Labyrinth pictures!

I realized I hadn't posted pictures of any of the labyrinths I'd built!

Enjoy!

2013 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the first labyrinth, at FGC Gathering 2013 in Colorado.

2104 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth this last summer at FGC Gathering 2014 in Pennsylvania.

2014 Fall Equinox labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth we built for the Roses, Too! Tradition Fall Equinox ritual here in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Please see my past posts about labyrinths for the back story of how I came to build these labyrinths, and also for how-to help if you'd like to build a temporary labyrinth yourself:
http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/labyrinths

An explosion of light

One of the things for me about living someplace new is learning the cycle of the seasons in the new place.  The rhythms of the light, the plants, the animals.

My first winter in Edinburgh felt longer and harder than I expected.  I know one of the medications I'm on completely messes with my thermo-regulation, but still!  I thought I was reasonably cold-hardy, after some of the places we've lived during winters in the US.  Hah. This winter made me feel like a cold wimp.  Winter in Edinburgh is cold, damp, raw, and dark.  At Winter Solstice, there weren't even seven whole hours of daylight. 

And then, about a week after Brigid, there was a sudden explosion of light.  It wasn't just that the days were longer and I noticed it, it was that Wow, there seemed to be so much more light! 

Beloved Wife and I have been noticing a similar change again starting right around Beltane.  Wow!  Once again, there is so much more light! 

I first noticed this when I woke up one morning to use the bathroom and it was not just light out, but bright.  Usually when this happens, it's about 6:00 am, and I have just enough time for a snooze before the alarm goes off.  I looked at my watch.  5:00 am.  5:00 am??

Unfortunately, the cats noticed the sun was up, too, and they thought it was a fine thing...

We've started closing the shutters when we go to bed, to block the morning sun so that we might actually sleep until the alarm goes off. 

Then we noticed the light in the evening. At Beltane, sunset was a little before 9:00 pm, and it was dark enough by 9:30 that the Beltane Fire Festival folks started their pyrotechnics then.  Now it's still fully light at 9:00 pm. 

This is delightful.  But confusing to my inner clock.  Yay, vitamin D!!  But it is hard to convince myself it's time to start winding down and getting ready to bed when it's still bright out, or cloudy but fully light.  Things will be interesting come Summer Solstice, when the days are really long.

For now, I am reveling in this delightful explosion of light and in getting to know this time of year in this place.  Blessed be.

What's in season at my local farmers' market

I was thinking about one of the queries in my recent post about Fall Equinox, What local foods are coming into season now where I live?

And so I found myself taking notes as I walked around my local farmers' market on Saturday.

I do realize there's some difference between "what's available" and "what's in season." :)   Here's what was available:

Produce: 

• raspberries, blueberries, strawberries
• tomatoes (greenhouse-grown)
• damson plums
• cucumbers
• neeps (turnips)
• greens (including curly purple kale!)
• beetroot (beets)
• apples
• pears
• pumpkins and other squash
• other root vegetables
• leeks
• potatoes

Meat: 

• chicken, duck, turkey
• beef, including local beef burgers hot off the grill
• buffalo
• pork, including local barbecue sandwiches
• fish (salmon smoked and fresh, haddock, cod, and more) (including smoked salmon sandwiches)

Other:

• eggs
• cheeses
• soup
• baked goods
• hot oatmeal, ready-to-eat; oatmeal bars, oats, oatmeal, oatmeal ready-mix
• chocolate
• chocolate gelato (!)
• flowers
• potted herbs
• bread
• jams and chutneys
• soaps
• hummus 
• other spreads
• border tablet (think butter and brown sugar, the consistency of solid fudge you get down the ocean (MD), down the shore (NJ), or in St. Ignace (MI)

I'm realizing that when I think "in season," I think mostly about produce, because that's the rhythm I'm most familiar with -- from vegetable gardening as a kid in the Mid-Atlantic, from farms and orchards in Michigan when I lived there, from family friends with farms when I was growing up and farm stands most of my life.

I have some head-knowledge about that rhythm when it comes to meat, but I don't have it in my body the same way I do with fruits and veg.  I know a little about the rhythm of salmon from our time in the Pacific NW of the US, a little about the rhythm of chicken from the farm where we used to buy chickens in NJ; I'm just starting to learn about fish here.

