Arcanes of History: Autumn Equinox: universal harvest celebrations

September/October is my favourite period of the year.

This is the moment when the days get rapidly shorter, when you can still feel the warmth of summer tinged with a fresher breeze and sometimes a snap in the air, when you're tempted to relight a fire in the hearth after months of non-use, when nature becomes a swirl of yellow, orange and red brightness, when the sky changes fast and multicolour, multiform clouds quickly criss-cross it, and when you can taste the last offerings of mother earth before the cold, barren days of winter.

Indeed, according to the pagan organization of the year, the autumn equinox (September 22nd this year) marks the second harvest festival, the first being Lughnasadh, or Lammas, on August 1st, while Samhain, widely known as Halloween, is the third.
It depends on where you live, but here in Europe ans also in North America, apples, pears, grapes, blackberries, honey, walnuts, hazelnuts, squashes, pumkins, potatoes and corn are some of the delicious food nature offers us in September and October.
And, in some amazing harmony, a lot of these fruits and vegetables echo with their colours the amber tones nature takes in this period. The golden yellows and firy reds seem to pay a tribute to the sun, a last homage as the nights begin to overpower the days and before the start of the dark season, the day after Samhain.

Since it happens on this Saturday, I'd like to talk a bit about this second harvest festival, the Autumn Equinox.

I. Quick history

At the equinox, "equal night" in latin, night and day will be of similar length. After, the nights will be longer than the days, and will keep on taking on length until the winter solstice, end of December.

Harvest festivals can be found in many cultures around the world. Actually, probably in every sedentary cultures growing crops. They are very old pre-Christian celebrations, some of whose traditions can still be found in folklore, especially in Ireland and the UK, or other countries that have retained a lot of pagan customs (see the festival of Guldize in Cornwall for instance).

A tradition in particular appears to have been widespread: giving special treatment to the last sheaf standing in the harvested field.

A custom attested in Normandy (northwestern region of France) until at least the end of the 19th century, was for reapers to dance around the last sheaf, as, one can imagine, a way to celebrate the bounty of the harvest. [1]
Other west European traditions include: beating the last sheaf to free the corn spirit ("corn" is here used in the general sense of "grain") for fear it should be killed when all the field was reaped, and/or braiding the last sheaf into an idol (eventually a woman figurine), decorating it and keeping it at home until the spring equinox or the next harvest, or eventually feeding it to the cattle to ensure their fertility, or to the first mare who would foal. [2] [3] [4]
The last sheaf seems to often wear a name. According to the place (it varies according to a region area and not just the country), it can be called the Old Woman, the Old Man, the Maiden, the Bride... or it can wear an animal name, like the Crow, the Mare, the Hare, the Straw Dog... [2] [3] [4] [5]
Elsewhere in the world you also find this belief in a Corn Spirit inhabiting the fields and being responsible for the fertility of the earth. It could be called for instance the Corn Goddess (Aztecs), the Green Corn Girl (Cherokees), or the Corn Baby (Russia). [4] In Romania, there is a tradition of keeping a corn dolly next to other idols at the time of the harvest, as a sign of respect for the Corn Spirit (even if nowadays the act remains eventually without its original intention). [6]

II. Neo-pagan celebration

The time around the autumn equinox is, along with Ostara, the spring equinox, the period of the year when nature undergoes the greatest number of changes and when you can feel the most the wheel turning. If you're unfamiliar with (neo)paganism, know that the year and the passing of seasons is refered to as "the wheel of the year". Having a preference for dusk rather than dawn, it's no wonder that Mabon, one of the names given to the Autumn Equinox, is my favourite period.

The name "Mabon", probably the most used name for the equinox (although its application to the equinox seems quite recent and to have emerged from Wiccan or other neopagans circles), finds its origin in the Welsh myth of Mabon, son of the divinity Modron, who was taken from his mother when only a newborn, but was found safe and sound later, resting in the underworld. [4] This echoes a central aspect of the natural cycles that is at the core of harvest festivals: harvested seeds will rest in the ground during the dark season, and produce new crops later.

If you're looking for ways of celebrating the equinox or simply feeling closer to nature in this changing time of the year, there are some easy possibilities. You can take a walk (or a drive, windows opened) in a forest or a park, to admire the new colours slowly invading the green, and, depending on where you are, to gather hazelnuts, walnuts or blackberries, and, if you're lucky, to hear the belling of stags. You can spend time outdoors, in a quiet, rural place (you can walk, cycle, have a picnic or simply sit and meditate), to contemplate the changes in nature, to ponder on the turning of the wheel, and to feel the wind, harbinger of colder days.
You can have, on the evening of the equinox, a meal composed of seasonal products, and, if you have the opportunity, products you have grown or pick up yourself, or non industrial food you bought at a market for instance.
You can decorate your table, an altar if you have one, or any other place you want with fallen leaves, nuts, acorns, moss and squashes, or anything that echoes the beautiful colors and products of autumn.

The Autumn Equinox is also the time to look back on your projects, and to try to finish some of them, so that you'll start the new pagan year (November 1st) anew. Like the trees lose their leaves, it's the ideal time to shed some things from your life, to make way for new, fresher ones.

Wishing all an enchanting autumnal season, I end this short article with some of my own pictures (that you can also see on my Facebook) of this magical period.