As of 5:18 pm EDT today, the Autumnal Equinox will be upon us. Equinox is a word meaning "equal night" and is one of two times a year when day and night are in balance (the other being the Vernal Equinox around the third week of March here in the Northern Hemisphere and, conversely, right now in the Southern where spring is starting). The sun's light will be shining directly on the Earth's waistline, the equator, and from that point forward sunset will be coming a little faster until Daylight Saving Time ends November 1st and 9-to-5'ers will be walking out into darkness after work.
As I mentioned at the end of my first blog entry, I am a Witch. Stood in a salt circle naked almost twenty years ago and self-dedicated to the Gods as a priest of the neopagan religion of Wicca and therefore consider myself to be a Wiccan Witch of the East. By the way, I am a male Witch, not a warlock (a derogatory Old Scottish term for "traitor" or "oathbreaker"). In this context, Charmed actually got it right as their warlocks were demons and evildoers of either sex, but these days, no matter what Bewitched told you, men are Witches, too.
In Wicca, the Autumnal Equinox is also known as Mabon, one of the eight Celtic Sabbats (solar festivals) and the second of three harvest festivals. In the Greek tradition I follow, Persephone, daughter of the Goddess Demeter, the Mistress of Grains and Fruits in their Season, was abducted and brought into the underworld of Hades to be the bride of the God by the same name. As Demeter searched in vain for Her daughter, She withdrew Her bounty from the earth and people began to die. Zeus finally demurred and said Persephone could return to Her mother as long as She ate nothing in the underworld, but Hades had tricked Her into eating six pomegranate seeds (talk about watching what you eat, huh?) For this reason, Persephone was bound to return to Hades' realm six months out of the year, and as Demeter mourns annually for Her daughter we have Fall and Winter until Her bounty returns to the earth along with Her daughter in the Spring (Vernal Equinox). It is a time for reflecting on balance, giving thanks, counting your blessings and preparing for the impending dark and cold.
Since I started my regimen in April, I've enjoyed warm weather, the occasional cooling drizzle and sunlight until 8 p.m. that has made it possible for me to walk and catch up on my reading on the walking track after work for months, but now I notice that by the time I get to the far end of the track, no light remains for reading and I am walking in the dark towards the lights of the commercial district on the way back. The weather is cool but still warm enough for shorts, the cicadas and other nocturnal buggies are chirping away and the moon is an archer's bow in the sky, but pretty soon it's going to be a lot colder and darker out here and it's time to start thinking about how that's going to affect my routine.
Perhaps it's time to invest in a pair of headphones because it looks like I'm going to have to trade my book in for a video screen on the treadmill at the gym soon. I'm not a big treadmill fan because I like to feel as if I've gotten somewhere from all that walking and I appreciate the fact that I'm walking the track at my pace rather than walking the pace of the track rolling beneath me. I guess it'll be nice to catch up on some shows, to know how many calories I've burned and my pulse rate at a glance, but I do prefer the outdoors to the gym.
With less and less sunlight to produce serotonin along with those endorphins, a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder (isn't that SAD?) may also become an issue. I thought perhaps the tanning booth at my gym would provide some benefits of sunlight I'll be missing getting to the gym under cover of darkness later on, but apparently the light wavelength is different. Cravings for comfort foods like sweets and starchy foods also accompany this year (welcome to the holiday season!) and since I'm the human kind of Bear rather than my quadruped brethren, I don't have the option of hibernating for months at a time and living off my fat stores; lucky bastards! If you tell your employer you'll see them after hibernation in the Spring, they tend to stop being your employer.
So, what's a Big Bear to do to reach goal by the New Year? Here's my list of progressive resolutions:
1. Walk the track in the morning and evening for as long as the weather permits and soak in sunshine while it lasts. When the nose is froze and the ears feel like they'll fall off, get thee to a treadmill.
2. Get to bed earlier for plenty of rest. One of my favorite TV shows is Chelsea Lately, but as implied in the title it's on at 11 pm, my bedtime in the darker months. Luckily, my parents had me genetically altered before birth for tallness and aptitude with technological devices (traits neither of them possess), so I'll start setting the timer on my VCR to tape shows for earlier viewing the next day.
3. Acknowledge a moderate need for comfort food. Luckily, even though I'm a diabetic, visions of sugarplums don't dance in my head more than "bowl" foods during the dark half of the year: chicken soup chunky with meat, egg noodles, carrots and celery; beef stew chunky with meat, potatoes and carrots; substantial, stick-to-your-ribs, hungry man meals that warm your insides as they fill them. Every once in awhile, I need a no-holds-barred meal to remind how good food is, tastes and makes me feel to replenish myself on every level. Then, I can go back to my well-balanced food choices (by the way, in this blog you will never see the word diet unless is comes before the word soda because I'm not on one, they don't work, and to me diet is just "die" with a "t" at the end. You feel like you're dying while you're on one and once you come back to life by ending it you gain back the weight plus (+), which is where that "t" at the end comes in.)
4. Keep the holidays wholly. Halloween (Samhain, the Celtic New Year to us Witches), Thanksgiving, Yule/Christmas. There are a lot of holidays on the way, and with celebrations come feasts. So when holiday foods are laid on the table once again, I will partake of dishes I don't have every day within reason and celebrate along with everyone else. Then, leaving the leftovers elsewhere, it's back to the gym the next day to use all that caloric energy to walk and working out.
5. Sleep in my sweats and socks. This will make it a bit easier to leave the womb-like comfort of my toasty-cozy bed in the morning, shove on some sneakers and be halfway to the gym before it dawns on me that I am actually going there (especially before dawn).
6. Keep up the Good Work, hold myself accountable when need be, and keep on blogging about it!
Good night, Woof, and Blessed Be!
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