Leviathanism: Initial notes on the new year and seasons
Beginning of the Year
Autumn is the beginning of the year in Abyssal Leviathanism. Specifically, since cycles differ around the world and not every location has four seasons, the Abyssal year begins when the heights transition to lows, the weather turns from sun to rain, the harvest approaches, and the weight of the Leviathan looms. The year begins not with dread, not necessarily, but with the descent into the depths.
In line with the rules of Subjective-Objectivity in the religion, the date should be set by oneself or one's community in collaboration with Leviathan himself. Whether it's the meteorological calendar's Autumn, the Irish calendar's, the end of monsoon season, or whatever other system of measurement, one must make contact with the point teetering on unstoppable descent and mark it on the literal or internal calendar. The date can change each year, one might make it around the day one feels the weather shift officially, for the first time that year, into Autumn.
The whole calendar maps on to the energies of the Leviathan, with Red Sun's ferocious radiance forming the burning and razing summer, the White Moon's veiled withdrawal forming the uncertain and lifeless winter, and the interactions between the two forming the flows between. Autumn, however, is considered the first season of the year as the looming rain, pressure of the sky, and introspective nature of the turning weather bring one into the undeniable presence of Ma'dveigra, and into oneself at the same time. The dichotomy of selves, the body and the Lord of Bodies, while present in all seasons is present in autumn in such a way that resonates with the the concept-energy of beginning , and beginning again.
Autumn is the season when the sky begins to stretch and fall at the same time, where it darkens, deepens; it's when nature begins to curl inwards, weaned from the nurturing of the external Mother and returns to introspective self-sustenance. The Sun disappears from the sky and in that time we are increasingly left alone with the Moon. Leviathanism, as a religion of selfhood and self-knowing, begins where we are finding our feet.
Following the model of the self as a body of the Leviathan and the seasons as passages and stages of selfhood: Mother Summer births the new year, and as it grows it grows uncertain, fed less and less by the environ and becoming more reliant on itself. The beginning of life in Leviathan's shadow is shaky, imperfect, followed by Despair, regret, the eclipse of the Red Moon, the need to turn inwards to reflect. From that - and only from that, only through having made mistakes and been alone against the world - one can begin to foster the seedlings of new selfhood and growth, before eventually blooming into radiant existence in summer.
From the Old
Autumn is the product of summer, though the lines between the two are barely existent. The energy of summer is the milk and nurture that fuels the year ahead, and so autumn takes what it's owed and descends to the Underworld with it. The Wild Mother births the Reserved Son, as is the nature of Reality.
Summer should be eaten, digested, the divine-theatre shame of which should drive one into winter. Take all you can fit of summer in your mouth, chew, swallow, and then return to the den to allow that to digest mentally and physically. Know what you did, and own it. Summer should change you in every way - fuel exists only as change - and autumn should be the start of that digesting period which winter follows up on.
