Autumn Equinox

The other night I had a dream about a strange green hooded figure that was guarding a green gate underground. She wasn’t human; she had a hooked bird’s beak (like many of Marija Gimbutas’s goddess figures). Something about the strange face reminded me of an American Indian. This creature was not friendly but she was not hostile either. Just really intent upon making it clear that you did not pass through the gate without her permission. The word Root kept reverberating out loud in this place… Root Woman? Strange that she was also a bird. Anyway, thinking about bird women prompted the following poem and brief reflection on my relationship with one kind of bird…

Glenys Despite the chocolate bunnies, eggs and toy chickens in the shops along with the coaxing to buy and celebrate Easter at this time in Australia, it is not Spring: Earth here does not seem to co-operate with the Consumer Faith, built as it is around the Northern Hemisphere and dominant Christian calendar. In the Southern Hemisphere it is Autumn, the dark part of the day is lengthening.

On March 20^th at 4:30 UT Earth will be perfectly poised in balance for a moment: it is a global moment of Equinox – one of the annual two. Humans have celebrated it for millennia, perhaps for many tens of thousands of years, in ways appropriate to various regions, in both the South and the North of the Planet. The light and dark parts of the day in the South and in the North of our planet, are of equal length at this time. In the Northern Hemisphere it is Spring, and Easter is commonly celebrated: with those of Earth-based tradition celebrating the moment and season of Equinox with the name of Eostar. Continue reading “It’s Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere – not Spring/Eostar by Glenys Livingstone”