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A Druid in Los Angeles on the Autumn Equinox

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The weather in this town is a betrayal of my religious sensibilities. It’s all bright and warm and sunny without ceasing.

This is the Land of Perpetual Summer.

This town resists death at all costs; be that the death of youth, the death of popularity, the death of green. Death is frowned upon in Los Angeles.

This town is in denial of Autumn.

Autumn is my favorite season. It’s just cold enough for two shirts, but not so cold that you can’t enjoy an evening walk through the neighborhood, through the urban grove, sharing in the soft, gold-filtered light.

I find comfort in the dying. It relieves the pressure to be beautiful, to be productive. I need not grow these leaves anymore, says the tree. I can rest. I can go out in a blaze of red-purple-yellow glory, and then be still for a time.

There are orange and amber leaf decals on the windows of the local Starbucks on Santa Monica Boulevard. They approximate Autumn. They are the simulacrum of a season, but they come nowhere close to touching on it’s meaning, or its majesty.

Autumn colors on city buildings.

I’m in a town that does not rest. It persists with a fierceness that runs contrary to the sentiments of Autumn. Fall is a time to make tea or soup, and to remember the comforts of flannel and fire. At least, that’s what the season is in my imagination. It is a time where the world, herself, slows down the pace of our movement, and we are given more time to be in the dark, to be in meditation, in contemplation, in prayer as we understand prayer.

Autumn is misunderstood, as is the darkness. It is a gift to be given reason to stop moving in a frantic world. Autumn provides us with that gift.

Los Angeles is always at work, always in preparation for the next season of television shows, of fashion lines, of press releases and album releases. The sense of season is so different here; so fixed in movement and the creation of things, and consumerism. Everyone’s always jumping ahead, planning for two seasons forward, getting a good start on next year’s holidays, on a new collection of Spring beachwear, on anything but what is happening right now — stillness, release, beautiful dying.

It’s curious to be a wandering Druid in this concrete city, trying to keep mind of what is natural in the midst of what is not. One has to start accepting nature as omni-present; available and existing in even the starkest, most man-made environments. There is no part of the Earth that is not a part of the Earth, after all.

Even here, in Los Angeles.

These tress will grow. These buildings will not.

The equinox provides us an opportunity to re-examine ourselves and take a closer look at our place in the world. I had cause to ask myself recently, “What is it to be a Druid, anyway? What is it to feel aligned with aspects of a distant culture and yet be completely rooted in modernity (or post, or ex-post-modernity)? When I walk through the city in my wingtip shoes and black bluejeans, how am I like the Druids dancing at the foot of The Long Man of Wilmington? How are we the same? How are we different?”

My mind drifts to the British Isles on the Equinox.

Alban Elfed, a phrase loosely translated to mean, “The Light Of Water,” is used in many Druid traditions to name the celebration of the Autumn Equinox. Druid teachings and titles can be cryptic poetry, for sure. It is a mystery tradition, after all. But today, in this foreign place, where the flowers continue to bloom and the mountain side shows no sign of letting go of the light, I read something different into the Welsh words.

I read “Light of Water,” and I look outside at the swimming pool, quintessentially Los Angeles, drenched in morning sun and shimmering beneath a thin steam, and I see in that interaction of heat and cold, of pale yellow light and deep blue darkness, a message that Autumn is here, regardless of what Los Angeles thinks. The shift of the world happens even when we pay it no mind; a power so great as to lead one to reverent worship.

Harvest Home, Indeed.

I board a plane today and return home, and this seems perfectly timed to occur on the Autumn Equinox. The sense of returning back to our dens, to our hearth, is symbolic of the season. Autumn is a time to savor the dying sun, to relish the mid-day warmth, to walk through the world in layers, and then to return home and prepare.

The season of deep reflection is upon us. Take a moment to think about the meaning of Autumn. If the colors are already changing around you, gaze at them. If you’re in a place where there is little outward change, imagine what subtle signs you can sense in the atmosphere, in your body, that point to the shift.

Take these thoughts and emotions and, if you are willing, put them together as a poem or short verse and post them in the Bishop In The Grove comment section. If you have your own blog, post them there, and then share a link with us here. The words need not rhyme, and you don’t have to explain why they are relevant to you, unless you feel moved to do so.

It would be an honor to share in your experience of the Autumn Equinox.

May the Awen flow through you on this blessed day.

