Autumn Altar
Beauty, balance & harmony under Libra –
Harmony with each other –
Jewish Festival of Yom Kippur tonight – 25 hours dedicated to prayer, forgiveness, forgiving & a balancing of all relations.
A balancing of the scales –

Creating an altar is a ritual.
Prayer & meditation are rituals.
Forgiving & asking forgiveness are rituals.
Rituals capture the moments in time, creating a blessing
with them. Rituals anchor Spirit & Soul into matter & into our daily lives. Rituas are sacred & mindful thoughts, actions & moments.
Children learn from & love riautls.

And so…on these equinox days, when everything comes into balance……
We gather flowers, leaves & branches. Making an autumn equinox altar. We are quiet for several days. The Sun is quiet at the equator, before beginning to move southward, to meet the date of Winter Solstice, at the Tropic of Capricorn.
Reflecting the Sun’s quietude…we rest on these day, especially today, Sunday. A day in the woods, amidst the trees & golden light.
Earth is our friend. Nature is divinity.

And so….a ritual.
We find ourselves next to a stream of running water.
In one hand our list of unskillfullnesses that we seek to eliminate within ourselves. Also a list of forgiveness offered & given.
In our other hand a handful of bread crumbs.
At the stream of running water we relinquish both – our unskillfulness, our forgivings, & our bread crumbs.
They are all prayers.
Then in prayer & blessing we ask that the past be over, our karma released. The hieroglyphics of karma etched upon the ethers be released.

And so…
Today is Sunday – September 24, 2023.
It’s quite a day of transits.
Capricorn (responsible) moon in the morning.
A 3 1/2 hour v/c in the afternoon (1 – 4:30pm).
Then moon enters Aquarius – from the old to the new.
From capture to freedom.
Mars points out our wounds today (Mars opposite Chiron – Libra/Aries). We release all that has hurt us.
Sun/Saturn tonight – a perfect night for Yom Kippur.
Saturn, Ray 3, represents the Jewish people.
Their great & vast intelligence, which is a great & vast responsibility – Saturn/Capricorn.
This is esoteric.

And so….
….tonight the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur begins at the sight of the first star. Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement – (lasting 25 hours).
We have been aware of & participating in the the Jewish Festival of Forgiveness & Forgetting – called Days of Awe and Atonement.
We have offered forgiveness & asked for forgiveness.
And the Lord of the World has looked on, knowing each of our names.

And so….these are the days (of Awe) when judgments (awareness, understanding) about our past year’s behaviors are recognized & assessed.
Forgiveness if we were unskillful comes into play here.

A timeline.
After the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 25 – 27)), celebrating the creation of Adam and Eve and after we lit our candles and ate challah with raisins and dipped apples in honey, we then have Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn day of the year, the Day of Atonement. the day on which we are closest to
G-d and to the quintessence of our own souls.
The holy verses state – because we have asked….
“For on this day He will forgive you, purify you, that you be cleansed from all your transgressions before G d.”

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.
We join with our brothers & sisters in their holy ritual.
Forgiving others, being forgiven. Remaining in prayer.
And so our names can once again be written in the Book of Life.
The Book is closed tomorrow, Monday, night at sundown.

Three Books
The legal code of conduct for life that the Jewish people follow, the Mishnah (laws, code), portrays God as inscribing the names of people in one of three books on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah: one book for recording names of good people, the second book for names of wrongdoers, and the third book for those who are not on either side of the scale. On Yom Kippur there is a final inscribing of names. And the Book is closed.
Let us see our names, let us write our names today…seeing them written in the Book of Life for the next year.

Prayers on Yom Kippur
To G-d – “create in me O Lord a pure mind and renew in me an eager spirit of life & livingness.”
An interesting note: As it is a day of quiet & fasting, today in Israel, everyone is riding their bike around the towns & cities. It’s the most bike friendly day of the year in Israel.
The final prayer tomorrow….love, Risa