Autumn, Honestly
It's Autumn Equinox today in the Northern Hemisphere, Witches, and with it is sure to come hundreds of posts, blogs and messages about 'Balance' and 'Gratitude'. Yes, The Equinox is an opportunity for us to honor those things, but if we can be really honest here, and I'd like to think we always are, it's overplayed a bit in my opinion. I knew it as soon as I felt that cringe in my gut when I flipped on my computer this morning and anticipated the same old same old of Mabon and Equinox content that we see year after year.
And I am the first to raise my hand as someone who has written on these same tired topics more times than I should have. But I’m over it now.
While I don't personally celebrate Mabon, I do honor the Quarters and Cross-quarters, and today, the Autumn Equinox, marks the third Quarter of the year. And I don't want to talk about balance and gratitude today, because you already know those things. So many others in our spaces will be talking about that today, and there's almost literally nothing new we can possibly add to that conversation that hasn't already been said and repeated a thousand times.
Instead, I hope this post will give you something new to consider this season.
So let's step away from the traditional religious liturgy and social media clichés and get into it...
Radical Honesty
For those who know me well, you know I practice Radical Honesty and have been cultivating this for myself for a couple of decades. With that comes an almost maniacal need to face hard truths for myself. So, in that spirit, let's get really real about what the Autumn Equinox meant for our Ancestors.
Far removed from the peaceful festivals of ‘gratitude’ and ‘balance’ and modern celebrations that focus on cozy harvest aesthetics (no shade- I LOVE cozy harvest!!), historically, their reality was a much more bleak, anxiety-riddled experience. It was a time of cold, hard math and questions of survival for our ancient (and not so ancient) peeps. They had to count and weigh food stuffs like their grain and salted meats and root vegetables and they had to ask themselves some pretty brutal questions, like, 'Do we actually have enough to survive what is coming? Will this get us through the actual fucking Winter??'
Before modern preservation, predicting how much food would last through the Winter must have been an incredibly stressful guessing game. Our Ancestors had to factor in variables that went beyond just counting their harvest. They had to think about rot, for example. How much would spoil and go bad? What percentage would mold or be eaten by pests? In a bad year, rats and the damp could destroy a third or half of their stored food stuffs. I mean, if we need to work in gratitude this season, as a modern Witch, I am exceedingly grateful for refrigeration and doors and window screens and electricity. But I digress.
They also had to think about the fact that Winter doesn’t magickally end just when the snow melts. The most dangerous times for our ancient fams was the early Spring, when they experienced a ‘Hungry Gap’. This was when the stores of Winter food had been used up, but new crops take time so they had to budget six or seven months of food, not just the three months of ‘Winter’. Unfun fact: The Hungry Gap wasn’t just something from ye olden times. It was a thing until the mid-20th century (around the 1950s), when the rise of modern supermarkets, refrigerated trucking, commercial canning, heated greenhouses, widespread refrigeration, and global food transport finally became more common.
But wait- there’s more. Sitting in a heated cozy house through Winter was not a luxury most had (again, definitely grateful for central air, gas furnaces, insulation, energy efficient double paned windows and weather stripping), and staying warm during the freezing Winter was a priority for obvious life and death reasons. To send someone out to chop enough wood to keep the house heated and fires going could burn 4K-5K calories a day in the dead of Winter easy, and that person needed to be fed extra, which increased demand on food stores. Not to mention keeping the animals and livestock alive, or the need to immediately slaughter them if they ran out of hay or fodder too early.
The Harvest festivals with their corn mazes, pumpkin patches, petting zoos, candied apples and spice cider (all awesome things to be enjoyed) of this season carry a modern narrative of ancient harmony with nature that masks a much more grim and pragmatic reality.
