‘Sing a song of seasons!’

     

Autumn Fires

Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens

And all up in the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over,

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

There isn’t much talk in Freemasonry of the equinoxes. It’s all about the solstices, starting, even, with an allusion during the First Degree—as another dichotomic pair, like checkered pavement, directional opposites, twin pillars, spirit and matter, and other contrasts balanced for harmony.

My lodge is located in the middle of Manhattan, so an autumn bonfire like Stevenson recommends would be impractical. The building trustees would suffer paroxysms of all sorts. Still, there is much the individual can do to acknowledge the quick period of “equal night” that strikes at this very moment. For me, the autumn fires will involve the transition from Virginia pipe tobaccos to mixtures containing healthy doses of Latakia. Maybe wear some tweed to lodge. Nothing pumpkin spice, thanks.

Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have been a Brother Mason in Scotland. My query via social media to the Grand Lodge there went unrequited, but in his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he delves very much into paradoxical human nature: good versus evil; public versus private; civilization versus barbarism. Just as we do in our lodges.

From Stevenson’s novella: “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”

And so it goes in our initiatic rituals. Darkness overcome by Light at first; Ignorance cleansed by Knowledge in the second; and Death defeated by Eternal Life in the Sublime Degree. We can’t have one without the other in the perpetual labor.
     

‘Equal Night is tonight’

     

Elm Forest in Autumn by Edvard Munch, oil on canvas, 1919-20.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the autumnal equinox will arrive tonight at 9:54 (New York time), when our sun will cross the celestial equator, resulting in an equal amount of sunlight reaching both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and day and night shall be equal (give or take) all around the globe. Equinox means “equal night.”

For us, it spells the beginning of fall.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

It is time for harvest and feasts; for darker days and longer sleep; to retire sweet Virginias for English and Balkan; and for wearing wool, tweed, leather, and denim. We’re halfway to the solstice.
     

‘The Significance of the Autumnal Equinox’

     
The Rosicrucian Order will host an aptly timed program titled “The Significance of the Autumnal Equinox” tomorrow at 5 p.m. at the Rosicrucian Cultural Center, located at 2303 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard (near 135th Street) in New York City.

From the publicity:

Our discussion will include not only a consideration of the Rosicrucian Autumn Equinox observances, but also their parallels in world spiritualties and cultures across the ages. Participants are invited to share their own experiences of the Fall of the year, and its resonances in their lives.

Magpie file photo

The presenter, Steven A. Armstrong, M.A. Hum., M.A., M.Div. is a professional historian, philosopher, and teacher based in the San Francisco Bay area. His current areas of interest include how the Primordial Tradition permeates all world traditions, and the way in which the Rosicrucian and Martinist paths provide a unique and unifying viewpoint on those traditions. Author of more than 30 published papers, articles and podcasts, and a lecturer for the RCUI, he is no stranger to NYC, as he received two of his Master’s Degrees at Fordham’s Rose Hill Campus, and did his undergraduate work just north of New York at Yale.

There is no cost to attend but, they say, donations are welcome.