A few days ago, the holiday of Mabon passed largely unnoticed. Its astronomical name is the autumnal equinox (equal night). It occurs when the earth’s axis is vertical, so that the sun is directly over the equator and, except for extreme latitudes, most locations will have day and night of equal length. In mathematics, it is called an inflection point, a subtle turning in a movement where the rate of change increases or decreases—that is, it speeds up or slows down. My science consultant is pretty sure that the rate of change is now slowing down as we trudge our way to the winter solstice. Mabon is one of eight holidays associated with the changing angle of the earth toward the sun over the course of a year. The northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun in the spring and summer and away from the sun in the fall and winter. 

Most cultures of the world over the centuries have paid a lot of attention to equinoxes and solstices and other events that affect daylight and temperature, because they guide planting and harvesting, grazing domestic animals and providing for their winter. In modern industrial societies, however, many of us have lost touch with the rhythms of the earth. Instead, the autumn equinox is associated with football, the spring equinox with new clothes. We may get our furnace filters changed and adjust the thermostat and start wearing the warmer garments in our closet – we may even be attuned enough to the changing seasons to stop mowing and start raking – but by and large, with central heat and air conditioning, we are probably more impacted by the shorter days than the falling temperatures.

The ancient Celtic pagans, like most agricultural societies, paid great attention to what they called sky holidays—equinoxes and solstices. Solstices—Litha in summer, Yul in winter—mark the longest and shortest days of the year. But there were also four earth holidays at the midpoints between these four, each tied to the activities of the agricultural year in northern latitudes. . Samhain in autumn fell between the equinox and the winter solstice, marking the coming darkness, slaughtering some animals to provide food over the winter and bringing others into winter quarters. Samhain was the pagan New Year. Like the Jews, whose new year is also in the autumn, they went through the darkness into the light as their way of beginning again.

Depending on the latitude, there would be various harvest festivals scattered throughout. Between the summer solstice and the equinox there was a holiday of first harvest in the more northern latitudes called Lammas – the first of August, when people blessed the first harvest in both pagan and Christian traditions. (I know many churches celebrate with a Blessing of the Animals, but I have argued for celebrating Lammas with a blessing of the vegetables, which are generally much better behaved.) A third holiday, February 1^st, survives in Groundhog Day. In pagan times it was celebrated as preparation for spring by cleaning out the dead greens from Yul and relighting the hearth fire. That custom makes this holiday, Imbolc or Oimelc the only known holiday dedicated to housecleaning!

The final holiday is Beltane, a fertility festival at the time of planting in northern latitudes. The customs of going a-Maying (gathering wildflowers) and dancing around a Maypole are remnants of this fairly raucous holiday encouraging the animals, seeds, and soil to be fruitful and create abundance.

There are a few recently created seasonal holidays that are both celebrations and reminders of our kinship with all life. Earth Day in April and  Arbor Day in June  both encourage us to get down and dirty in a constructive way. But the pagan earth and sky holidays, some adopted and refashioned by Christian traditions, offer similar opportunities to be aware, active, and engaged in building a good relationship with our planet and its non-human inhabitants. Concerns for the health of Planet Earth, the exhaustion of resources, climate change, loss of species, loss of rich topsoil, water shortages, all are symptoms of how humans have suffered from the loss of those deep connections of interdependence between earth and humans in earlier eras.

While I don’t want to create another occasion for Hallmark cards and gift buying, perhaps we should try celebrating some of these holidays with a bit of planting and harvesting. Hug a tree. Support protecting forests and wildlife. Plant shrubs that attract pollinators, and avoid unhealthy pesticides that kill the bugs that feed the birds and bats and contaminate the sources of pollen for bees. Buy from local farmers. Reduce the use of fossil fuels both by using less energy and by turning to more renewables. If you have a garden, try making it as organic as possible and emphasize native plants and edibles. (My two blackberry bushes provided my breakfast dessert for six whole weeks this past summer!)

But it’s also okay to have a party, preferably a picnic (maybe not for Yul and Imbolc), to serve locally grown seasonal foods, go swimming in a lake, hike a trail or mountain,…you fill in the blanks. Our future is intimately tied up with the health of the planet and all the living things that dwell thereon. Let’s have a party and invite the ants, the bees, the weeds, the birds and butterflies to join in the celebration.