harvest moon & fall equinox

This year, the harvest moon falls on Monday, September 20 - just two days prior to the autumn equinox. 

Farmers Almanac facts & folklore

The word equinox comes from Latin aequus or “equal,” and nox or “night” because on the equinox, day and night are roughly equal in length. When the sun crosses the equator from north to south, this marks the autumnal [Sep or Oct] equinox and when it crosses from south to north, it marks the vernal [March] equinox.

The full moon that occurs nearest to the autumnal equinox is always called the harvest moon because this full moon falls the closest to harvest time in our current agricultural societies. It's also referred to as the hunters moon harkening back to older times when humans were mostly hunter-gatherers.  

Normally, the moon rises about an hour later each night, but around the time of the fall equinox, the angle of the moon’s orbit and the tilt of the earth line up just right and cause the moon to rise only about 20 to 30 minutes later for several successive nights. 

We'Moon rebalancing ritual

Also known as Mabon, Fall Equinox is a special time in the year where we meet balance once again. Mabon marks the official time where summer's last burst of heat meets fall's fist chill. 

Sometimes known as the witches thanksgiving, it is celebrated with bounty from the harvests planted near Lammas or before. 

This time marks a great shift in our seasonal cycle. A shift towards the shutting down of the Earth. Blossoms once colorful and rich in Summer, wilt away and trees prepare to shed their leaves for the coming cold. 

We start preparing for winter, animals collect food and warmth in anticipation of darkness. We start to turn inward, and practice gratitude for what the harvest has brought us. 

We commemorate these natural turning points in the Earth’s cycle. Seasonal celebrations of most cultures cluster around these same natural turning points.

September 22: Equinox/Fall: gather and store, ripeness - Mabon (Euro-American), Goddess Festivals: Tari Pennu (Bengali), Old Woman Who Never Dies (Mandan), Chicomcoatl (Aztec), Black Bean Mother (Taino), Epona (Roman), Demeter (Greek). 

We'Moon Art - Desert Magic © Christina Gage 2017⁠

Let is rest in your belly. Satisfaction, deep and delicious. Completion takes skill. It takes appreciation. When lovingly tended, the process of culmination will nest the magic down deep, filling every cranny of our lives with wonder, with its wholeness. 

Magic is in the details.

It is in the way we infuse the simplest of acts with the depth and passion of our connections. It is the way we imbue every little thing with our devotion to the sacred—the ways we feed community by looking into each other's faces, risking connection, bringing, our humanity to each other's truths. 

Speak life into your life. 

Speak life into all the threads we weave and tend. Speak to and hear the wisdom of the daily, the gold revealed in small things. 

There is a beautiful coherence being woven from large to small and back again. Satisfaction will settle the gifts of your work into your bones and breathe life into what still needs your heart, focus and radical courage. 

Breathe love into every skill this time demands of us; gather the harvest and delight in the work of the year. ~ Maeanna Welti © Mother Tongue Ink 2020