{"id":1830,"date":"2010-09-27T18:44:03","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T00:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1830"},"modified":"2010-09-27T18:44:35","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T00:44:35","slug":"equinoctal-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1830","title":{"rendered":"Equinoctal Musings"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the cosmic clock,<\/a> I must have experienced the fall equinox about the time that I checked into the Trade Winds Motel<\/a> in Valentine, Nebraska, last Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

The next day I would be driving through miles of the Sandhills<\/a>, the climax prairie ecosystem, homeward bound from the annual North Dakota sharptail grouse hunt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From a ritual perspective, I am never quite sure what to do about the equinox. Years ago, a member of our coven suggested that the quarter days (equinoxes, solstices) were “outer” while the cross-quarter days were “inner.”<\/p>\n

In other words, you do magic at Samhain and party at Yule. (Of course, Samhain, which falls this year the evening of November 6 in North America, has its “outer” companion, Hallowe’en.)<\/p>\n

So, “outer.” It could be a harvest celebration. We are cleaning out the garden ahead of the first frost. Wednesday is the last pickup at our community-supported agriculture farm. We had a brief but intense mushroom harvest in August\u2014now the greenhouse is full of drying tomatoes.<\/p>\n

A friend posted on Facebook that the equinox made him ready to go elk hunting. I get it. But it is on Samhain that I have more than once stood shivering and watching at the edge of an aspen grove as the sun sinks away.<\/p>\n

Home thirty-six hours after the equinox, I took the dogs for their morning walk. A Townsend’s solitaire<\/a> was calling in the woods, its winter call, just one note whistled slowly again and again.<\/p>\n

When I heard that winter call, I felt as though the gears of the cosmos had just gone “clunk.” Something had changed. And maybe that is the equinox’s outer manifestation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the cosmic clock, I must have experienced the fall equinox about the time that I checked into the Trade Winds Motel in Valentine, Nebraska, last Wednesday evening. The next day I would be driving through miles of the Sandhills, the climax prairie ecosystem, homeward bound from the annual North Dakota sharptail grouse hunt. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-1830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-festivals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-tw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9791","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":0},"title":"Being a Solitary Pagan Does Not Mean that You Celebrate Alone","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the fall equinox (Mabon) is nearly upon us \u2014 1:54 a.m. Universal (Greenwich) Time on Sunday the 23rd. For North Americans, that is Saturday evening. What will you do if you are a solitary Pagan? At Under the Ancient Oaks, John Beckett suggests,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3415,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3415","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":1},"title":"Samhain Is Still Three Days Away","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are in the Northern Hemisphere and following a solar calendar with quarter days and cross-quarter days, it falls at 1827 hours Universal Time on Monday the 7th. You don't need a henge, just a website for all your solar-calendrical needs.","rel":"","context":"In \"Samhain\"","block_context":{"text":"Samhain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=samhain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":949,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=949","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":2},"title":"Today is Samhain, Really, Unless It’s Not","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We celebrate the holy day commonly called Samhain not on one day, but on several. In other words, there is no one contemporary Pagan liturgical calendar.As I write this, the actual moment in the solar cycle is about an hour away, according to Scott Monahan's useful archaeastronomy site. (Scott is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=551","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":3},"title":"Music for SamhainThe podcast, .mp3\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Music for SamhainThe podcast, .mp3 file, and playlist for Jason Pitzl-Waters' Samhain 2005 radio show are all available here.And if you have had enough masking, chocolate, and all that, the astronomical cross-quarter point of Samhain will come just after midnight, Mountain Time, on Sunday, November 6. More details at this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7711","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":4},"title":"The Eagles of Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism is not the religion of the polis, but the polis (loosely defined) can support your Paganism. For the last two days, my Facebook feed has been filling up with people posting electronic clip art to the theme of \"Happy Bridget \/ Imbolc \/ Candlemas.\" Me, I spent three hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"pueblo eagle days","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pueblo-eagle-days.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13858,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13858","url_meta":{"origin":1830,"position":5},"title":"Angela Puca on the Origins of Today’s Pagan Samhain","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Let the velvet-voiced Dr. Puca explains how the festival of Samhain gained its present form -- and remember, Samhain is a season, a -\"tide.\" https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nhxOHthZpKQ?si=-YqKq5Zc1N2Wga8v","rel":"","context":"In \"Samhain\"","block_context":{"text":"Samhain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=samhain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1830"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1834,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830\/revisions\/1834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}