{"id":826,"date":"2008-09-02T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2008\/09\/mabon-the-beginning-of-everything-2\/"},"modified":"2008-12-03T15:36:06","modified_gmt":"2008-12-03T15:36:06","slug":"mabon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2008\/09\/mabon\/","title":{"rendered":"Mabon: The Beginning Of Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s coming up to that wonderful time once more, the Autumn Equinox, another Pagan holy day stolen by the Christians and turned into Harvest Festival. Mabon was the son of Mordon, the Goddess of the earth, the Pagan festival celebrates his birth; and of course, this is John Keats’ season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.<\/em> Day and night are of equal measure. Here in the north, it’s getting dark at 8pm and there is a freshness to the mornings, even though the afternoons can still turn your skin brown.<\/p>\n

\"\"I love this sketch of Keats; it gives him a romantic intensity and reminds me of his awful tubercular death.<\/p>\n

The coming of Autumn always brings out in me a deeply introspective side, the balance to the energy which we experience as we anticipate winter and all our rural collective memories tell us to fix the roof and fill the cellar with turnips, apples and potatoes. I still possess notebooks full of whimsy, produced by the season which all romantics love the most, because, as Patrick Keiller<\/a> pointed out to me, it is the beginning of everything.<\/p>\n

John Keats – To Autumn<\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/span><\/p>\n

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
\nClose bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
\nConspiring with him how to load and bless
\nWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
\nTo bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
\nAnd fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
\nTo swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
\nWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
\nAnd still more, later flowers for the bees,
\nUntil they think warm days will never cease,
\nFor Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

II <\/span><\/p>\n

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
\nSometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
\nThee sitting careless on a granary floor,
\nThy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
\nOr on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
\nDrows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
\nSpares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
\nAnd sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
\nSteady thy laden head across a brook;
\nOr by a cyder-press, with patient look,
\nThou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

III<\/span><\/p>\n

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
\nThink not of them, thou hast thy music too, –
\nWhile barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
\nAnd touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
\nThen in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
\nAmong the river sallows, borne aloft
\nOr sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
\nAnd full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
\nHedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
\nThe red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
\nAnd gathering swallows twitter in the skies.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s coming up to that wonderful time once more, the Autumn Equinox, another Pagan holy day stolen by the Christians and turned into Harvest Festival. Mabon was the son of Mordon, the Goddess of the earth, the Pagan festival celebrates his birth; and of course, this is John Keats’ season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[84,250,81,112,780],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky-original","tag-autumn","tag-beginning","tag-death","tag-ending","tag-funky-original"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1152,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/1152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}