The ‘feast’ of this time was much more of a desperate race against spoilage for food that didn’t get preserved, and of animals slaughtered if they knew already they couldn’t afford to feed it through the Winter. The strongest animals were saved when possible, as they were good for breeding in the Spring. The weak, old, or excess males were usually killed. And the agonizing decisions some cultures made on not just what to save, but who, especially in severe Winters, when sometimes the elderly or the very young succumbed first, sometimes through passive neglect because the community simply couldn’t feed everyone, and sometimes because groups moved to Winter lands and not everyone could make the journey, and were left behind.
This was a time of intense anxiety and stress. It was anything but ‘balanced’. The Equinox marks the moment the nights become longer than the days. Sure, in our cozy, temperature-controlled homes, for which we are grateful, we can sit back and ponder on the messages of the season and think about resetting and shifting our work-life balance, etc. These are the indulgences of our modern privilege. I’m not suggesting we should feel guilt for modern technology and progress. Far from it. I don’t personally romanticize ancient living because I value modern plumbing and clean water far, far too much to want to live like my Ancestors had to. But it’s important that we understand, for our Ancestors, this wasn’t some poetic shift. It was terrifying. Darker days meant less time to work, freezing temperatures, and the psychological toll of isolation. The festivals and rituals weren’t just for fun. They were desperate psychological coping mechanisms to keep morale alive as the world slipped into death around them.
When we romanticize the idea of ‘living in harmony with the Earth’ we ignore the fact that the Earth actively tries to freeze and starve us to death half the year. And the reality of ‘gratitude’ is really this: When ancient people thanked the gods during the harvest, it wasn’t the polite, peaceful prayers we were taught. It was the frantic, adrenaline-fueled relief of a survivor who had just escaped a car crash. They were thanking the gods that they might not starve to death. Ultimately, the Autumn Equinox wasn’t the fairy-tale celebration of a Harvest well-done the way we like to believe. It was the final deadline to prepare for a months-long siege against Winter, and death.
The first lesson I take from this is pragmatism and preparedness. Without modern conveniences there’s zero way me and my family would survive the Winter. We’re not prepared. We rely on grocery stores, some canned things from the garden, our freezers full of the soups I’ve made all year from the vegetable scraps and meat stocks, which would be all gone if we had no power or way to keep them frozen… and because of climate change, many places no longer freeze all Winter. I’m certainly not smoking or salting meat to preserve, and I own no livestock. My parents grew up putting their milk and butter and such in the creek to refrigerate them, because that’s all they had. I don’t have a creek in my backyard.
So, one thing I can do is put more work into preserving the Harvest this season in a way that boosts our self-reliance just a bit more and reduces our reliance on things that could be disrupted, like power or if an appliance failed.
Tangent: We used to share a whole cow with our family and we’d have it butchered and split it all up between each family. We had a ¼ of that meat in our large freezer, located in our wood shop that is not temperature controlled, and that was our meat for most of the year. Until one year, in the hottest part of Summer, my son went to the freezer to get something, and accidentally didn’t close the freezer door all the way. A couple days later, we found the red pool of meat juice all over the concrete floor and all the meat ruined. It had to be thrown away. My husband nearly cried over that loss as he chucked it all into the bins, because while we had the money to go buy that meat again, (thankfully), it represented security to him, and after that we stopped buying the cow because he didn’t have the heart to deal with that again. If we truly had no other means to buy food, that loss could have been devastating to our family.
I’m sure things like that happened with our Ancestors, too. Someone was careless, or an accident happened, and their food security for the Winter was just poof, gone. And no way to get it back. Maybe they could barter with neighbors or friends, but everyone would go much hungrier to make what was left stretch, and possibly, not everyone would make it. I’m glad we didn’t have to face that reality, but this time of year reminds me of how real that possibility was for people not that long ago, and how easy it would be for us to find ourselves vulnerable to a collapse of some of the systems we take for granted in our modern society. I think about countries experiencing war and famine and poverty in the world right now, and how that could be us at any moment. Just awareness of these things is a good first step. Then making small changes to shore up some of the areas I need to be better prepared. I don’t need to try to get there all in one season. But I can create a plan and check a few boxes to start for this year.
