PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in autumn equinox

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Autumn Equinox Afterglow

 

Hopefully, you’re still basking in the glow of the glorious Harvest Full Moon on Tuesday! Now with the Autumnal Equinox to enjoy, you can truly slow down and count your blessings. My dear friend and frequent “Women Who Howl at the Moon” guest (she was our very first, as a matter of fact), has a lovely magical suggested exercise in her Witches’ Wisdom Tarot deck, corresponding with the “Offering” card. For a week, she suggests just that, counting your blessings: Per Phyllis’ magical counsel, “Each day for a week, write down one thing for which you’re grateful. For each gift you’ve received, choose a way to give back with gratitude.” Try it–I did, and it is truly a revelation how much we have to be grateful for, even with the seemingly smallest of things. You can listen more to Phyllis and hear many other fascinating and engaging guests you may have missed on our show on Podbean, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, (now including Apple and Spotify).

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Autumnal Waters

With the fall equinox approaching, it is a perfect time to reflect on the many facets and roles of water in nature, ritual and magic. Water, essential for life, also carries a deep association with death across cultures and mythologies. This duality reflects our complex relationship with this elemental force. In many occult and esoteric traditions, the autumn season is deeply intertwined with both water and death, representing a potent time of transformation and spiritual transition.

Water often symbolizes the division between life and death. Many funerary practices involve crossing water, from Viking ship burials to the Egyptian concept of the solar barge carrying the dead to the afterlife. This imagery of a final voyage persists in many modern cultures.

In Greek mythology, five rivers wind through Hades: Styx (hatred), Acheron (sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), and Lethe (forgetfulness). These waterways embody the emotions and trials souls face in the afterlife. Similar concepts exist in other cultures – the Egyptian Duat features a treacherous river, Norse mythology speaks of icy Gjöll which flows near the gate of Hel, a realm of the dead, and Hindu tradition tells of the terrifying Vaitarna. The Vaitarna is said to exist between Earth and Naraka, the realm of the Hindu god of death, Yama. The Vaitarani is also known as the "salt river" and is said to have the power to purify sins.

 

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
The Turn of the Year: Autumn Equinox

In the Ariadne's Tribe sacred calendar, we've just made our way through the Mysteries and are awaiting the arrival of the Autumn Equinox this Saturday, 23 September.

What does this date signify in our sacred calendar?

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

The secular media finally seems to be cottoning to something that pagans have always known: that the sunsteads and evendays (that's “solstices” and “equinoxes” in Witch) are intrinsically noteworthy events, something to celebrate.

(A cute little graphic popped up today when I turned on the computer: a large blue Earth—pale blue on one side, dark blue on the other, right down the middle—flanked by a smaller yellow Sun and full Moon. A nice visual shorthand, although of course the Moon isn't full, and has nothing to do with Evenday anyway. I suppose the image makes sense if we read Sun and Moon, respectively, as “Day” and “Night.”)

For cowans, who measure days from midnight, today is Equinox Day, and the Eve of the Equinox would have been last night.

Some of us see it differently.

Astronomical Equinox comes tonight at 8:03 local time, after local sunset: hence, for those of us who—like the Hwicce, the historic tribe of Witches—reckon the religious day from Sundown, the Evenday itself begins tonight.

That's why we've scheduled our 42th Annual Harvest Supper for tonight. (Welcome to Paganistan, the Land of Long-Lived Covens.) Think Witches' Thanksgiving: a ritual held around a table, with lots of singing, toasts, autumn flowers, and enough steaming, good food to feed at least a couple brigades of the Wiccan army. It's our last outdoor feast of the year, with wild geese skeining overhead, leaves beginning their change, and a wee nip in the air.

Since the official leap into Autumn falls during the feast itself this year, we'll be able to have a countdown, too: a modern tradition, but a good one.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
The Minoan Autumn Holiday Season

The Ariadne's Tribe sacred calendar doesn't look like the eightfold Wheel of the Year that many modern Pagans are familiar with. Instead, we based our calendar specifically on Mediterranean seasonal cycles (the Minoans came from the island of Crete in the Mediterranean) as well as archaeological and ethnological evidence about the Minoans' religious practices.

So instead of a neatly balanced eight-spoke wheel, our calendar has some festivals that are spread out across the months and others that cluster together. One of those clusters - the biggest one - is my focus today.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Falling Into Fall

Change can be tough, to be sure. As I get a little older and wiser I see how much better it is to learn to roll with those changes that come your way. Accepting and embracing these shifts, no matter how unfamiliar or strange, is definitely the way to go. Intuitively, it also ties in with living fully in the moment and letting go of that which no longer serves us. It's the natural flow of nature and of life. So don't be that last stubborn last leaf on the tree this fall—live and let go.

Changes in the Weather

As many folks' favorite time of year comes into full swing, take the time to get out on some invigorating fall hikes to re-energize your soul. Walk in familiar spots to notice what is shifting and see how that makes you feel. Does it make you consider areas in your own life that could use a shakeup? Meditate on this one for a while and see what presents itself to you, whether in immediate visualizations or later that night in your dreams.

...
Last modified on
Autumnal Equinox Ritual: Macon, September 21

Establish one room in your house as the temple. Ideally, it is the room in which you normally keep an altar or sacred shrine. In any case, you should create an altar in the center of the space. Place four small tables in the four corners of the directions and place four evenly spaced candlesticks between the tables. Place a loaf of freshly baked bread (bread you have made with your own hands is best) in the east, a bowl of apples in the south, a bottle of wine in the west, and a sheaf of wheat or a bundle of dried corn in the north. Upon the main altar, place a candle, a plate of sweet cakes and a goblet. Light incense and place it in front of the cakes. Before your ritual, take some time for contemplation. Think about what you have achieved during this busy year:

What have you done?

...
Last modified on

Additional information