occasional posts by risa aratyr
Risa Aratyr “Why, what’s the matter,That you have such a February face,So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?” William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing It occurs to me that, of all the cross-quarter days, divination is most strongly associated with Imbolc (Candlemas, Lá Fhéile Bríde) because when one lives in a part of the world where … Read more Signs & Portents
I look for hope and joy at every station of the sun. I look harder when I’m writing a post. Festivals should be festive, and laments make for poor holiday reading. Since Samhain last, when flawed but still recognizable America fell to the oligarchs, I have done my best to avoid turning this blog into … Read more Season’s Greetings from Oceania
In my local time zone, the true cross quarter – the exact midpoint between the last equinox and the upcoming solstice – occurred last night at 22:56/10:56pm. By my calculations, that made last night Samhain Eve, and today the first day of Winter. Here in my new residential corner of the world, Summer ended long … Read more The First Day of Winter
I’ve borrowed (stolen, ripped off, plagiarized) the title above from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. The mistress of confessional poetry coined the phrase in reference to another season entirely – August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time. – but, for me, her … Read more The Odd Uneven Time
In my pre-move post (May Madness), I predicted that our Bealtaine-tide drive from Sonoma to Rochester was going to be a bumpy ride. It was, indeed. Cassandra, at your service. What I failed to predict was that the Rocky Road to Rochester would prove to be the easiest part of the journey. To those of … Read more The Off Season