Autumnal Equinox

One of the four solar holidays; the second of the three pagan autumn harvest festivals

The hills are bare now...

And autumn leaves lie thick and still...

"Flower of Scotland"

Roy Williamson

Yarrow

(watercolor)

Summer Solstice - Midsummer

One of the four solar holidays; the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest.

Dawn
(watercolor)

 “I wake slowly. Already

my body is a twilight: Solid. Gold.
At the edge of a larger darkness. But outside
my window
a summer day is beginning. Apple trees
appear, one by one. Light is pouring
into the promise of fruit.”

Ceres Looks at the Morning

Eavan Boland

VERNAL EQUINOX

One of the four solar holidays marking the beginning of spring.  The rejoining of the Mother Goddess and her lover-consort-son, who spent the winter months in death; or the Goddess returning to her Maiden aspect (e.g., Persephone returning from the Underworld.)

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period --
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay --

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

~ Emily Dickinson, A Light Exists in Spring ~

Muntins Series IV #6:  "Springtime"
(monoprint)

Winter Solstice   

One of the four solar holidays; it is celebrated as the rebirth of the Great God who is viewed as the newborn solstice sun

The word Solstice evolved from Old French from Latin solstitium, 

(combination of sol, the sun, and stitium, to stand still.)   

  

The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
...

Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,

                        ~Percy Bysshe Shelley~

 The windows of my soul I throw

Wide open to the sun.

            ~John Greenleaf Whittier

Solstice Dawn
(Monoprint, Muntins Series II, #4)

Samhain

            Called All Hallow's Eve or Ancestor Night, it is when the veil between the two worlds is most pervious.  

            Observance begins at sundown on October 31. 

            This third and last of the three pagan Autumn harvest festivals acknowledges a time of cleansing and preparation for the darkness of Winter.  It is the most important of the four "greater Sabbats."  

Stonehenge Moon

(Monoprint)

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through;
In that small cafe, the park across the way
The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well.

I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day,
In everything that's light and gay;
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you in the morning sun;
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

Irving Kahal

Autumnal Equinox

One of the four solar holidays; the second of the three pagan autumn harvest festivals.

  

... Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,

And yellow the wet wild strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us...

Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,

With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

Falling of the Leaves

WBY

Summer Solstice - Midsummer

One of the four solar holidays; the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest.

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of ocean is the most awesome, beautiful and varied.” 

 Henry Beston

  

“The sweet secret of a summer place…”

monoprint