 

An Early Autumn Chill

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Our realtors walked through our bedroom and pointed out that my jewelry (a.k.a. Pagan Bling) would need to go, as would our book shelf of Buffy DVD’s and the half-dozen, brown, wooden elephant figurines left over from our big, gay wedding. They were pleased with the size of the closet, though, if not a little concerned with the clutter.

People like to see space, they told us.

How metaphysical, I thought.

They surveyed our kitchen next, which is lined with glass-doored cabinets, and they said that we’d need to do something will all that food.

Keep only the food you’ll need to eat for a couple weeks at a time.

How survivalist, and barren.

They looked at the wooden counters tops, which were once doors in a previous incarnation, and they mused that wood would probably be ok; the counters didn’t have to be granite. Our appliances, on the other hand, they would never pass. Stainless steel, it seems, is a crucial element in the sale of houses these days. This cold, hard metal can make or break a deal, our realtors assured us.

It really makes a kitchen “pop”!

Popcorn makes a kitchen pop. I love popcorn. I make it often, and I eat it in bed out of an oversized bowl that my mom gave to me. But my air-popper would have to go, and so would the bowl, and so would my grandma’s “See/Hear/Speak No Evil” antique monkey mugs.

They moved on to my office, home to my altar, my books on Druidry and Paganism, and all of my magickal supplies. This room would need a complete overhaul, clearly. The tapestries would come down off the walls, and the candles, statuaries and divinatory tools would be put into piles, first, and then boxes.

This room would make a good office. Leave the desk, and maybe a lamp. Again – space is a good thing.

I couldn’t breath.

Checklists and Upgrades

After their inventory of our possessions was complete, they gave us a schedule, a list of names and numbers of general contractors, and then departed with a forced cheeriness that could not have been more disconnected from the achy feelings in my belly. This wasn’t a home-invasion, exactly, but I still felt a little violated.

There was little time for the trauma, though. We had our task: pack up the outward representations of our personalities, and do it quickly. Like, two weeks quick. The air would turn cold soon, and we didn’t want to miss the Fall market.

Since that initial visit, we’ve erased much of what was unique inside our house. We’ve created a spacious (empty) and simple (bland) environment to put on display for as many strangers as possible.

(I have some parenthetical resentment, I won’t lie.)

Making space for strangers is weird. It almost feels like hospitality, but not quite. Never before have I sought people’s approval in such a outward, physical way. My treasure troves of trinkets and journals, aura photos and drams of oil, each picked out for its beauty, its function, or the tingle it gave me when I first picked it up, began to appear different when I stared looking at them through the eyes of a potential buyer. Liabilities? Maybe. These things that are connected to my spiritual practice were transformed, passively, into potential barriers between us and our financial freedom.

They needed to be boxed. My hearth must be dismantled for the change I seek to occur.

A Change Of Seasons

There are still two weeks left before Mabon, but I’m feeling the transition to Fall begin within the walls of my home.

Autumn is the season where we are all forced to accept that the year’s growth is coming to an end. The green of the leaves, the fruit from the vine, all that we’ve planted and made from dirt and sweat and water, it all begins to cease; to draw back. It is not dead yet, and it is still plenty beautiful, but the beauty is different now. The color is harder to hold, for you know that in time reds will become browns, and browns will take over the sidewalks and become crunchy and brittle, and everything that is now will soon not be. There is a melancholy beauty to the whole process.

Autumn is a season where we all consider the coming cold, and we wonder how we will survive it. The season has turned metaphoric for me in a profound way, for I stand now with uncertainty about who will take ownership of this space, and where we will land once it’s all over and done with.

How will our plants fair the move? How will we manage the dogs in the midst of house showings? What sorts of sacrifices will be made, unplanned and sudden, and how will we fare them? As I take apart the evidence of my achievements, removing the postcards and bookmarks that show proof of my journey thus far, what am I left with?

Perspective

I look outside my newly cleaned window (sparkling windows, our realtors told us, are essential when showing a house) I still see green. The tiny leaves which turn yellow and rain down on the grass and clog our gutters are still holding fast to their property. They aren’t selling just yet. They’re going to hold out until the moment is right; until the weather has turned and there is no sense in clinging to the life they’d grown accustomed to.

We’ve both got a little more time until we must become something new.

 

Have you had a similar experience? Have you been faced with the decision to sell or move out of your home, and did it give you cause to reflect on your life? If so, I’d love hear from you. Please share your experience in the comments. And, I’d be very grateful if you shared the post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice!