Equal Dark and Equal Light

We Druid/Taoists prepare for the upcoming Autumnal Equinox celebration, also called Mabon, Autumn Moon Festival, Alban Elfed, Harvest Home Festival, Apple Feast, etc.   

The Moon Festival, Zhong Qiu Jie, a very popular Chinese autumn festival, is held when there is a full moon at this time of the year.   


"Equal dark, equal light
Flow in Circle, deep insight
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of energy!
So it flows, out it goes
Three-fold back it shall be
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of energy!"
-   Night An'Fey, Transformation of Energy

   

"The last of Summer is Delight --
Deterred by Retrospect.
'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review --
Enchantment's Syndicate.
To meet it -- nameless as it is --
Without celestial Mail --
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil."
-   Emily Dickinson, The Last of Summer is Delight 

  

September: Quotes, Poems, Lore

"Great Goddess, Mistress of cats,
Lady of love, beautiful Vana-Goddess,
Fulfill my greatest needs, O glorious one.
Teach me the magic I need.
Give me a glimpse of your deep wisdom.
Teach me in dreams. Enrich my life.
O Lady, you are Golden-Tears of Asgard
Lady of love, beautiful Vana-Goddess,
You are the Shape-shifter, the Sayer,
The Independent One.
Give me the strength and the magic I need."
-  Prayers to Freyja   

General Preparations for Mabon 

We gather dry corn stalks and make background arrangements and corn dollys; collect, dry and display all kinds of gourds and squash; we cut long grape vines and tie into circular forms for wheel symbols; we cut fire wood for a outdoor pre-dawn campfire in our sacred circle garden; we do reading in literature relevant to the Mabon seasonal theme; we make special meals with the vegetables and fruits of the season; we make moon cakes with rice.  We tend to do pre-dawn fireplace celebrations in the summer because it is too hot in the evening. 
 

Of Dim and Solitary Lovliness

"I linger yet with nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness
I learned the language of another world"
– Byron from 'Manfred,' 1817

Here is a recent photograph by Mary Morgan, a friend of Karen.  Her home is on the west bank of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, California.  

My best wishes and good luck to Mary Morgan, who is having a serious surgery this week.  

You Can't Dance and Stay Uptight

Dancing in the Moonlight
By King Harvest
1972

"We get it almost every night
When that moon gets big and bright
It's supernatural delight
Everybody was dancing in the moonlight

Everybody here is out of sight
They don't bark and they don't bite
They keep things loose, they keep things light
Everybody was dancing in the moonlight

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody feeling warm and bright
It's such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

We like our fun and we never fight
You can't dance and stay uptight
It's supernatural delight
Everybody was dancing in the moonlight

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
It's such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
It's such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight"

Equinox Moonlight Shadows

"Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers."
-  Carl Sandburg, Under the Harvest Moon

 

"In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning."
-   T. S. Eliot,  Four Quartets, East Coker No. 2, 1, 1940

 

 

September Equinox in Redding, California, U.S.A. is on
Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 1:44 PM PDT

 

Full Moon, September 19, 2013

Autumn Equinox Celebrations, Mabon