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Harvestide
The season of the Harvest Sabbath is upon us again, and it is time for celebration and stock-taking! This Sabbath sometimes gets short shrift, coming as it does on the heels of every Pagan’s favorite witchy month. But it’s an important observance time and a meaningful holiday. Here are some thoughts about what Harvest means and how to celebrate it. To me, this time is the time of celebrating abundance. The winter vegetables are pouring out of the gardens now and where I live, the grape harvest and processing (“The Crush”) fills the air in the rural areas with the smell of fermenting wine. Harvest fairs take place at this…
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GUEST POST: A Memorable Mabon
A guest post by Sue Irwin In 2016, after a lifetime of religious affiliation, I walked away from it all. I became an atheist. Although it took me several months to realize it, I was a new atheist with a hole. I was a new atheist with desires. Freed from the mental and financial shackles of the organized religion I’d been born into, I realized I could do anything that I wanted to do. For someone raised in an oppressive religion, this thought is life changing. And what did I want to do? Two things topped my agenda. First, I wanted to read anything and everything I’d missed in all…
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Autumn and Harvest 2022
Outside, blessedly, it is raining. It’s the first rain we have had since April, and it seems like enough to damp down the annual wildfire season we suffer through here in California. Ah, the scent of the wet Earth! The sound of the rain on the roof! The buffets of the wind in the wind chimes, set swinging wildly with each gust! Finally–only a week after we had temperatures up to 117–it feels the corner has been turned to Autumn, and the season of Harvest. I live in a richly agricultural region, and now is the time: gardens are pouring out vegetables, and the wine grape harvest, known locally as…
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The Dimming Sabbath, 2022
After much struggle to find a worthy name for this cross-quarter holiday, I have borrowed a suggestion from a member of the Atheopagan Facebook group and gone with Dimming, with its corresponding Brightening in February. “Dimming” says what this holiday is: yes, it’s summer, but the days aren’t so long now. Where I live, a long, wan late summer will persist well past Harvest (the autumnal equinox), though if we’re lucky we will get a rain storm in September or so. Dimming is filled with meanings, both traditional and in my personal Atheopagan observances. It is the time of the first harvest festival, typically associated with harvests of grain and…
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Autumn: The Drawing Down
Now that the equinox has passed, things seem to be happening more quickly, somehow. The days are markedly shorter (here in the northern hemisphere), and there is a chill in the air at night despite wan, warm days. Growing global heat means that the coastal fog cycles that cool us off in the mornings have persisted long past when they used to–to see that fog at the end of September used to be unthinkable. I light the candles on my Focus each evening at dark and it seems so early now; touching the flame to the wick of the candle in the World section of the Focus with the words…
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Happy Harvest 2021!
Today is the Equinox, when day and night are (within a few minutes, depending on latitude) equal in length. It is the Atheopagan Sabbath of Harvest (or High Spring, in the southern hemisphere), and a time for feasting with loved ones. With the pandemic, of course, this is challenging unless all of you are vaccinated and have been safe. But I hope that you will find time today to celebrate the abundance the world pours out for us, as well as the elderly folk in your life, as Harvest time is the metaphorical point in the wheel of the year equivalent to old age. That’s how my wheel of the…
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Finding Balance in a Sea of Chaos
So, Harvest is coming up: the autumnal equinox, Sept. 21. And all the usual seasonal meanings apply, of rich harvests and abundant fruits and vegetables and celebration of all the wonderful things that have come to us in the passing year. But there is a second meaning of Harvest. It is the moment at which the night and day are equally long: a moment of balance between darkness and light. And at times like these, the idea of balance is hard to find. So much turmoil in the world, so much insanity in the political sphere, and the Earth’s climate itself spinning out of control. And yet, we must. I…
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A Warm, Relaxed Gathering for Harvest
Due to the low turnout for Moon Meet 2018, those of us in attendance at that event had a discussion about how best to make local Atheopagan in-person events more accessible and attractive. Some of our conjectures were that it was asking too much to expect people to come for a multiple-day event for their first gathering with us, and that the site for Moon Meet was too remote for some of the prospective attendees. I mention these concerns because we are a far-flung community, distributed across the globe. Any lessons we learn can be used in creating your own events and gatherings*. Accordingly, three of us planned a Harvest gathering…
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Join Us for a Harvest Celebration!
If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, we welcome you to join us for a potluck Harvest celebration on Sept. 22! It will be held from 2 to 6 pm at the Orchard Picnic Area in Tilden Park, Berkeley. Bring a potluck dish to share and something to drink*, your own plates, cups and cutlery, and any items you would like to place on the group Focus to represent your harvested achievements for this year. One of the lessons we learned from Moon Meet this year is to hold events that require less of a time and logistical commitment, so we’re doing Harvest this year in…
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A Reflection at Dusk
Days are noticeably shorter now. The coastal fog cycle native to my region is sputtering with the weakened power of the Sun, so we have days of heat followed by days half of which are soft and gray, burning off only in the afternoons to sun. Autumn is here. Usually, this is a joyous realization for me. I love the fall, with its colorful leaves, spectacular sunsets, skulls and bones and pumpkins. Autumn feels like the reaping of rewards long striven for, the achievement of the year’s culmination. This year is a little different. It feels as though I have suffered many blows and time is running out to secure…
