Autumn officially starts in September at the Autumn Equinox, when the hours of dayling and darkness are equal. From this point forward, the daylight hours become noticeably shorter and the weather stars to cool with each passing day. Autumn is a season of waning light and shadows, yet it is also a season of harvest, abundance and thanksgiving.
Autumn has always been a colorful season of reward and people harvested the bounty from the summer growing season and stored it safely away for the long winter: the vegetables from the garden, the fruit from the orchards, and the grain from the fields. Everyone in the community spent long hours participating in the harvest, and at the end, they were exhausted yet grateful, and looked forward to a celebration.
Around the world, there are Autumn Harvest festivals celebrated near the Fall Equinox: from the English Festival of Harvest Home, to Michaelmas Day, to Bavarian Oktoberfest to American Thanksgiving. (which was originally in October, then moved to the first weekend in November by President Lincoln, and then moved yet again by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress to the 4th Thursday in November to help boost the post-depression economy and assist merchants with holiday sales by giving folks a full month to shop. ....No comment!)
Harvest Goddess Mythologies
In many mythologies throughout the world, a goddess of the grain, harvest and the good earth was celebrated at the Autumn Equinox, which is not surprising since the Earth herself is seen as a fertile mother or Gaia. From this venerated matriarch, all life was born. Throughout time and in various cultures, she is a great mother goddess known by many names: Astarte and Ishtar to the Sumerians; Isis to the Egyptians; Demeter in Greece and Ceres in Rome. To the indigenous populations of the Americans, she was known as 'Old Woman Who Never Dies' and Mother of Maize.
Equally important was the concept of the seeds from the harvest used for the next year, and considered Mother Earth's child. In Greek mythology, we see this as Demeter being the harvest mother, the goddess of grain and fertile earth. The seed that fell and was planted in the spring was the child, or her daughter , Persephone. The spirit of these future crops were often seen as the daughter, or a maiden, or a divine child. In Russia, the child was simply called the Corn Baby. The Aztecs called the harvest goddess Chicomecoatl, and a goddess named Xilonen was the Goddess of the New Corn. Her son ws symbolized by the seeds and called the Spirit of the Corn. In Egypt, the spirit of the grain was the goddess' son, Horus. The Cherokee people called the harvest child the Green Corn Child. In India, there is a harvest festival called Pongal. It is a rice festival that lasts for three days. The child rice that came from this harvest mother was called the Rice Baby.
began
to lactate at this time. In the US, our Groundhog Day (Feb 2)
celebrations with the anticipation of spring is a leftover from the
Celtic belief that magical animals come out of hibernation at this time.
In addition to the celebrations and definitions I mentioned above, Imbolc
is also devoted to Brigid, a fiery, independent ancient Celtic goddess
of poetry, smithcraft and healing. Brigid is all about the
transformative power of fire, which we need right now as an antidote or
balm for the drudgery of endless gray days, seemingly endless cold, ice
and dirty snow. Fire's transformative power is also about fire in the
forge/hearth, fire in the poet's mind, and of course, fire in the
healer's hands. The Celebration of Imbolc is the
perfect time to reflect and write a poem, or to take the time to make a
special craft (weaving of Brigid's Crosses out of wheat or rushes is
traditional, as is candle-making) or to perform hands-on healing for
someone you love!
On this winter solstice, I baked mini muffins and placed them around my yard at the base of trees for the fairy folk. I took the CDs that come in the mail for postage stamps and other various sales pitches and hung them in the trees as unbreakable reflective decorations to celebrate the the light is returning! And have you noticed that it is not pitch dark black outside at 4:30PM as it usually is at this time of year? Something is going on, and even if I don't have words for it, I can participate in the unfolding of it.
Harvest Goddess Mythologies