing indoor tasks until it's time to get ready to head to the fields again. This is a time of contrasts between the joy inside the hall and the scary darkness outside of it, especially in times and places where street lights and glass windows did not exist. Having walked around in the dark in the winter, it feels like a very foreign environment.
The late fall season is upon us. The last bit of crops have been brought in, I've been busily winterizing my house in preparation for the deep cold of winter, and there is a sense of the world dying as it turns towards darkness. As is typical for modern pagan types, this leads to a focus in this season on our beloved dead and our ancient forebearers. This song started with a moment of insight about how, in the unfortunately many memorials I've attended, the living become stories of our friends, and those stories can gain mythic quality the further from directly being there they get. When you get to hero cults that were popular throughout much of the ancient pagan world, there's a decent chance there was an actual person at the start, and then the fish got bigger in each telling to the point where it was now some giant mythic thing.
Fall equinox is upon us, and this enters my favorite season of the year. It's not too hot, it's not too cold, it's just right for humans to live. This year, as in many years' past, I'll be celebrating the season by focusing on Persephone and her journey to take up her throne in the Underworld at this time of the year, with some inspiration from the Eleusinian Mysteries of the past. And this presents a whole complex of visions of our ancestors and friends dwelling in the lands beyond.