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Autumn is my favorite season. As the Autumnal Equinox/Mabon/Alban Elfed approaches, I’m thinking of how this season has always carried a sense of magic and spirit… of descent into the sacred secrets of time… a place of reckoning, with a wise power that can see you as you go, while all the foliate cover falls away… a place where truth can’t hide. Truth is powerful and healing and terrible and cleansing and undeniable, and this is the cathartic season where you feast on it, and it feasts on you.

I was in the garden yesterday, devoting these warm weather days to Spring time. I was not born with the greenest thumb, but the more I've tended the sacred garden of my heart in communion with Earth as Divine Creatrix, the more nurturing my hands have become to Her soil, and in life. 

In his book, Spiritual Growth Through Domestic Gardening, Al Fritsch, a Jesuit priest, says, “Gardening enhances our relationship with Earth. Through gardening, we are helping to heal the planet which is part of the work we are called to do.” 

With all of the wacky weather we have been experiencing the globe over, one could get the impression that Mother Nature is royally ticked-off with us. Can you blame her? She's been so often abused, neglected, and taken for granted it is a wonder that we still have a planet fit to live on. What we can do is let her know that we care. Think of it like honoring your own mother on Mother's Day. I am a big fan of building strong energy and channeling it through ecstatic dance and music. I used to attend a great dance in Evanston back in the day, and there's no reason why you couldn't hold your own. For Earth Day this year, try organizing a Trance Dance. As in Transcendental. No, we're not talking about Rave 'Til Dawn. Your mission: find a great space, and create mood lighting. Low lights, candles on the outskirts (safely out of the way), pretty electric glowy lights and lava lamps, would all do the trick. Do you or someone you know have access to a large basement, church space, or school gym? The most important factor is that the space is wide open and that no one has to worry about colliding with objects or each other in it. Elect someone to play DJ for the eve. Make sure in advance that you have a decent sound system. Get a good-sized, unselfconscious group to come on out and let the party begin.

The main idea that everyone should be let in on from the beginning is that you are holding a dance with intent. To send out nurturing energy to help heal our Mother Earth. Send her your love with the energy that you create through your dancing.

Before proceeding to describe the nature of the archetypes, I want to return to the structure of the psyche which I discussed in a previous post. In that post, I depicted the structure of the psyche as an iceberg. Jung describes the psyche using other metaphors, including a building and a plant. Both of these analogies bring the discussion of archetypes down to earth, so to speak. The connection of the archetypes to the earth or to matter is of special interest to earth-centered Pagans.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow'd earth — rich apple-blossom'd earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.
Walt Whitman - Song of Myself

 Beltane always falls when the Sun is in Taurus; if you celebrate Beltane astrologically, the Sun will be exactly halfway through Taurus, and halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice — always a few days later than May 1st. (This year, it fell early on Sunday, May 6th) Whether you are heading towards summer or winter, the Earth is in transition. Perhaps this is why the sign of Taurus is so concerned with security, with farming, and the Earth. Taurus’ other main focus is a sensual connection with the Web of LIfe, and the creation and enjoyment of beauty.

The New Moon Eclipse on May 9th will highlight Taurean themes for some months to come. There are four planets (a stellium) in Taurus in this chart — Sun, Moon, Mercury and Mars — and if you follow this blog, you’ll recall that the influence of a solar eclipse can be as long as a year. Saturn in Scorpio provides a balance point for all that Taurean energy. Though there is no direct opposition, as I noted in this post,  “We can look on the progress of Saturn through Scorpio over the next 2 ½ years as an initiatory undertaking  — a deep, transformative time when, if we will discipline ourselves to fulfill the requirements of the body and the Earth, we can create with power, insight and spiritual awareness.”

Venus, the ruler of Taurus, has just moved into bright, aware Gemini, where life is a question to be answered, and connection to others is key. Venus is square to Neptune in Pisces, and Pisces' other ruler, Jupiter, is also in Gemini, unaspected, making it even more of a wildcard than usual.

All of this suggests that in the months to come, issues of material security will be raised again and again at varying levels of intensity depending on how this configuration falls in your personal chart. Are you stuck in a rut somewhere? Has the pursuit of security smothered your creativity and playfulness, or do you need to pay more attention to how you support yourself on this Earth? What are the personal and social costs of the way you live your life? If you don’t ask yourself some of these questions, they will be asked of you, and the answers will demand both action and clear communication.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Walt Whitman - Song of Myself

Happy Earth Day, all! I have always had a special place in my heart for this celebration. For one thing, it shares the same birth year as me, 1970. For another, the idea originated with a Wisconsin U.S. Senator, Gaylord Nelson. (This courtesy of the Earth Day Network™, http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement) Finally, if you love nature– what better way to revere our Mother Earth than with a hike and a picnic?

As to locations, look into your city, county, or state parks and see who has the best trails. If you are lucky enough to live in a rural or woodsy area and own your abode, blaze a trail of your own. When you return for some hearty fare, stoke a fire pit in the backyard if it has cooled off.

In the previous two posts, I set out to show how Jung’s archetypal psychology might be of interest to polytheists and deity-centered Pagans.  In concluding, I promised to discuss how Jung may also be of interest to earth-centered Pagans.

Jung’s earthiness is sometimes easy to miss.  It is quite possible to read a great deal of Jung’s writings, as well as a lot of secondary literature on Jungian psychology, and not find much concern at all with the natural world.  In fact, it is easy to interpret Jungian philosophy as being introverted to the point of solipsism.  And yet, one of Jung’s biographers confidentially calls him “earth-rooted” as well as “spiritually centered”.  People who knew him called often described him as “earthy”, referring to his physicality and vitality, as well as his simplicity.  Olga Konig-Fachsenfeld, for one, wrote that Jung's "earth-rootedness" was for her "the guarantee for the credibility of his psychology". 

In his personal life, Jung had an intense love of nature, simple rustic lifestyle, and solitude, reminiscent of the Transcendentalists.  Jung writes in his semi-autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections that part of him always felt “remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures.”  His experience of nature bordered on the pantheistic: