We made it.
Another season passes and the wheel keeps turning. Summer is passed and we stride into October.
Fall is the season for all senses. The feel of cool, crisp mornings and evenings after a long hot summer. A warm, palate of vibrant reds, oranges and browns take over the trees and hillsides. The taste of pumpkin spice seems to be in everything. The sound of crunching leaves underfoot. The smell of woodsmoke without it meaning wildfires.
The season for many brings joy, for others sadness. But for each of us the seasons bring specific associations. And the changing of seasons is the basis for the Neo-Pagan calendar. In fact, the changing of seasons was the original purpose for calendars to be invented at all. At the dawn of modern civilization human kind stopped migrating with the change in weather and settled into towns and started farming for our food. In order to ensure people had enough, you had to time your planting and harvesting carefully with the seasons. Plant too late the food won’t grow enough, harvest too early you may be missing out on more growing season. So the ancients tracked the sun and moon and broke the year up into sections which could then determine when was optimum to plant, and when to harvest.
The Sumerians and Ancient Egyptians had this system down to a science (possibly one of the earliest sciences) and their calendars became a model for other civilizations. They tied the seasons to their deities and celebrated holidays to encourage the bounty of the land. Today as Neo-Pagans we still honor and celebrate the season of fertility and planting, and as we march into Autumn we will celebrate the harvest time. In this way we keep truly ancient traditions alive. The names may change, the traditions may not look the same from culture to culture, but we are all tied together through out time and across the globe. As the Shawnee saying goes: We are all one people spinning through Mother Sky together.
So what are your connections to the Fall season? How are you marking the change of the seasons? And what does Autumn remind you of?
Blessings! – Jordan