Conserving Energy
Okay, if the historical lesson isn’t merely ‘we must store more food’, what else does this reality teach us? Maybe more from the perspective of Spiritually, or symbolically? Cutting losses comes to mind. Our Ancestors certainly had to do this. We can look at our lives, projects, and relationships with no filters or illusions. Absolute realism. Radical honesty. This would be a good opportunity to audit our life. What did I spend energy on this Summer that yielded absolutely nothing? I’m not trying to engage in any kind of guilt here, just focusing on strategic editing.
Borrowing some of that pragmatism of our Ancestors, I know I don’t want to carry dead weight into the Winter. I’m certainly not leaving people behind to starve, and I’m grateful I don’t have to make those kinds of hard heart-wrenching choices. But I can examine my life these last several months and edit out what would work against my survival, joy, or stability.
The Autumn Equinox is also about conserving energy. I take this lesson from the deciduous trees that stop feeding their leaves in the Autumn. Nutrients and sugars retreat downward into the trunk and deep into the roots to prevent the tree from freezing to death. This brings to mind the need for boundary-setting and intentional withdrawal. It challenges the capitalistic demand to be constantly ‘blooming’ or productive. We can allow ourselves to rest and conserve energy, because that’s one way we can help ourselves survive the upcoming season of dormancy and cold. We can resist the pressure to constantly be active and gently realign ourselves with what is happening in Nature. One way we could approach this is to identify what our core priorities are (our trunk and roots), then consciously decide which external, public-facing projects or social obligations we will let drop like Autumn leaves this season so we can preserve our vital energy.
Once we stop wasting energy, we have to decide what we’re willing to let go of.
Decay
Spring gets all the attention for transformation but I think Autumn is where the real alchemical heavy lifting happens. The Equinox marks the acceleration of rot. Fungi, bacteria, and damp soil begin breaking down organic matter. Without this decay, the soil would starve and Spring would be a big dud.
Death-work doesn’t all have to be spooky or Ancestral. It’s biological. It’s the active, necessary, and messy process of decomposition. We can work with this magick.
What failures, griefs, or ended situations from the past year can we intentionally hand over to the compost bin? For that matter, what’s gone dormant or stagnant? Is there something we need to bury so it can be revived? What do we need to let rot and decay so it can become something new? So it can transform? How can we use the rot and decay and breakdown of these experiences to fertilize our ground for next year?
Seeds
As plants die back, they leave behind seeds. We save seeds like our Ancestors did, as a tool for survival. Seeds are compact little packets of DNA that hold an entire blueprint for the future, wrapped in a protective shell designed to endure freezing temperatures and other threats. It’s a survival capsule. For me this brings to mind those time capsules we all did as kids in school. The magick of encapsulation, legacies, and long-term planning. We can use these concepts to distill down the absolute essence of what we learned this year and protect it. Like, our successes and the core lessons we want to keep safe during the dark months so we don’t lose all that wisdom for next year, when it’s time to plant new seeds. This can be written in a notebook with a reminder to re-read on a certain date, like the Spring Equinox, or added to a jar, or even an egg, blown out, dried and written on the outside. It can also be actual seeds, maybe large ones like a Buckeye, Ash Key, Maple, Acorn, Paw Paw, Avocado, or Pumpkin, so you can write a word or two on them.
Psychological Wintering
Instead of the brief moment of ‘equal balance’ on the day of the Equinox, maybe we can focus instead on what the actual Equinox is, which is the tipping point into the dark half of the year. From this day forward, the nights are longer than the days. Now comes the real work of preparing and fortifying ourselves mentally for what’s ahead. This is a good time I think for twilight magick and threshold work. We can create a ritual around closing the door on Summer and productivity. I know as I prepare for this season I need to reflect some of what’s happening outside on the inside of my home, so I stay connected, even on days when I can’t or don’t go outside. Changing the lighting inside my house, adjusting my sleep hygiene, allowing the rhythms of my days to slow, and preparing my mind for the long nights ahead. This is especially important for me because I am a Sun worshiper and thrive in light. I wilt during the Winter, so I know I have to take steps in Autumn to make sure I’m ready and set myself up for success as much as I can.
