Autumnal Equinox

Autumnal Equinox

Autumnal Equinox, also known as the Fall Sabbat, Alban Elfed, Mabon, Harvest Home, and the Second Festival of Harvest, is celebrated on the first day of fall.

The Autumnal Equinox marks the commencement of thanksgiving and joy as the second harvest begins.  Altars are decorated with acorns, wheat stalks, oat sprigs, pine-and cypress cones, vines, garlands of greenery and apples, and other fall fruit, flowers, and grain.  This is the time for meditation and introspection.  As the days become longer and darker, the Autumnal Equinox offers us the opportunity to explore those facets of our being that we seldom honor, much less acknowledge.  Like the rest of nature, we are moving into the darkness before creation.  In soul and spirit, we are invited to travel down to our roots for nurturing, where we can gather strength and energy for yet another season of growing.  But just as black contains all the colors of the rainbow, the darkness grants us a window into all aspects of our nature.  We can make friends with our shadow selves, discover answers to questions only we can unravel, or just sit quietly in the stillness.  Visiting the unknown can be a scary path, but it is only through the night that we reach the brilliance of another day.  The journey is well worth the effort!

The Autumnal Equinox celebrates the sun child known as Mabon, a Welsh god who symbolizes the essence of the male aspect needed for fertility.  We pursue the sacred stag as a representation of seeking that spirit of male energy.  Once garnered, that male essence, the very spirit of the field, will be used for future crops.  The theory is akin to saving seeds from plants and annual flowers and planting those seeds the next year.  The idea is that by building on thriving vegetation, the subsequent harvests will be stronger and even more abundant.

Some believe Mabon is the counterpart to Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the goddess of all growing things, especially because both Mabon and Persephone were separated from their mothers and lived in a world without light.  According to legend, the ground opened, forming a huge chasm when Persephone plucked a solitary flower.  The girl ventured into the dark Underworld until she came upon Hades, lord of this dismal place.  He offered her a handful of pomegranate seeds, from which she ate six ruby-red seeds.  Because she ate the food from the Underworld, she had to live there for one month per seed.  Demeter mourned her daughter so intensely that during her absence she would not allow anything to grow; this marks our scarce seasons of all and winter.  Together, both Mabon and Persephone provide the bridge between the living and the dead.  They remind the living there is death to they will live a full life, and they show the dead the way to rebirth.

Other traditions that celebrate this sabbat include making horns of plenty and rattles, placing multicolored leaves in baskets, taking meditative walks, gathering seedpods and dried plants, and quilting.

Herbs and flowers associated with the Autumnal Equinox include acorn, aster, aspen, benzoin, cypress, fern, hazel, honeysuckle, marigold, milkweed, chrysanthemum, myrrh, oak leaves, passionflower, pine, rose, sage, Solomon's seal, thistle, and wheat stalks.

Traditional foods of Autumn Equinox include underground vegetables (such as carrots, onions, and potatoes), corn and wheat products, bread, nuts, apples, cider, harvest gleanings, corn bread, beans, baked squash, and pomegranates.

by Jamie Wood and Tara Seefeldt,
copyright 2000