Happy Fall Equinox and Witches' Thanksgiving

Day and night are in balance; Fall Equinox is the door to the dark time of the year.

This is the second harvest festival. What are we storing away for the winter? What foods don’t store well, and so we eat them now?

Some trees are already beginning to shed their leaves. What do we shed with the coming of winter, so that we don’t waste energy bringing it through the cold, and so we have energy and room for new gifts?

In many traditions, the Goddess, or one of Her faces, begins a journey into the Underworld at Fall Equinox. What will we lose in our journeys? What will we find? What abundant gifts of Mother Earth, tangible and not-so-tangible, carry us through the coming dark and cold time of the year?

What gifts do fall and winter bring?

Fall Equinox/Mabon

I hosted a small potluck for Fall Equinox Thanksgiving, for which I'd sent out the following invitation:

At Fall Equinox, day and night are equal in length; going forward, the nights will start to become longer than the days, until we reach the Longest Night at Winter Solstice. Harvest is a time of preparing for the coming winter and dark time of the year.

What foods are crossing our tables this time of year for which we find ourselves especially thankful? What foods do we eat and find ourselves thinking, "Wow, I'm glad to be alive in a world that has [this food]"? What foods will go forward with us into the winter, and which will not?

Whether it's home-grown tomatoes after a cool and slow summer, really good chocolate, or something completely different -- bring something to share which you're thankful exists so that you can eat it!

There was pasta with local veggies -- tomatoes, red bell peppers, garlic -- and fresh mozzarella. Home-made beet and vegetable soup-stew, again with lots of local ingredients. Home-made bread -- sourdough with rosemary from the garden. (Rosemary and lavender both grow nearly wild here.)

We hung out and talked far past when the potluck was supposed to have ended: friendship, community, good company are things for which I'm grateful, and in which I find joy.

Darkness and light, day and night, geek heaven

We arrived in Seattle not long after Lammas, and Fall Equinox is now fast approaching. We've been noticing how dramatic the change has been in the number of hours of daylight, and in when the sun rises and sets. So when it seemed awfully dark this morning, I decided to see what the objective data say over at the US Naval Observatory about what time the sun is rising and setting.

And I discovered a couple of neat things! (Such geekdom...)

First was the "Duration of Daylight/Darkness Table for One Year," which lets you request a table for an entire year for any location with the number of hours of daylight (or darkness) on each day. This is on the Data Services page, which has all kinds of cool things -- complete sun and moon data for one day, info on the rise and set of major solar system objects and bright stars, what fraction of the moon is illuminated, positions of celestial bodies, dates of solstices and equinoxes...

I also discovered the Astronomical Information Center, with all sorts of FAQs about the sun, the moon, how time is computed, etc.

One really neat tidbit: have you ever checked how long it was light, and how long it was dark, at Spring or Fall Equinox, and noticed they're not actually equal where you are? Their "Length of Day and Night at Equinoxes" page explains the relationship between this and how far one is from the equator, etc., and whether day or night is slightly longer at the Equinox, depending on where you are.

I realize this is getting too geeky for some, but it all rather delighted me. :)

Have fun!

Mabon

A good Fall Equinox to you!

Mabon, or Fall Equinox, is the Second Harvest, the Witches' Thanksgiving, the Descent of Inanna, one of the two days of the year when dark and light are in balance, the beginning of the part of the year when each day has more hours of darkness than light...

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