Autumn Equinox is a time of balance: day and night are equal as at the Spring Equinox, but from now on the sun descends into the underworld; days grow shorter until Winter Solstice when the sun grows stronger and the days once again become longer than the nights.This balance is symbolised by the sign of Libra: the scales.This brings balance and harmony but also signals a time of change and transformation.It is a time to balance inner and outer, to clear away what is no longer needed, releasing the past and moving forwards.
This is the time of year when the last harvest is gathered and we celebrate with a gathering in of fruit and vegetables: gourds, apples, berries, nuts, mushrooms - the harvest festival. Now is a time to gather with friends and celebrate the fruits of your labour during the outward time of the year since Spring Equinox. What can you celebrate as a personal harvest? what are the fruits of your labours? What have you created and achieved? Celebrate all of your creations. It is also a time to clear away in preparation for the coming winter: release anything you no longer need with thanks and blessings; rest, replenish, make ready for the colder days to come. Now is a time to balance inner and outer, masculine and feminine, materialism and spirituality, light and dark...explore your own dualities and attempt to achieve some harmony and balance of these inside yourself...in what ways are you still not listening to your inner voice, your instincts? Are you overly affected by outer forces like society's expectations and past conditioning? Listen to your true self and dig deeper..prepare for your own healing journey into the dark.
This waning of the sun and descent of the goddess into the underworld is mythologised by the descent of the Greek goddess Persephone and by the Sumerian goddess Inanna. The dark descent into the womb of the goddess is celebrated in the Welsh myths by the descent of Persephone's male counterpart Mabon into the magical Otherworld; his mother Modron's womb. Modron is the Great Mother and her son Mabon was stolen when he was three nights old. He was eventually rescued some legends say by King Arthur; others by the Blackbird, Stagm Owl, Eagle and the Salmon. Mabon is linked with the Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. He is the Green Man, seen as the cycle of Nature and the plant kingdom. He is harvested and his seeds are planted in the earth so that life may continue and be more abundant.
Now the Harvest Lord and Harvest Queen are symbolised by a straw man whose sacrificial body is burned and its ashes scattered upon the earth and The Harvest Queen or Kern Baby made from the last sheaf and bundled by the Reapers who cry ''We have the Kern''. In Cornwall this is celebrated with the ceremony of Crying the Neck. Corn Dollies are also representations of the harvest goddess.
The season is one of ripeness, abundance, mellow days when we enjoy the last of the fading sun and walk in nature. The leaves are spotted and changing into russet, yellow, red and brown, Michaelmas daisies in their light mauve are the last flower to bloom, the bracken is burnt and rusty on the moors and the air clear and slighty chilled. Swallows fly south for winter leaving their last signs in the barred skies and the gnats gather around rotting summer fruits.....Keats put it better:
John Keats (1795-1821)
TO AUTUMN.
1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Blessed Bexxx
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Harmon lists To Autumn as the most anthologized poem in the English language. It was written on September 19, 1819, and published the following year.
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