Autumn Equinox

I am glad it is autumn.  This year has been difficult and so it is nice to feel it drawing to a close.  I decided to sort out the garden recently, as to say it had become overgrown is something of an understatement. 

One week before the equinox I decided to tackle the vast overgrowth and so I spent a great day outside chopping back all the hedges, taking out the weeds from the herb beds and generally sorting out what had become a huge mess.

That done I bought a chimenea from the garden centre and set to burning all the old, dried out branches etc from previous years.  I lit the fire with my Kildare flame and also put some dried herbs in the fire and did a Flamekeeping shift at the same time.

Once all the chopping was done I stopped and looked round. Lots of nice mud and a huge compost pile at the end of the garden, excellent.  Next, sorting out the overgrown herbs and cutting them back.  I brought in lots of wonderful smelling herbs and put them on my various altars, the house now smelt wonderful.

A week later and my parents came to visit. It was  the equinox that weekend, so I decided to make my herb circle into a living altar of sorts.  My dad helped me to make the circle  circular, as it was a bit of an odd shape,  geometry certainly not being one of my strong points.

One or two candles and a green man and goddess figure later and its done really, not that it needs the little figures, they are just nice for me to see. I burnt some nice incense too and acknowledged the time of year and sat and thought for a while.  I dont tend to celebrate the festivals with a ritual generally, somehow it just doesn't seem to work for me.

 This year it was lovely to be outside with family, building something special and celebrating of sorts, the closing of the year.