Season and Spirit: Magickal Adventures Around the Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of the Year is the engine that drives NeoPagan practice. Explore thw magick of the season beyond the Eight Great Sabbats.

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Last Apple on the Tree

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

Last week I picked the last apple on the tree.

It's been a good year for apples, but my trees are young and small, and the crop was subject to the predations of squirrels and jays. Too many times I would leave an apple to ripe one more day, only to find it the next morning, smashed on the ground, maybe a few bites out of it, swarming with ants. So I grabbed this one, the very last one left, dangling on the very thinnest branch, and was grateful to have it.

I picked it on what I think is the last day of the year with temps in the 90s. The last day where the Summer was still in full force, even as the days were counting down towards the Autumn Equinox and the beginning of Fall.

In the days of transition, from Summer to Autumn, the light gets thicker, the heat gets softer, the air gets sweeter. Things are slowly revealed—the overgrown path becomes clear as the Summer weeds die back, my dreams become more clear and vivid. As the lushness of Summer mellows into something more sustaining and precious, distractions melt away, and we begin to confront the approaching Winter.

At Mabon Autumn begins, bu we are smack in the heart of the harvest, bringing in the crops, seeing our work come to fruition. We have past the celebrations of Lughnasadh, and have not yet arrived at the solemn depths of Hallowstide. We have moved past evaluating what or harvest is to be, and are actively bringing in the gifts of the season. We are witness daily to the turning of the Wheel: the leaves coloring, the clouds dropping cold rain, the flight of the geese as the Earth changes walk across the face of the landscape. These changes happen within us as well, and in this time of transformation, what reveals itself, what are we present to? Our harvests are coming in, so er must be grateful. The winter is coming, so we must be discerning about how we shore up for the coming cold. What shows up for us, in this time just as the Veil begins to thin, is part of the magick we will carry into the dark. If we are lucky and have tended our projects, crops and communities well, there will be more sweet than bitter in the Descent.

 

For myself, I am still weighing everything—many of the seeds I've sown the year have not borne fruit, are still growing—but I am vastly grateful that tomorrow, sitting at my altar, I will have the last apple off my tree, to offer to the Divine.

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Tagged in: Mabon
Leni Hester is a Witch and writer from Denver, Colorado. Her work appears in the Immanion anthologies "Pop Culture Grimoire," "Women's Voices in Magick" and "Manifesting Prosperity". She is a frequent contributor to Witches and Pagans and Sagewoman Magazines.

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