Zero-Waste
I want to use this as an invitation to challenge ourselves to recommit to zero-waste this Autumn. As much as we can at least, because our Ancestors certainly had to for survival. We have the privilege of being able to waste things, like food and resources because we have so many abundant resources that are easily accessible. It doesn’t have to be perfect or an all or nothing situation. One example is I cook a couple of whole chickens every week for my family. I try to use all parts of the chicken so there’s no waste, including bones and organs, etc. We get the chicken to eat, but we also get rich broths, gelatin, soups, and bones for divination or ritual uses. But there are other areas I can look at, too, like consumerism. I don’t need to buy more notebooks because I have so, so, so very many blank ones just sitting on the shelf already (my precious). Zero-waste can also be about consuming less and just using what we have already. It can be about finding new ways to use things you might normally throw away (although do try to stay on this side of the hoarder line if you can help it). I got into Junk Journaling a few years ago and this is a good hobby that lets me utilize my scraps, junk mail, receipts and other things I would normally throw away and make journals for myself.
The Mess of It All
Maybe that’s what I’m taking from the Autumn Equinox this year.
Not balance, or perfection, or some IG-ready version of Harvest gratitude where everything is golden leaves and pumpkin spice and we neatly release whatever no longer serves us before moving gracefully into our cozy season of rest.
Something messier, because it just is.
Autumn asks us to look honestly at what we have, and what we don’t have. What’s consuming resources we need elsewhere? I think it asks us to make some pretty hard decisions about where our energy goes. And it asks us to let some things die, and accept not everything gets to survive. That’s a hard one. It forces us to confront what’s worth saving and bringing with us. Not everything is.
Of course there’s gratitude in some of that, too. I acknowledge that. But it’s not the performative or obligatory kind. The kind of gratitude that’s a spiritual bypass or a demand to find positivity in every damn thing. I mean more that deep, almost feral gratitude of recognizing how much we actually have.
Food in the freezer, a warm house, clean water, electricity, doors that close, screens that keep bugs out, grocery stores I can drive to when I run out of something. Seeds in a basket waiting in their packets for Spring. A notebook with enough blank pages left for whatever I learn next.
I don’t really want to indulge in romanticizing what our Ancestors endured and lived through. I see what is happening is some parts of our world- I have eyes. Many people today are living through much worse than I can possibly imagine and I don’t have the energy or will to pretend a historical fiction for my own comfort. Maybe this Autumn Equinox is an opportunity to let the reality of what our Ancestors went through sharpen my awareness and remind me we are all still just animals surviving- some better than others-but ultimately we are still always at risk of not surviving. We can’t get too complacent or comfortable or lose the lessons they tried to hand down to us just because it’s easier for some of us right now.
What do I actually need to survive and thrive? What wisdom do I carry through the dark months?
The Equinox doesn’t need to have all the answers.
Maybe it just gives us a threshold. A moment to stand in the doorway between what was and what is coming, take stock of our provisions, gather what matters, leave behind what doesn’t, and prepare to walk into the dark with our hands a little fuller and our eyes a little more open.
The leaves are going to fall whether we’re ready or not.
We might as well pay attention to what they’re teaching us while they do.
~Solaris
Psst... If you liked this content, please consider clicking the links below to grab one or both of my books, or share the link with your friends and followers. Thank you for supporting my work!
Guaranteed 100% Human Creation
If this content felt weird, disjointed, meandering or aggressively mediocre, don’t worry, that’s just authentic human brain-fog and a lack of fucks remaining, not an LLM hallucination. No machines were consulted for this blog post (or my books) and was built entirely by me, a carbon-based life form who looked out the window for twenty minutes instead of working.