PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Sorry about the lack of posts this month!  I've been working a lot of extra hours at my day job and then I was busy with Sabbat celebrations.  In that spirit, I thought I would share a couple of Autumn Equinox related recipes from my personal formulary.

Apothecary by Sable Aradia. Copyright (c) 2015. All rights reserved.

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds.”
― Bob Marley

"Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
― Adrienne Rich

The chart of the Autumn Equinox will resonate until sometime around the Winter Solstice. The equinoxes are always points of balance, and this chart emphasizes that we are at a tipping point — globally, nationally, locally and personally. Change is in the air, and decisions we make now will have long-term repercussions. Fortunately, this chart offers much-needed inspiration, energy and opportunities to improve our connections with others. We are heading into a challenging Winter — but we will be given the opportunities and wherewithal to make a difference. Thoughtful, skilled use of the cosmic tides of energy and change will help us steer ourselves and our world toward a better future.

I expect that most of my readers do magic, meditate, pray, or have some spiritual practice they engage in regularly. There’s plenty of energy to light a fire under your practice in this chart, and I hope you will use it, because the world needs all the positive vibes we can send it right now. There are deeply destructive forces — patterns of thought and emotion — that have woven themselves tightly into the fabric of our culture, and it will require clear, focused work on the energetic/astral/magical levels by those who are capable of it to unravel and re-weave ourselves into a strong, sustainable, global society.

I moved to Ireland at autumn equinox in 2001. Autumn Equinox is inextricably wedded to migration as I remember the fourteen hour journey - three trains, a ferry and a car ride -that was the emigrant trail for me and our Household Goddess Sophie, our beloved and ancient tortoiseshell cat.  At dusk on September 21st  Tony's brother drove down the last road to our rental property. I was arriving sight unseen, since Tony had brought the dogs over the previous week.  The sphinx like profile of the Playbank hove into view and I was completely enchanted. That mountain has never let me go.

the Harvest Home altar at Mother Grove Goddess Temple's public ritual

The equinoxes have been marked across the British Isles since the earliest times as agricultural markers, revealing the times of seed sowing and crop reaping as well as honouring the patterns of growth and decrease in our lives. In Ireland the Neolithic burial complex at Loughcrew known as Sliabh na Callighe of  'the hills of the veiled one' contains many astronomical alignments, and the interior of one of its structures, known as Cairn T is illuminated by the equinox sunrise, revealing spectacular designs carved into the rock over five thousand of years ago.  Archaeology reveals that Loughcrew has been a place of ritual and ceremony at the equinoxes for much of that time, a tradition that has been revived enthusiastically in the modern era, the footsteps of the pilgrims today walking the same paths as the ancestors thousands of years ago.

Another lesser known ancient place aligned to the equinoxes is West Kennet Longbarrow, part of the Avebury sacred complex, now a UNESCO world heritage site. I've spent many a night here, in communion with the ancestors, and to me this is a place where the barrow forms a recumbent goddess, receiving the spirits of the dead to return their spirits to life in the spring. 

As the last of the summer fades away I always look forward to the autumn ahead as a time of real sensual delight. In this the first of a series of blogs from me celebrating my favourite season I look at how to make it relevant to you, no matter where you live, and whatever your spiritual path.   

Autumn is a time of rich abundance. The freshening air after a long summer can reinvigorate us, and encourage a more wistful, reflective state of mind that can help us develop our awareness to a deeper level. The scents of wood smoke and ripe apples waft over the countryside. The leaves begin to turn from green to golden, and the berries ripen on the branches in purples and scarlet making this a delicious, sensual time of year. A good opportunity to tune in to our wisdom of our bodies.

The Autumnal equinox is just around the corner  for us in the Southern Hemisphere.  It is the mid harvest festival on the Pagan seasonal wheel and this year for me, it is about Foundations. For I am starting a new business, one that I hope will grow into a strong creative path and living, but for that to happen I need to create strong foundations, both magically and physically and find the balanced between both.