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 CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. They live six houses away and every Sunday morning Pat goes to help divide up the shares. It’s like the old food coops of the sixties. Only different. Because they are very tied to their heritage, they celebrate the equinoxes with wonderful festivals of dancing – feathered Aztec dancers are something to behold – celebration and storytelling. And of course, wonderful food.
I missed out on it to my great regret, but was circling with my sacred sisters in the mountain forest, nine of us singing, storytelling, dancing, soaking in the hot tub, sharing meals and a sleeping yurt, divining with the goddesses for the next six months, weeping, laughing, visiting with the deer, and making ceremony. Our altar was the simplest it’s ever been. Our Cinderella magic pumpkin rested on a gingko tree stump, surrounded by the nine goddesses who came to visit us, and nine candles for our nine bright spirits in the universe.
The sunflowers are drooping and making their seeds for next year. We begin our journey into the dark half of the year here in the northern hemisphere of our Mother Earth. What seeds will you take with you into the dark half of the year?
This year I have the honor of planting “thought” seeds in fertile minds of 22 bright, shining students at San Jose State University. I have no idea when these will germanate into action, which will hopefully lead us back to harmony with our Mother Earth.