(And from my childhood, I'm still very confused when people eat crabs any time other than high summer.  Or when uncooked crabs are any color but blue.  *grin*)

Fall Equinox

We go down as She goes down
We follow Her underground
Hail to Inanna
Who dies to become whole

And deep calls to deep
Deep calls to deep
And deep calls to deep
Deep calls to deep

The veils drop by on our way
As we pass through the gates
With Inanna as our guide
We find truth in deepest night

And deep calls to deep
Deep calls to deep
And deep calls to deep
Deep calls to deep

We go down as She goes down
We follow Her underground
Hail to Inanna
Who dies to become whole

And deep calls to deep (deep calls to deep)
Deep calls to deep (deep calls to deep)
And deep calls to deep (deep calls to deep)
Deep calls to deep

-- "Inanna," Suzanne Sterling; 

recorded on Reclaiming's "Second Chants"

Fall Equinox

Fall Equinox.  Mabon.  The second harvest and the Witches' Thanksgiving.  Inanna's descent.  Day and night in balance.  The beginning of the darker half of the year. 


Queries  

Ground and center, or settle into worship.

Breathe, and ask yourself:

• As I look around me, what changes have I noticed in nature since the beginning of August?  (Take a moment before going on the next query.)

• What local foods are coming into season now where I live?  (Take a moment before going on the next query.)

• As I take stock in my life right now, what do I find I am thankful for, in this moment?

A blessed Fall Equinox to you.

Happy Fall Equinox and Witches' Thanksgiving

Day and night are in balance; Fall Equinox is the door to the dark time of the year.

This is the second harvest festival. What are we storing away for the winter? What foods don’t store well, and so we eat them now?

Some trees are already beginning to shed their leaves. What do we shed with the coming of winter, so that we don’t waste energy bringing it through the cold, and so we have energy and room for new gifts?

In many traditions, the Goddess, or one of Her faces, begins a journey into the Underworld at Fall Equinox. What will we lose in our journeys? What will we find? What abundant gifts of Mother Earth, tangible and not-so-tangible, carry us through the coming dark and cold time of the year?

What gifts do fall and winter bring?

Fall Equinox/Mabon

I hosted a small potluck for Fall Equinox Thanksgiving, for which I'd sent out the following invitation:

At Fall Equinox, day and night are equal in length; going forward, the nights will start to become longer than the days, until we reach the Longest Night at Winter Solstice. Harvest is a time of preparing for the coming winter and dark time of the year.

What foods are crossing our tables this time of year for which we find ourselves especially thankful? What foods do we eat and find ourselves thinking, "Wow, I'm glad to be alive in a world that has [this food]"? What foods will go forward with us into the winter, and which will not?

Whether it's home-grown tomatoes after a cool and slow summer, really good chocolate, or something completely different -- bring something to share which you're thankful exists so that you can eat it!

There was pasta with local veggies -- tomatoes, red bell peppers, garlic -- and fresh mozzarella. Home-made beet and vegetable soup-stew, again with lots of local ingredients. Home-made bread -- sourdough with rosemary from the garden. (Rosemary and lavender both grow nearly wild here.)

We hung out and talked far past when the potluck was supposed to have ended: friendship, community, good company are things for which I'm grateful, and in which I find joy.

Darkness and light, day and night, geek heaven

We arrived in Seattle not long after Lammas, and Fall Equinox is now fast approaching. We've been noticing how dramatic the change has been in the number of hours of daylight, and in when the sun rises and sets. So when it seemed awfully dark this morning, I decided to see what the objective data say over at the US Naval Observatory about what time the sun is rising and setting.

And I discovered a couple of neat things! (Such geekdom...)

First was the "Duration of Daylight/Darkness Table for One Year," which lets you request a table for an entire year for any location with the number of hours of daylight (or darkness) on each day. This is on the Data Services page, which has all kinds of cool things -- complete sun and moon data for one day, info on the rise and set of major solar system objects and bright stars, what fraction of the moon is illuminated, positions of celestial bodies, dates of solstices and equinoxes...

I also discovered the Astronomical Information Center, with all sorts of FAQs about the sun, the moon, how time is computed, etc.

One really neat tidbit: have you ever checked how long it was light, and how long it was dark, at Spring or Fall Equinox, and noticed they're not actually equal where you are? Their "Length of Day and Night at Equinoxes" page explains the relationship between this and how far one is from the equator, etc., and whether day or night is slightly longer at the Equinox, depending on where you are.

I realize this is getting too geeky for some, but it all rather delighted me. :)

Have fun!

Mabon

A good Fall Equinox to you!

Mabon, or Fall Equinox, is the Second Harvest, the Witches' Thanksgiving, the Descent of Inanna, one of the two days of the year when dark and light are in balance, the beginning of the part of the year when each day has more hours of darkness than light...

(More when our internet technical difficulties have been resolved...)