Monthly Archives: September 2014

Sep 29 2014
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Michaelmas

Bannocks & Brambles

Michael the Archangel

The Earth continues tilting further back in its seat, making the sun appear to sink further south. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the result, now that we are past the equinox, is that darkness has overtaken light. The dark night continues to grow and will do so all the way to the winter solstice in December.

Darkness, of course, has a way of making people nervous. We are creatures of light. Perhaps that is why we call on protectors this time of year. Today is Michaelmas (pronounced mick-il-mus), the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, one of the principal angelic warriors. Michael battled Satan, the dark angel, and as it so happens, he is a protector against darkness of all kinds… including dark of night. This is powerful medicine right about now, as we continue to shave a few minutes of daylight off each passing day, especially in more northern regions. We are running headlong into winter, and we want to make it through once more to light and warmth. It’s good to have a strong protector at your side.

Asters, one of the last flowers to bloom each year, have a prominent role in the day. They are known as Michaelmas Daisies, and our traditional “He loves me, he loves me not” game goes back to an old Michaelmas custom: this was the day each year to perform that particular ritual of plucking petals and learning whether the one you pine for loves you or not. St. Michael’s bannocks are served today in Ireland and Scotland: a scone, basically, made with oats and rye and always served with blackberries or blackberry jam, for the legend goes that when Satan was kicked out of Heaven, he landed in a bramble patch, and he returns each year to curse and spit upon the brambles he landed upon. So it’s best we eat them up, no?

 

Image:  The Archangel Michael by Hans Memling. Oil on panel, c. 1479 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Sep 24 2014
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Rosh Hashanah

Into the Depths of the Sea

Feast of Trumpets

With the setting sun this evening comes, in the Jewish tradition, a new day… and, with this particular setting sun, a new year. It is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “Shanah Tovah” is the most common greeting you’ll hear, a wish for a good year. This is the beginning of a period of reflection and repentance that concludes with the solemn Yom Kippur, ten days later.

Rosh Hashanah begins with the sounding of the the shofar, a hollowed ram’s horn, and for some, the day is known as the Feast of Trumpets. This (as an aside) always reminds me of my mom and dad’s old neighbor, Tony, who used to say in Italian, “Quando i suoni di tromba…”  meaning, When the trumpet sounds, well… then that’s it, your time is up. So you’d better make things right with God and make things right with the people you love, and maybe even the people you don’t quite care for.

Micah 7:19 reads, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,” and you may find people at the water’s edge during Rosh Hashanah, casting bread into the sea, each bit of bread carrying some of those sins. And with dinner tonight: a round loaf of challah, round to symbolize the circle of the year (as one year ends, another year begins), and, of course, apples dipped in honey. This, for a sweet year ahead.

 

Image: Feast of Trumpets by Aleksander Gierymski. Oil on canvas, 1884, [Public domain] via WikiMedia Commons.

 

Sep 22 2014
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Equinox

Balance Returns

Autumn

Tonight, by the almanac, autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere. The precise moment, for those of you who like precision, is 10:29 PM here in Lake Worth. That’s Eastern Daylight Time, so you can do the math accordingly to where you live. Precision is great, but I am more of a roundabout kind of guy, and I am more of a traditionalist, anyway, of the mindset that autumn began with Lammas, the celebration of the first harvest, at the start of August. By this traditional reckoning of time, we are now midway through autumn, and we are also now midway between the year’s longest day (Summer Solstice, or Midsummer) and its longest night (Winter Solstice, or Midwinter). Tomorrow we inch closer to darkness, crossing a border that begins to make nights longer than days in our hemisphere. But for now, we are balanced, and this, hopefully, is reflected in us.

The time of gathering in intensifies now, for as darkness overtakes light, cold increases, as does our sense of urgency, and even in these times of plenty, when we can have almost anything we want at any time of year (should we wish it), still we instinctually gather in and take more joy in home and in hearth. And so now we balance what was the opening aperture of spring at the opposite side of the seasonal round with gathering, storing, closing. Winter is coming; naturally, we want to make it as warm and comfortable as we can.

Here in South Florida, whereas spring comes early, so autumn comes late. It’s still quite summery out there for us. But Orion is there lording over the early morning darkness before the sun rises to the east, and occasionally we wake up to a slightly less humid day. The air is growing lighter, less still. We begin to play with the idea of shutting off the air conditioning and throwing open the windows. But that’s Florida for you: often a little contrary to the rest of the country. Nonetheless, soon the big green leaves of the Florida Almond trees will begin turning red. They are not widely planted, and they are wall flowers for most of the year, but each autumn for a couple of weeks they make their presence known. There’s one across the street in Old Aunt Sarah’s lot. Sometimes I walk on over and stand under that blazing red tree and even though it may be 80 degrees all around me, I look up into those red leaves and pretend that I am in a place where autumn makes itself well known.

If you are in one of those places, go, gather some apples, visit a farmer who grows pumpkins (like Intervale Farm in New Gloucester, Maine… that’s all Jan Wilcox grows there), find someone who makes cinnamon doughnuts and tells good stories. Pour yourself some cider, hard or fresh, either is fine, raise your glass to Seth and me, and we will do the same from here. It just won’t be as chilly here, and the colors won’t be nearly as beautiful.

 

Image: Autumn by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Oil on canvas, 1573, [Public domain] via WikiMedia Commons.

 

 

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