We flipped the calendar page today. We also seem to have flipped the weather page. Yesterday, it was fairly nice. Today, it was cool and windy. Word is that the weather will get cooler as the week goes on. They are predicting lows in the upper 20s Friday night. (Note to self: Be sure to take the fingerless gloves to the football game that night.)
I bowed to the inevitable at about 10:30 this morning: I reached for my sweater to pulled it on over my short-sleeved shirt. It was the first time I had done that since last spring. Outside, it was 45 at about noon with no sign it will be getting warmer for a while.
So fall is here. The color change is now well along, but it's been cloudy most of the time so conditions for fall color photos have been very limited.
Time to report on my adventures over the weekend. I went to a fall solstice ritual conducted by a neopagan group near Menominee, Mich. I spent the night there; I left home (by myself) at about 2 p.m. Saturday and arrived back home at about noon Sunday. Things went pretty well.
I was there at the invitation of a couple I had met at the gathering held every summer, around the Fourth of July, in southwestern Wisconsin. They also travel long distances to get there. I drove first to their home. They helped carry my stuff downstairs to their "pagan guest room," which is a spare room equipped with a couch, several bookcases with pagan-related books in them, candles on top of them and posters on the wall. The room also featured lots of clutter. They had set up an air mattress on the floor, and I put my sleeping bag and pillow on it. I was all set.
We had a light dinner there, and I got to meet the two resident cats. Another older woman arrived; she went to the event with us. It took place in Wisconsin, about 10 miles to the south, near a home and a large garage. It was just after sunset when we arrived. Outside, next to the garage, they had a large cauldron set up and were starting a fire. The cauldron had moons and stars cut out on the sides, which I thought was very cool (for a burning cauldron) ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Solst-cauldron-9-08.jpg[/IMG]
Temperatures were about 55 to 60. Not overly cool. Once everyone had assembled (about a dozen people), the ritual took place in the garage. It was centered on a table decorated with several candles and some normal fall/harvesttime decorations ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Solst-table-9-08.jpg[/IMG]
My hosts led the ceremony, which lasted maybe 20 minutes. I had a minor part, speaking to the element Air. (There are four elements, Air, Water, Fire and Earth--their spirits are invited to take part in the ritual.)
Once the ceremony ended, it was time for Act Two: Everyone moved over to a nearby table, where a variety of goodies were out for a pot luck. They had mead (honey wine), several other kinds of wine and a crockpot full of hot cider. That's what I went for; hot cider is one of my favorites. There were cornbread muffins, along with your typical Doritos and blue corn chips and dip and a few other things.
Part three of the evening consisted of drumming. Maybe about half the people had come mainly for the drumming, and now was the time they were waiting for. Originally the drumming was to have been outside, around the cauldron, but some light rain passed through for about a minute or so, and the drummers were worried about their drumheads. So the drumming moved inside the largish garage. I played a small drum--I'm just a beginner, you know, but I know rhythm and syncopation, so I was able to figure out the rhythms part of the time.
I took this shot by just the light of the candles ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Solst-drumcandle-9-08.jpg[/IMG]
But if you want to see the drums and the drummers ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Solst-drumflash-9-08.jpg[/IMG]
It lasted till about 10:15 p.m., when the group started saying good-bye. We drove back to Menominee, dropped off the older woman at her place and then went back to the house. Before long, I was in the pagan guest room, stretched out on my sleeping bag. It took a while to fall asleep, but I finally did. I headed for home at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
****
Outside of that, life has been fairly ordinary lately. The other notable thing to happen was our visit to my mom last Thursday. My wife came along. For the first time since spring, my mom expressed an interest in going for a ride. So we did. Between then and now, however, she has gotten a different wheelchair, and this one won't fold up and go into the trunk, like her old one could. Bottom line is that she couldn't get out until we were back at the nursing home.
Our first stop was the cemetery where my dad and brother are buried. I pulled up so she could look out her window at the gravestone (about 15 feet away). She looked at it and before long she was crying. Crying for her son (my only brother), who took his life 23 years ago.
The last time we were there, the stone was dirty with moss, lichens and other dirt. We came back there around Memorial Day (end of May) with our cleaning supplies. It looks nice now.
The rest of the trip was better and predictable. We visited the rural area where she was raised (which looks nothing like it used to, even when I was a kid) and the farm where my dad lived (which still looks much like it did way back when). They are just a mile or two from each other.
We wrapped up the drive by getting her a chicken sandwich at Subway on our way back to the nursing home. It was a six-incher. She ate about a third of it, and my wife and I polished off the rest of it. After that she was tired, so we headed for home.
Lucky that we did it when we did. It was a nice day--temperatures in the mid 70s. Today, it's not even 50. It's October, after all.
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