Deborah Lipp

The equinoxes hold a sort of nebulous place in Wicca. The Fall Equinox is the middle of three harvest festivals. The first harvest, Lammas, has strong associations with bread, wheat, sacrifice, John Barleycorn, and Lugh. The third harvest, Samhain, is the Celtic New Year, the Day of the Dead, and Halloween. Both of these have a wealth of imagery, ritual, and custom. The second harvest, not so much.

Fall Equinox is sometimes called Mabon or Harvest Home. Both of these are modern names, and more traditional Wiccans simply call it Fall Equinox. (See? It’s kinda boring.) Rich folklore is kind of lacking.

The two most interesting ritual contexts for this holiday are as a Thanksgiving festival and as a commemoration of the Rites of Eleusis. Thanksgiving makes sense because of the harvest, because of the changing of seasons, and because equinoxes are a time of astrological stasis, and therefore a good time to stop, reflect, and give thanks. A Thanksgiving approach is more in keeping with traditonal Wicca, because it is agriculturally-based and oriented around issues of abundance, fertility, and seasonal cycles.

The Rites of Eleusis were held annually at this time for two thousand years. They have a profound place in Pagan history, both because of their longevity and because of their profound influence on Pagan Greek philosophers, artists, and poets. By the late Classical period, when Greek myths were told in a way meant to mock the Gods (hence Zeus’s exaggerated infidelities and Hera’s outraged jealousies), the mysteries of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades were treated with utter reverence. Modern Pagan groups such as Reclaiming have created powerful ceremonies based on modern recreations of these rites.

Some folks kind of combine the two, shifting the Descent into Hades into a more explicitly agricultural context (which is always a part of the Greek rite) and sometimes using British or Celtic deity names.