Welcome to my favorite time of year!!!

Mabon:

"Celebrated between September 20 and 22, Mabon or autumn equinox is the second day when daylight and darkness are equal, creating a mirror for you to look into as you seek balance and acceptance, weighing the bounty of your personal harvest gained through life's experience. It is a time to honor and separate your truth from your physical experience. This acknowledgement sanctifies the people, events and experiences impacting your being and your journey, without getting caught up in how life should look. It is a time once again to balance the light and the dark. Mabon is the second harvest of the year and [a day] of giving thanks. Simplify your life and rid yourself of unnecessary activity and clutter, in preparation for the silence of the darker months. Donate what you don't need. Clear the disorder of your mind and learn to sit with the quiet of the soul. Without rushing around, you will need to make peace with your shadow, which will help you release a bit more of the mask you show to the outer world and [lessen your] reliance on appearances. Give thanks and harvest what is helpful."

Whew, so that was a longer one (to type anyway!) but such a great one. I got up this morning, hit snooze a few times, and finally hit the road at about 9:00 am, to go spend the day painting at the apartment. It was a beautiful drive, which put me in a nice, calm mood. It's amazing how the reds are coming out this year - everything from firey orange, to scarlet reds, to deep purples are appearing on the tips of the leaves. This Fall is going to be a great one, unlike last year's where the trees turned yellow and the leaves fell off almost immediately. And they're turning quickly now. When I emerged from the apartment, at about 5:00 pm, and drove home, I noticed the striking difference between the morning (where there were patches of red here and there amid the green leaves (with the exception of one gorgeous display of sumaks along the highway that were completely blazing orange and red)) and the evening where now, interspersed between the red was a deep golden colour. Even tonight, as we were walking through the park in the dark, the moon was out, and Luc said 'strange, the moon is overhead, yet the sun is still shining on the tops of those trees' - it totally LOOKED like the setting sun was reflecting on the tree tops, but it was actually the orange leaves - very cool! I'll have to try to get a picture of it tomorrow. I'm also hoping to maybe get a burning bush for the yard eventually, as I saw the neighbours have one and it's beeeautiful right now... :)

Anyway, so my first day of Fall was spent mostly holed up in our apartment, painting away, and also performing the semi-painful task of meeting with the real estate agent to get it listed on the market. :( I promised the house and myself (yes I'm crazy) that I wouldn't sell it, and here I am, doing just that... But when I got home, I noticed the bathroom here is starting to look 'saggy', moldy and neglected, the kitchen is filthy and begging to be redone, and well, there are many things here that need to be done, and we never have the time, energy or money because we're constantly worrying about that other house. So hopefully cutting back this gigantic piece of 'clutter' from my life will help to realign us with what we want in life and we'll be able to enjoy ourselves just a little bit more!! :)

Anyway, I'm going to go eat some apple pie and vanilla icecream (excuse: the apple is a symbol of autumn equinox... ;) ) Hope if anyone is reading this, that they take the opportunity to embrace this time of year and go pick some apples (make a pie!), design an autumn wreath, take pics of the trees, or just take a walk outside in the crisp air and ENJOY the first days of Fall!!!

xo