31 August 2010

Autumn

We are rapidly approaching my favourite time of year. I felt it today for the first time. All of my immediate family have summer birthdays, my mum is the last on 31st August (happy birthday Mum!) and once this date passes it's like autumn suddenly rushes up to meet me. The days are growing shorter, the evenings are still warm but there is a crispness to the air. It's about now that the memories of some of the best times of my life start to kick in and the anticipation of the forthcoming holidays and festivals starts to set my pulse racing. I always seem to reconnect with music at this time of year too. I listen to music all year around, but it seems to be a background thing most of the time these days, unlike pre-Jack when live music and clubbing were a big part of my life, but around this time of year I start really listening again and listening to different bands and artists, more rock and less of the pop and dance that I tend to go for in the summer months.

We're only 3 weeks from Mabon and I find myself feeling a little sad that we won't be at Avebury this year, which had become a little tradition when we lived in Bristol. I don't recall missing it last year, but we were busy with Jack hitting the six month mark and all of the challenges that came with that. Mabon is not my favourite Sabbat, but it is the one that I always get a little more excited about, perhaps because it marks entry into the festive season, where the next two Sabbats, Samhain and Yule, seem to come in such quick succession and everyone else gets excited about their secular or Christian counterparts.

I love the way we all get swept along with the season, like the golden leaves dusting the ground and the build up to its inevitable conclusion - winter. Don't get me wrong, the ridiculously long and drawn out build up to Christmas annoys the hell out of me. "Festive" goods and songs in shops from September is ludicrous, decorations and lights going up in October completely misses the point of the holiday to me. But what I do like are the simple things, the human aspect. I love the way people start grinning and wanting to talk about the holiday and I love the weather turning cool and crisp, the frost and even the first snow (when we get some before new year that is). But long before that, just the little buzz in the air, the sense that the seasons are changing, I love it and I felt it today.

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