I feel deja vu and mild confusion because I'm pretty sure this was originally a part of the panda post but now it's not and my brain aches.

Reminds me of a book I read as a child, about all sorts of strange natural phenomena. The chapter on halos freaked me out...

IAN(really)ANP (where NP is Neo-Pagan), but beliefs are fascinating, and the world's societies were born when nature was the strongest force in an individual life.

Though most of us no longer live as agrarian people, certain times of year are right for certain thoughts and behaviors. A year's cycle still occurs and we still feel it, and subtle stirrings inside us whisper in time with the rhythms of this sublime world. It's no coincidence that holidays worldwide cluster around natural events.

Now, around the time of the autumnal equinox, the world celebrates and reflects.

Day and night are balanced. The Zodiac slips into Libra, the scales. Long months of labor in the fields are almost at an end. The harvest is coming in; there is abundance, and people work together to preserve the fruits of the summer to carry them in comfort through winter. Things mature and ripen; it's a time of fullness, gathering-in. From presses, wines and ciders flow. Accounts are settled, debts paid. Birds call and fly, migrate to warm winter homes. Deer begin to mate, so that when fawns are born in spring, they will arrive when there are new young leaves to browse on.

On HolyRood Day, fishermen brought their boats into harbor. Rosh Hashanah, a time for self-examination, begins a New Year at the end of Elul, the month of making ready, the month Moses spent on the mountain. In Celtic Britain, Michaelmas is traditionally celebrated with 'gloves, geese, and ginger.' Sometimes there is a fertility ritual in which women gather bunches of carrots and tie them with red strings, saying:

Cleft, fruitful, fruitful, fruitful
Joy of carrots surpassing upon me
Michael the brave endowing me
Bride the fair be aiding me

French revolutionaries created a Revolutionary Calendar in which the first month of the the year began on the fall equinox: Vendemiaire , the month of the grape harvest. Each day of Vendemiaire was named after a cultivated plant. In Japanese Shinto, this is teh fall Higan, the time of the Eastern Passage, the journey to the other shore, the other side of the river of life and death. Ancestors are remembered, and old ways are laid aside for new. In Zen Buddhism, the 'other shore' becomes nirvana. Zen Buddhists use this time of year to meditate on six practices for crossing the river.

So if you feel reflective, if you feel change, it's the time of the season. Look inward, take stock, preserve the fruits of your harvest, and prepare for the time of rest and dreaming.

(Another North-Hemisphere-centric post. Sorry 'bout that).

And no, I'm not high.

Sorry about the confusion, Pup; I broke MetaChat for a minute, but Taz fixed it.

Though most of us no longer live as agrarian people, certain times of year are right for certain thoughts and behaviors. A year's cycle still occurs and we still feel it, and subtle stirrings inside us whisper in time with the rhythms of this sublime world. It's no coincidence that holidays worldwide cluster around natural events.

Miko, that's (all of it, not just what I quoted) some damned fine writing. Please post it, with the links, as an FPP, using more inside as required.

We're the last before the storm
Watching the sun going down on us
We wish we had never been born
To be the last before the storm

Yes, I know; it's a sunrise. Still, that's what came to mind.

What ortho said. This post just made my day.

Excellant post, Miko, well done. I love this stuff!

Out of touch
With the weather and the wind direction
With the sunrise
And the phases of the moon
Out of touch
With life in the land of the loving
With the living night
And the darkness at high noon

Right on, Eideteker.

The song is Secret Touch.

Why thank you, ortho, and others. I guess I thought of this topic as too spacey and general for MeFi. Now it's getting out of date. Maybe I'll work on it more later and post it next year?