Alban Elfed, Celebrating the Autumn Equinox

“Deeper Into Alban Elfed

by Coifi

This is the Feast of the Autumn Equinox. The Light of the Sun in the Wheel of the Year stands in the West, in the Place of balance between the Light and the Darkness. This is a time of the Great Tides. This is the Gateway of the Year.

This Feast is known by many names to many people, for the Truth is reflected from many mirrors. It has been celebrated as Alban Elfed and Harvest. Our ancestors called it by names long forgotten, and our children will call it by names as yet unconceived.

At this time, our ancestors saw the Sun, for the first time in half a year, be unable to outshine the Dark. Although he still shines with strength, his strength grows weaker as the days grow shorter. Today he holds the Darkness in in equal measure to the Light, but he is struck in his season with the wound of Time and from day to day the darkness will grow as the Lord of Light sinks into his Age, for the wound is grievous and will not heal. This is a time of farewell and gratitude for the Summer that has been.

At this time, our ancestors saw the Lady who is the Spirit of the Land stand before her people with the full bounty of her Harvest. Here is the reward of labour and reverence of the Land. This is the fulfilled promise of the days of Spring and Summer. This is the Reckoning of the Year, for Harvest is now complete and the portions are set to feed folk and animals through the cold dark days that lie ahead. This is a time of wonder and gratitude for the gifts the Lady showers down upon her people.

This is the time of the turning of the Light into Darkness. Let us step forward into the darkening days holding before us the divine promise of new Light at the end of the Dark Days, from year to year and life to life. This is the lesson of the Lord and the Lady. This is our knowledge and our affirmation.

This is the Holy Word that is written in no less than the Earth and the Sky and in all things that are made. This is a wonder and a marvel.”
–source

The FIRST Cauliflower in the Universe!!

–ok FINE!
It’s just in my garden. (rolls eyes and clucks tongue at your lack of enthusiasm)
I had nervously faithfully been peeking down into the center of my cauliflower plantings. I had been searching growing the plant, because I never have done so, and I…well all I could do was to peer at it, entreat it to produce at the appropriate time, As God Saw Fit…

–ok FINE! (waves you away while doing a similar version of the above actions)

Maybe more as I saw fit. It has been like making my mother-labeled figure do one of her nicer things and whack and whack and whack whack whack, that mangled can of Pillsbury crescent rolls onto the counter so that I could see the Pillsbury Dough Boy pop out and do the giggle, JUST FOR ME!!!!

It was only overnight, it might have been a day or two–or I could be blind as a bat, and the next morning, when I went to feed the cat, I saw

THE FIRST CAULIFLOWER IN THE UNIVERSE The First Cauliflower in My Garden. The author, she made me cross that out, I might hate her at the moment–such a stodgy women of the literal and the blunt and the honest (hell doesn’t she understand creativity AT ALL?!?) Oh dammit, now I have talked too much and I have missed the appropriate awed faces of appreciation at MY FEET, uhm no FEAT…

The First Cauliflower in the Universe--ok just my garden

VOILA! ET TAAA DAAAAAAA!!! (exaggerated bowing and the flipping back of magic satin cape lined in purple, of course)

Here also is the most lovely shades of green ever created by Me…

Most Lovely Green copyright

WAIT!!!

Beforeeeeeeeeeeeeee she has a rant, God did that too!! None of the peppers looked the same, in shade, if one was studious, and I was. Creating is so amazing!!! It seems so much more obvious in the garden than in many other places.

Now, I’ve got to go…I planted beet seeds and mixed salad greens seeds…I also have to learn how to thin the collards they are so perfect with their little fractal shapes all lined up on a row at the same time!!