Equinoxes are perhaps the most bipolar of holidays, the light and dark in equal measure, the yin and yang, the joy and sorrow. In keeping one’s balance, there is a heightened awareness of “both sides now”. So it is with this Equinox. In the quiet of equanimity, people pass through the gate into something else, [...]
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sit quietly doing nothing spring comes and the grass grows by itself Today is Beltane and the mood is quiet as the Wheel turns and another season arrives. By the same reckoning that names winter solstice as midwinter and summer solstice as midsummer, today is the first day of summer here in the northern hemisphere, [...]
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The autumnal equinox was three days ago, but marking the turn of the wheel here in this journal had to wait while I went up on the mountain to celebrate with some of my spiritual community. It was a mellow and marvelous weekend of singing, drumming, healing, hiking and connection. In September we have much [...]
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Lammastide. The harvest of what we planted at summer solstice is beginning to come in. We may still feel at the height of summer, but the whisper of fall is on the wind and there is a subtle shift in the light. We celebrate the turning of the wheel in a circle of stones, made [...]
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March is here and with it will come the vernal equinox. In a sunny window I have been watching these seedlings of salvia apiana sprout since the full moon of January, which makes them about six weeks old. They are thriving on this south-facing windowsill in my special/altar/exercise/meditation room, where just beyond is my magical [...]
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I was fortunate last month to be interviewed by Australian calligrapher and bookmaker Rhonda Ayliffe for one of her blogs, calligraffia. This blog is devoted to all things calligraphic worldwide with an emphasis on the scribal work being done in Australia, but the links alone are worth a visit. The image above, though, is taken [...]
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September morning. The grapevines are producing their magical leaves of green and red. They have given up their sweet fruit and now their leaves perform their costume change from the green of summer to the russet of autumn. Mornings are cool, with hot afternoons; it’s back-to-school time and for just a moment, we breathe in [...]
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A lesson we can learn from our herbal friends: when under the greatest stress, we can still aspire to our better natures. This quotation was given to me to letter as my annual contribution to Edy Chan’s Heart to Heart wall calendar; a labor of love I’ve been participating in since 1994. Almost every year [...]
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Signs of the waning summer are all around, as well as the bounty of the harvest. Thirteen sugar pumpkins grace our hearth, from Pat’s garden at Guadalupe Gardens, the state’s first demonstration community garden irrigated entirely with recycled water. This photo is the harvest altar of the local Los Antepasados, the group that sponsors our [...]
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Autumn is here in full now, harvests of all kinds coming in. This is a beautiful French heirloom pumpkin called ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ but is commonly called Cinderella pumpkin, because of its resemblance to the magic carriage which took her to the ball. Pumpkins are one of my favorite signs of fall, and I can [...]
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