Ah. Tis the season of color.
Fall is, IMNSHO, the best season ever, and isn’t that just like humans, always organizing and rating which is the better option? Lol, hierarchical tree folders are PERFECT for us, and I’m sure I’m not the only one whose magic-related webpages she’s saved on the computer are organized by excessive subjects. For example, in order to access information on the Gorgonian talisman in ancient Greece, this is the path to follow:
Jaelle’s Stuff>Documents>Magic>Info>Charms>Talismans>Ancient>Greece
Whereas if you were looking for a Babylonian amulet, you would follow Charms>Amulets>Ancient>Babylonian.
Whoever said I was not a geek?
Getting back to the lovely season of Fall – for me, Fall is the season of endings, and also of change. In the consumer world, it means the promotion of Halloween, and, immediately following (or sometimes during) Christmas. You get the end-of-summer sales, the back-to-school sales, and in the fashion world one court ends, and the Fall court begins. Second-quarter reports and paperwork are due as well (and in some of my co-worker’s cases, overdue!) and I find fall is also the time to start your wrap-up for the end of the year.
Back on the farm – I’m more comfortable here, anyway – you have your animals getting fat. In the case of predators, that means an increase of kills as everyone starts shoring up their fat resources for winter. You have birds eating their fills, and many flying south. (I’m speaking to YOU, geese! Come back!)
The ladies are getting warm and fat and fuzzy. Some of them, although virginal, look more pregnant than the pregnant ones do. A couple are in danger of getting seriously fat, but overall they’re in great condition. And they know it, too!
I went out today for a meet-and-greet with ‘em, and the ladies are shiny, glossy, and they love to dance past you with their sharp little hooves. I am not a rider, nor am I really cut out for anything but admiring-from-a-distance. But even a clodhopper like me can tell that they are filled with a beautiful, nimble grace.
For a more melodious depiction of “Fall”, check out Sigur Ros’s song, Á Ferd Til Breidafjardar Vorid, with the singer Steindór Andersen. Andersen is the primary Rímur singer in the world today. Rímur, for those of you who don’t know, is basically an Icelandic rhyming folk-epic poem – in other words, Andersen is a sort of Icelandic bard. Rímur dates back to the 14th century, and specifically evolved out of skaldic poetry, and is, in a roundabout way, essentially what Vikings liked to chant in. (Some Vikings, anyway – others went the Eddic way, but that’s another story.)
You can view the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZUxADofz00
You can also hear how Sigur Ros met Andersen and their reactions to his chanting. And for what it’s worth, I agree. I listen to this, and it connects deep inside me, and a wellspring of sorrow comes up. Sorrow, you say? Yeah. I feel grief for the lost and forgotten ages, and for the consequences that a toss-it society like ours will face. I want to go back, even if it means we lose technology, lose the vaunted global connection, lose our abilities to create and destroy in the same breath.
Doesn’t really matter anyway. What is lost, is lost, and we can never return to it again. But whenever I hear this song, I think of Fall. And Iceland. And Vikings. And how I’ve really been born in the wrong century, but I’d been burnt at the stake, so maybe it’s best I wasn’t a Viking wench anyway, since I hear they weren’t treated so well. This sets me off on a series of tangets, and eventually I end up thinking Rorhirrim were actually Vikings in disguise. Although everyone knows that.
Anyway. Watch the video. Fall in love with it. Moving on.
Getting back to our Diety-Of-The-Moment, I thought I would go with the equine theme. Yes, horsey gods and goddesses. Betcha you’ve only ever heard of Epona, right? She gets all the attention!
(Although, to be fair, she deserves it. )
Other dieties associated with horses include Rhiannon (who gave birth to a horse), Neptune/Posideon, Consus, and the lovely Philyra, who is a Ancient Grecian Goddess of paper, writing, and craftmaking. She was Oceanid daughter of Oceanus and Tethys (really, 3000 of them? I am picturing salmon spawning, for some reason!), and taught men how to make paper and write on it. For a time she was wooed by Cronus, and in the guise of horses (to keep his wife Rhea – loyal men these Greeks were, eh?) from finding out (typical avoidance scheme) she mated with Cronus and gave birth to Chiron, otherwise known as the world’s first centaur. (Which on a side note is creepy in light of beastiality fetishes. I mean, really.)
