Airts -- The Southern Gate

The Southern Gate – Airt of Earth

Values: Growth, Experience, Authority, Money, Physicality, Security, Nourishment
Colors:Brown, russet, black, green
Symbols: Square, stone, cornucopia, scythe, salt, cart, plate, Gnomes
Tools: The casting bowl, patens/pentacles, horns
Weapons: Shield (Targe)
Totems: Swan, Horse & Apple Tree
Musical Instruments: Drums
Times: Lammas/Lughnasadh, Noon, Summer, Coming of Age
Places: Fields, mountains, valleys, canyons, deserts, forests, gardens
Zodiac: Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo
Sense: Touch
Power: To Keep Silent
Process: Brushing Hair/Skin, Grounding, Eating, Burying, Binding



You can visualize the Gates (the portals to each of the four cardinal directions) in anyway you like; but I like visualizing a 2-legged dolmen or even the sort of wooden gate that is common on ranches. 

The Southern Gate is very much associated with the mortal realm, consciousness, and consensus reality. It is the gateway to the Greenworld, the magic of this plane that we inhabit. It is a noon-time, bright day, midst-of-summer's abundance place.

Because it is representative of consensus reality, some people might mistakenly assume that nothing is secret, hidden, or mysterious through the Southern Gate. This is an illusion, though, and one of the challenges in coming to truly know this place. For it is also the realm of the Good Neighbors -- the Little Folk, the Fey.

Goda is the Queen of Elphame, riding forth from her Barrow. She is the White Goddess upon her white Horse. She is the Lady of Sacrifice, linking her earthen power to the first Harvest -- the Red Day of Lammas. She is the Sovereignty Goddess with whom the King must conjoin in order to rule, and it is under Her auspices that the King's life is taken in order to feed the land and the people.

On our Year Wheel, the Southern Gate is open and most easily accessed at Lammas, and the three totems that sit here are all intimately linked with Sovereignty and Self-Mastery.

This is a time for reaping the first harvest, playing games, and settling into the work of approaching Autumn.