rosy

mabon 🍇🍷🥀

patient mabon
the equinox, the paradox
the cosmic cornucopia
the second harvest, fruitful
a warm bunch of grapes, one by one
a magenta blood, spilled by everyone
rosehips on rose lips
a bouquet of galaxies
a long winding table of friends and food
a full tray of full wine cups
the relentless vine that
runs through it all
the love you fought off
a chill that starts at your toes
and runs all the way up

for mabon this year, I drank rose co-fermented coffee and oregon pinot, ate apple brown butter cookies, recounted all of my regrets one by one, and co-hosted a bookish bacchanalia.

so lughnasadh is the beginning of the end, and mabon is the end and the beginning. it’s the original thanksgiving: a time to relish in the fruits of the harvest (literally and figuratively,) a time for feasts, a time for gratitude. the year’s work winds down, and now we open our hands and see what we’ve been and done.

lately it feels like all of our plans are ruined at the last minute. like we’re pouring more effort than ever before into just making it and falling farther and farther behind. I’m not even talking about the political climate, or the actual climate, or the dystopian flavor every single thing in life has absorbed like tofu in spicy soup, but it certainly contributes. or it’s all the same. or it’s all a simulation, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

given my heart and my hurt, I would create the same situations, learn the same lessons, break the same fault lines again and again, regardless.

I need love, and I don’t always believe in it. I need food, but I don’t always care. I need introspection, but I don’t always get the time.

on the eve of equinox, my friend and I hosted a bookbinding workshop at a local wine room via her social club Cin Cin called bacCINalia. I brought the teacup library, and she brought the caviar cart & bell. I stayed much later than I planned, drinking red wine with a couple of very lovely girls I met.

lily hurt her leg the morning jacob left for his bachelor trip and couldn’t go with him. I’ve never taken care of a dog by myself before, much less an injured dog, but she is my dog, too. I would strain all my muscles to lift her if she wants to sleep in the bed with me.

I worked 5 days straight doing a lot of nonstop manual labor, when I’m used to sitting at a desk for 4 days and making more money. most weeks at the new job won’t be so bad, but this one was hard. I took lily to the vet and got bad news. jacob came home from his vacation stressed and scared.

we planned to leave the next morning for asheville, but jacob stayed home with lily and let me take his car. it was a lonely weekend, but I managed to meet a lot of wonderful people at the zine fest and connect with other artists. I got to start the day at my favorite asheville coffee shop, serendipitously across the street from the center for craft. I traded a lot of zines and went to the reception afterwards for a while with some new friends. then I excused myself to eat dinner and drink tea on the floor at dobra, one block down. it was the perfect way to decompress and felt utterly holy, to be there alone. I had a huge bowl of miso soup with toasted sesame oil and a pot of their “lunar tonic” tisane. having an airbnb to myself was luxurious as it was lonely. the bed was in a nook area, and each night I pulled all the curtains and pretended it was my own blanket fort. the drive home was long and slow and hormonal? maybe? there was a lot of singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs and some tears.

I slept all day yesterday and got back in the car today and drove 3 hours to montgomery to get my star ID. I felt stressed and sick all day and ate nothing but drank coffee with oat milk and a lot of protein-collagen powder, which I also spilled all over myself as soon as I got in the car. but I still stopped by prevail union to sample a cortado. (it was exceptional.)

I went visiting ghosts this weekend. in asheville, I stopped by the river arts district on my way out of town. it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but the coffee shop I used to visit is gone. I stood in the shell of it and thought about the last time I was there, about the first time. I sent a picture to the group chat, and Amelia pointed out the chicory flower growing from the cracks in the foundation: a plant used in place of coffee in times of scarcity.

in montgomery, I walked out on the patio behind prevail. the swinging bench I had coffee on 8 years ago is gone, half chains still hanging from the rafters. I walked down to the fountain in the square where I climbed in and went for a swim one time on a dare. my clothes clung to my 20-something body afterwards like I was one of the statues in the center.

I drove home on roads I drove so many times in college and even before, when my first friend went off to college. I drove nearly 20 hours solo this weekend. I did ask for introspection. but when you go visiting ghosts, they start visiting you.

apples, roses, and mabon (oh my)

apples are timelessly associated with mabon—the magic of an apple, the height of its season, the star hiding inside you only uncover when you cut it in half horizontal.

roses aren’t typically associated with autumn, but they do represent the balance of light and darkness (think persephone) and deep gratitude. their cycling petals mimic the cyclical patterns of nature, best represented at equinoxes on the cusp of both life and death. their fruit, rosehips, are also now in season. for these reasons, I’ve come to always think of roses at mabon and include them in my altar.

feasts, recently

caviar bumps at bacCINalia

a cortado, a drip, and a feta-spinach croissant (not pictured) at rowan the morning of the zine fest

church: Really Good miso soup and herbal tea post-zine fest

cortado and a toastie with lingonberry jam, gjetost (melty, sweet cheese), and bee pollen

on my altar:

• a cornucopia of fall fruit, for the fruit and vine harvest

• wine glasses, goblets, and a half bottle

• rose-coferment coffee from brandywine roasters

• my cin cin keychain with newly added book charm to remember our night of bookbinding (teacup poetry x cin cin charm omg)

• custom stamp from my wine glass drawing

• the little prince with his rose

• rowan coffee matchbook

• whole foods tiny bag gift card holder

• baby birkin bag from atl con

• tiny jam jar jacob got me in atl

• recently sipped instant coffees

• instax from the hsv flip show and our room key from atl con

• teacup books of tomato poetry

merry mabon, blessed be, and good luck 🍷