WELCOME

to our

Harvest Moon Celebration

We will be celebrating the

Full Harvest Moon

 on

Thursday ~ September 7, 2006

at

6pm PST / 9pm EST

in the

Mstikal Seasons Open Circle Ritual Room

Please RVSP on attendance ASAP. 

Ritual Supplies Gold/Yellow Candle - Goddess Silver Candle - God Elemental Candles: North- green, East - yellow, South - red, West - blue Cauldron Incense of your choice Small dish of Consecrated Sea Salt Small bowl of Consecrated Water Athame Besom Wand Altar Bell Chalice Offering Dish Beer or Non Alcolholic Beer or water Corn Dolly Matches White Sage for smudging yourself and computer/ritual area prior to the start of ritual.

Your Esbat Alter

The alter should be decorated with assorted local harvest goods, Corn, Wheat, Oats, and other vegetables.

God/Goddess candles should be lit just prior to the beginning of the ritual. By preference, we'll have a corn dolly and a local beer, or if  you are lucky enough to have mead....MEAD! For those of you that don't consume alcohol, a non-alcoholic beer will due just fine. In the case that you don't have a corn dolly, I will use mine for all of you.

Be prepared to do visualization during the ritual.

 
Moon Names: Harvest Moon, Wine Moon, Singing Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Haligmonath (Holy Month), Witumanoth (Wood Month), Moon When Deer Paw the Earth.

September was the seventh month in the oldest Roman calendar. When other months were added to the seasonal calendar, the name for some reason was never changed. The Autumn Equinox was and is still celebrated by many cultures around the world. This month is the last of the reliable harvesting months in the Northern Hemisphere. Life is beginning to wind down in preparation for the dormant months that follow. The energy flows from the Autumn Equinox through Winter Solstice to the Spring Equinox are getting deeper, more hidden. The Dark Moon deities, who represent the Underworld, death, reincarnation, and deep spiritual mysteries, now hold sway.

The Egyptian Ceremony of Lighting the Fire was a general festival of lights for all the gods and goddesses. Lamps of all kinds were set in front of deity statues. They were also placed before the statues of ancestors. The Egyptian deity Thoth was the Lord of Holy Wards and inventor of the Four Laws of Magick. Portrayed as ibis-headed, Thoth was a Moon god. As Supreme Magus, or the Ultimate Magickian, he had control over the powers and attributes of the Moon.

In the old Incan Empire, the Citua was held on the New Moon nearest the Autumn Equinox. Everyone performed a ritual cleansing, then smeared their faces with a paste of ground maize (corn). There followed several days of feasting and dancing. This was a Moon festival in honor of Mama Quilla, the Moon goddess.

Correspondences

Nature Spirits: trooping faeries
Herbs: copal, fennel, rye, wheat, valerian, skullcap
Colours: brown, yellow-green, yellow
Flowers: narcissus, lily
Scents: storax, mastic, gardenia, bergamot
Stones: peridot, olivine, chrysolite, citrine
Trees: hazel, larch, bay
Animals: snake, jackal
Birds: ibis, sparrow
Deities: Demeter, Ceres, Isis, Nephthys, Freyja, Ch'ang-O, Thoth
Power Flow: rest after labor; balance of Light and Dark. Organize. Clean and straighten up physical, mental, emotional and spiritual clutter.

Old Sayings & Lore

• A verse: When the Moon is at the full, mushroom you can safely pull. But when the Moon is on the wane, wit ere you think to pluck again.
• Sailors believed that if the Moon, in the first or last quarter, lay in nearly a horizontal position with the horns upward, the weather would be fine. Country people say that the same type of Moon means good weather for twenty eight days.
• Country people said that the weather was more likely to change at the four quarters of the Moon that at any other time.
• Rain is coming when the Moon has a halo around it or when an outline can be seen between the horns of a waxing or waning Moon.
• One old legend says that on the Moon is everything that was wasted on Earth: mis-spent time, squandered wealth, broken vows, unanswered prayers, fruitless tears, unfulfilled desires and intentions, etc.

Ritual Assignments

Expect this to be sent out on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006