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New Year 2007

by Crystal Pomeroy

What is your balance sheet as an actor in the Universe this year? What have you considered doing but still haven’t gotten around to? Which of these goals truly resonate for you? Our 2009 Autumn Equinox ceremony will help clear the way to conscious and effective action during the last season of the year.

The fall equinox comes on the wings of a New Moon in Virgo, intensifying its power as a portal of transformation. The Mexica celebrated it by receiving the energy of Quetzacoatl, whose sacred light descends at fall like the year’s afternoon sun, joining the realms of sky, earth and water. There is an intriguing convergence with western astrology, as the energy of Spring, expressed in Aries’ readiness to act, has six months later become more reflexive under Sun in Libra, a time when neo-pagan witches balance and weigh the fruits of their actions.

This prepares us for the coming phase in Scorpio, a sign ruled, like Aries, by restless Mars, but also by Pluto, Lord of mystery and transformation, as seen in the triple symbol of snake, scorpion and eagle. Native Mexicans had their own metaphor for this alchemy. They considered autumn the time of fallen fruit, when shamanic work was done to keep green fruit coming in a magical act of renovation.

The following ceremony offers a subtle blend of metaphysics with Native European and Mexican medicine to optimize this window.

Ingredients for the Equinox Activation Ceremony and Mexica Dream Altar

• A black felt tip pen
• A page or pages to write on
• White paper for drawing a pentagram
• Optional: two yards of blue yarn and glue  
• Seasonal flowers, especially wild
• A few pinches of tobacco (can be taken from a cigar or natural cigarette)
• Incense, preferably copal, but any other natural scent will do
• A bottle or glass of liquor, preferably pulque, or if you can’t get that, tequila or rum
• A small figure or picture of a hummingbird
• Reeds: either a handful of cuttings, or a small picture of reeds, preferably hand-drawn by you as you mentally connect with them
• A jade stone or stones, by itself or in jewelry
• A 6" x 6” piece of leather or natural fiber cloth (cotton, wool, linen, rayon)
• Twine or yarn
• A sheet or sheets of white paper
• 1 to 3 candles: white, orange and /or purple
• A piece of cloth to cover the altar or table: white or brightly colored

Equinox portal ceremony

• Cover your altar, table, or prayer corner with cloth as described above.
• Arrange the candle/s, incense, flowers, liquor and tobacco on it.
• Light the incense, asking the Angels of Renovation, Right Action and Intuitive Guidance to accompany this ceremony, and to bless your dream pack, mind and life with the light of divine renovation and right action.
• Continue repeating the words, “The light of renovation and right action,” as you light the candle or candles.
• Make your dream pack by placing the hummingbird image, reeds, and jade in the middle of the piece of leather or cloth, and tying it into a bundle with the twine or yarn before putting it on your altar.
• With pen and paper, sitting nearby, draw a large pentagram with black ink (you may find it easier to do this first with pencil in case correction is necessary, as it was for my prayer group).
• (Optional:) Glue blue yarn on the lines of the pentagram.
• On another sheet of paper, list 12 or 15 audacious actions you’ve considered in the course of the last 9 months, including those you have actually taken and those you haven’t.
• Choose a total of 5 the five most important ones: from 2 you took and are glad about, and the remaining 3 you have pending.
• In the top or first ray of the star in the pentagram, write a reference to or abbreviation of the most important action you have pending.
• Moving clockwise, write the second most important action in the next ray, followed by your remaining goal in the third ray. In the fourth ray, write your second most audacious action from the last nine months, ending up with the single most important action you have taken so far this year.  
• Place the prepared pentagram, top ray upward, on the altar.
• Gaze at it as you repeat for several minutes:

The light of the Mother-Father descends here, in the center of the 4 cardinal points, each guarded by angels, a bright pillar that bridges sky, earth and water, mind, matter and intuition, awakening my dream self and moving me to conscious, authentic, powerful action.

Follow up each night by taking a few minutes at your altar before sleeping, as you do so repeating affirmations like those above, and requesting sacred guidance in dreams. Take your pentagram to bed, where your last waking action will be to study it for several minutes, considering your audacious accomplishments and the best ways to move on pending initiatives. Put the pentagram under your pillow or next to your bed along with a notebook for writing your dreams as soon as you wake up. After writing them, look at your pentagram to connect with pending actions. Finally, put the pentagram back on the dream altar, which can remain in place throughout the season as a point of reference.

Autumn may seem to wind down the year’s vitality, but in fact she reawakens the urge to do in a more mature, reflective mode that can in fact produce exceptional results. We don’t really need a change of seasons to call upon the power within. However, at these archetypal moments, cyclical changes in earth and sky evoke our connection to forces larger than the capsule of civilized selfhood, forces that lay in wait of our collaboration, both deep and active.

The Mayans said that a person who doesn’t dream isn’t alive. The Mexicas, that everything dreams…

Smoke is the dream of fire.
Mist is the dream of water.
The blue sky is the dream of wind.
Human beings are the dream of the earth.
The stone on your altar is the dream of the volcano.

What will your dreams bring forth this fall? Open the equinox door that connects sky, earth and water and let your audacity be their dance.      

References

Morrison, Dorothy, The Craft, A Witch’s Book of Shadows (Llewellyn, St. Paul, 2004).

Roderick, Timothy, Wikka, A Year and a Day (St. Paul, 2005, Llewellyn).

Templeton, John Marks, The Templeton Plan (Harper and Row, NY, 1987)

Special thanks to Xolotl and Susana Argaez.