This is the second week of the Toad and Frog Migration Moon, the second week of the Sun in Scorpio. And this is also the week that Daylight Savings Time ends throughout the country, clocks falling back an hour at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, and making the mornings a little brighter for the next month or so, more like the mornings of early fall.
The evenings, though, become winter dark as sundown is suddenly moved up to within just a few minutes of its solstice setting.
This darkness accompanies what is said to be a “Thin Time” when the border between this side and the other side, between the living and those who have died, grows weak.
The Christian church remembers that boundary with its celebration of All Souls Day on November 2nd and seeks prayers for those who may be stranded in the gloom of a spirit place or circumstance halfway between Heaven and Hell called Purgatory. Ghost-like Halloween costumes often reflect the purgatorial side of the Thin Time.
Such cultural cues, along the uncertain shifting of the weather and the final collapse of the summer’s foliage, the widening eye of the moon reaching perigee, its most powerful position closest to Earth on the 2nd, all conspire, it seems, to wear the thin time thinner, revealing all too well a threshold to the passage between one life and the next, preparing us perhaps for the challenges of winter, but also of course, for the relief and joy of rebirth and spring.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the first week of late fall and the third week of the Toad and Frog Migration Moon, the third week of the sun in autumnal Scorpio. In the meantime, be ready for Halloween, either to welcome or to frighten away the spirits.
Poor Will’s Almanack for 2015 is now available. For a sample of this new annual, and for information on how to order your copies, visit www.poorwillsalmanack.com.
