Let Us Depart With Our Lord

Sunset over water. Image found via Google.

Today, on Departure Day, when our Sovereign Lord embarks on His journey back to the motherland of Hyperborea, we may accompany Him in a small way. All it takes is a shift in thinking, from our focus on our material reality, onto the shifting spirits around us.

If you have culivated your connection to and with the land you call home, you will feel these changes before you ever see them. What does the land feel like today? What does the air taste like? In what voices does it speak to you?

The point, is that as our Lord shifts His focus onto the inhuman, so we too may follow His example. We may not physically travel to Hyperborea, but we can acknowledge what His journey represents: tending to the expansive worlds of spirit that are beyond our everyday purview.

From today, until He returns to the sphere of anthropomophism in the spring, let us share in His view, and let us listen to the needs of the land, and other spirits who occupy the spaces we inhabit. For our needs are not the only needs, and our concerns are not the only concerns.

Apollon’s domain encompasses both the civilized and the wild, and today, our Lord enters and embraces the wilderness. We too can embrace the wilderness all about us, becoming feral, to experience the worlds we perhaps commonly see only through the filter of a veil.

Hail Apollon!

— Columbine, 09/22/2021

The Sacred Departure

“Apollo in his Chariot”, by Filippo Lauri.

My Lord, Your season comes like a gale force wind, ripping through branch and blade, bending all which is flexible, while breaking the rigid and the frail.

O, my Lord, a razor-wind is welcome, cutting into the breathless, struggling for air within a whirlwind. The sound surrounds, circulates, circumvents all thought and reason– a driving sound, full of hope and consequences.

O, Divine Lord, You have set out upon this world, and we feel the signs of You everywhere. Distance grows, as the night creeps upon the day– cool twilight our companion, our lives held in liminal sway.

Apollon, O Lord, You are the Storm, You are the Calm. You are the boundary of fear and desire. And all shall rejoice where You roam.

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It is upon the Autumnal Equinox that Apollon begins His annual tour, before at last moving on toward His winter throne, at Hyperborea. This day is referred to in the Treasury as the Departure, and we honor Him solemnly, quietly, and introspectively, out of respect for this seasonal/psychological transition.

In order to ease our anxiety at His passage, we may focus on His lightbearing qualities, with particular emphasis upon the waning light of dusk, represented in His epithet, Aegletes. Even as the sun sets, we know the dawn will rise again. So it is with Apollon. He leaves us for a time, for His duties take Him elsewhere, to Lands with concerns beyond our own. But He always returns, in the spring.

As we prepare for the Aegletia, the coming days are crucial. Use this time to purify the energies of your home or ritual space, for last minute decorating, and for final planning of rituals and other activities for the Nine Illuminations. The time will move quickly, so be certain you will have what you need.

And when the sun rises on the morning of the First Illumination, know that your only concern should be preparing yourself, in all the ways that you deem necessary, for our Beloved Prince. In the subsequent days, you will be pushed and tested, as well as uplifted and celebrated, so taking this time to lovingly tend to your own needs will replenish you, so that you may in turn replenish those who share space with you, and who walk with you in reverence of Apollon.

— Treasury of Apollon

Seasons Turning, and New Beginnings

Well, where to begin?  Apollon has begun His tour of the world before He inevitably retires to Hyperborea for the Winter.  Persephone has begun Her decent into the Underworld.  Winter is on its way, and I have felt the stirrings of the veil between the worlds.  The Departed Ones will soon join us once more, in our Autumn celebrations.

What does this season mean to you?  In years past, even last year, I met this season with anxiety and foreboding.  I was, and am prone to be, stretched too thinly in my attentions at this time of year.  But this time around, I have resolved to be less, fervent, shall we say, and instead more present in my life and in the festivals that I celebrate, as they come.

So, the Aegletia this year will be less performative, and more contemplative. It will be for me a family celebration, as it was always meant to be.  This is my son’s second Aegletia, and he is at a point of forming memories of our time together with Apollon, so this is very important for our household.  It is time for us to be in the spirit of the season, and not outwardly focused.

And I have another reason to feel intensely the turning as it unfolds.  It has been five years since Apollon and I exchanged our marriage vows.  When we did, He did not tell me for how long we were to be joined, but only that I should enjoy each day as it comes, and welcome Him into the whole of my life.  And I have.  Earlier this year, however, He told me it was time to renew our vows, this time for another seven years.  I knew this was probably coming; for a least a year I had anticipated it.  And yet, when I was given the news and the time frame, I just sort of… retreated into myself.  I have been putting it off for the better part of the year.  Apollon, patient and understanding that He is, only asked me to find myself before making this commitment.  To be certain that this is what I want for the next seven years. It’s taken time, but I believe I have worked through my apprehension and that I am now ready for the new commitment.

So, on the second day of Aegletia, when the Treasury welcomes our Lord into our hearths and hearts for the duration of the festival, Apollon and I will once again exchange our vows.  New vows this time. Clearer vows.  Deeper, more meaningful vows.  I won’t lie and say that I am not nervous still, but I am definitely no longer stuck, unable to move forward.

And I’m happy.  I usually spend so much time worrying about things– how will I organize the festival, how will I balance my time online with my time with the children, how will I deal with the sheer agony of being separated from Apollon when He has finally left?  Not this time.  Not this year.  This year, I will let myself just be in the season, and in the turning.

— Columbine