August 30th, 1997

THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL
By Jackie Giuliano

Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be held in the hearts of your witnesses.

The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let go.
-- Alla Renee Bozarth

The moon is waning, a small sliver in the sky right now, and on Monday, September 1, it will be New, the Dark Moon, the Hag Moon. It is a time when physical energies are withdrawn from the outer world and awareness is turned inward, for a time, to the inner world of the spirit. It is a time for rebirth, for reflection. It can also be a time of chaos and disorganization, confusion, hidden changes, and then rest.

It is also a time for me to reflect upon the changing of the seasons - or, in my case, my lack of notice of the changing of the seasons. In Southern California, seasonal changes are noticed in ways unlike areas of the country that experience more demonstrative weather indicators. For example, it has been bright and sunny for weeks, and I took no notice that summer might be ending until I tried to buy some plastic chairs for my patio.

I remembered that there were hundreds of them a few months ago at Smart and Final Iris, a chain of bulk product stores that supplies those in the restaurant industry and those who believe that having 40 pounds of something is better than having 5 pounds of something, even when the price is virtually the same. The chairs were about $5 each, and I decided to get some of them and a plastic table for my empty patio so that I might enjoy eating outside in the mornings and evenings in the lovely weather. The salesperson informed me that "summer's over - we won't have them until next year." He told me this on a blistering hot day in August, with temperatures in the 90s even at the beach.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. The natural seasonal cycles are of little value in a world that values the mass market economy and forces that are determined by distribution policies and delivery times and consumer buying trends. Smart and Final Iris Company says summer is over, so it is over. And that's that. Halloween goods are appearing in stores everywhere. Those are our modern-day symbols for seasonal change.

The salesperson did find a few chairs in the back for me. (I think the staff was sitting on them during breaks.) For the last few weeks, usually while sitting on those chairs, the words of the salesperson have been ringing in my ears - I have felt like I missed the summer. I was not conscious of the meaning of this, the most powerful of seasons. I feel like I missed the power and birth energies of spring and the the bounty of summer.

Now, with the New Moon coming, I want to be more conscious of what is to come. We are approaching the Fall or Autumn. On September 22 at 6:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, we will experience the Autumnal Equinox or "Mabon" as it is known to those who practice the pagan Sabbats. For at least the last 12,000 years, people all over the world have celebrated the passage of time, the journey of the Earth around the Sun, in ways that have connected their lives to the life of our planet.

Mabon (pronounced May-bone or Mah-boon) was named for the Welsh God who symbolized the male fertilizing principle in the Welsh myths. In astronomical terms, the Autumnal Equinox is the time when the Sun is right on the celestial equator, passing from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern. What this means is that on that day, there will be a day and a night of equal length.

We participants in the modern world won't notice it - our streetlights and headlights and indoor lighting have long since erased our notice of the differences between light and dark. But to people who are more connected to the natural world, a day of equal light and dark was a powerful time. It is a time of balance - a time to make peace with the dark and to consider it as part of the light, not to be feared but to be embraced. For a brief moment, all is thought to be in balance - the goddess and the god have equal power on this night, the forces of evil and good are equally matched and, as the old Norse people believed, one's fate for the coming year is sealed.

It is a time that is celebrated around the world. In China, the day marks the end of the rice harvest and is known as Chung Ch''u. Jews celebrate Succoth near this time, a harvest holiday with roots in pagan culture. In old Rome, the time was celebrated with a party that went on for many days marking the Festival of Dionysus, the God of Wine.

Mabon begins the time when the leaves die and Nature withers, spent after giving forth her abundance of life sustaining foods. She must rest so that the cycle can begin again. For those who came before us and those who strive today to be part of the natural world, it is naturally a time to reflect upon death, its meaning and importance. Darkness will soon overtake the light. It is an important time of regeneration, not a time of evil.

We don't think much about "harvest" in the West. Our harvest comes from the supermarket and can be picked 24 hours a day. But in places around the world, and in many backyards and fields where industrialized agriculture and cloned, genetically engineered, pesticide-demanding crops are nowhere to be found, it is a time to gather the last fresh food for the year. That is why nuts, apples and grapes are featured in many cultures' thanksgiving feasts - they are all autumn crops. Berries that began to ripen in summer are made into jams, jellies, and wines.

It is a powerful awareness, and a great sadness, to realize that we no longer notice these things. To us today, the coming of darkness means we turn on the light and the TV; the shorter days mean that we turn back the clocks, reinforcing our fears of the dark. We will do anything we can to avoid introspection and quiet moments with ourselves.

Can we be blamed? Hardly. We learn about our world from the television and newspaper, mediums that give us a very imbalanced picture of our lives. In a study recently released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, it is clear that the rate of broadcast of crime stories on the nightly newscasts has increased - not the rate of crime itself. Crime stories are featured three times more often than they were in the early nineties. News about homicides is featured over 700 percent more frequently than it was prior to 1993. Crime is not up 700 percent, just the news media's coverage of it. Is it any wonder that we perceive the world is in a state that suggests we should hide.

Here are some simple recipes for reconnection to the true meaning of this powerful time of year. What are some ideas of your own?

• Please turn off the television and don't read the newspaper, at least for a week or so. Feel the difference. I feel that this is important, otherwise, you will be too afraid to say out and watch the sun set!
  
  
• Notice the changing weather, the shortening of the days, the lengthening of the night. Even if you live in a region where the weather is mild, you can still notice the length of the days.
  
  
• Notice when the Sun and Moon rise and set for a few days. Watch the moon in its phases. If you are a menstruating woman, chart your cycle with the phases of the moon. You will be surprised at what you discover.
  
  
• Create a daily ritual of thanksgiving. Reflect upon the year and what your own life's harvest has brought.
  
  
  
• 6. On the Autumnal Equinox this year, have a celebration with family, friends, or with yourself.

Just be aware that you are of this Earth.

To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death
and the miracle of birth.
-- John Soos

Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.
-- Wendell Berry

RESOURCES AND REFERENCES

1. Much of the information about Mabon came from "Sabbats" by Edain McCoy (Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN, 1994).

2. For and astronomical explanation of the seasons and the Equinox, visit http://www.ohio.com/kr/equin/equin1.htm

3. Want to view the current phase of the Moon? Visit http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-m&img=Moon.evif

4. For details on the media statistics I presented, visit The Center for Media and Public Affairs has links at http://www.proxicom.com/cmpa/html/links.html

5. For other media related issues, visit Media Watchdog at http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~mernst/media/#time-sensitive

{Jackie Giuliano can be found sitting in his patio furniture, celebrating Mabon, in Venice, California. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, the University of Phoenix, and the Union Institute College of Undergraduate Studies. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Ice and Fire Preprojects, a NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space probes to Jupiter's moon Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your comments, ideas, and visions to him at jackieg@jps.net}