Autumn Equinox/ Mabon

Mabon/Autumn Equinox

Autumn Equinox, is an event that takes place at September 22, 2025, in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the equinox is more than a date on the calendar, it is a celestial event, when the sun hovers on the threshold between light and darkness. For countless cultures, this was a moment of mystery and reverence. Though each culture expressed it in their own way, they all turned their eyes to the horizon and found meaning in the stillness of the sun.

Autumn Equinox is perhaps more known as Mabon, and it is often described as a “pagan Thanksgiving.” The fields have yielded their fruits, the barns are filling, and families once gathered to share in the abundance before the long winter. Back in the day, it was a time of gratitude,  not just for food, but for survival itself. Every apple stored, every loaf baked, every drop of mead brewed could mean the difference between comfort and hunger in the cold months ahead. But beneath the feast lies a deeper theme: harmony. The equinox reminds us that all things, joy and sorrow, light and dark, growth and decay, are woven together in the cycle of life.

Autumn Equinox through different cultures

Though the word Mabon is more modern, the Autumn Equinox has always been a marker of wonder across the globe. Among the Maya, the great pyramid of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá becomes alive during the equinox. As the setting sun strikes its stepped face, shadows ripple like a serpent slithering down the stone stairway. This was no accident of architecture but a deliberate act of cosmic artistry. The serpent was Kukulcán himself, the feathered god, descending to earth in a dance of light and shadow. A promise of harmony between the heavens and the underworld. For the Maya, the equinox was both a calendar marker and a living ritual, blending astronomy, myth, and agriculture.

In Persia, the equinox carried stories of ancient Zoroastrian belief. The festival of Mithra honoured the god of light, truth, and covenant, marking the eternal struggle between brightness and shadow. While the exact customs have blurred through time, autumn was often associated with the gathering of crops, the sharing of fruits like pomegranates and grapes, and a turning inward toward reflection. Even today, Iranians celebrate Mehregan, an autumn festival that likely carries the distant memory of equinox rites, filled with feasting, fire, and gratitude.

The Sámis lived, and still mostly today, lives by the rhythm of reindeer migrations and the shifting of the seasons. While little is written about formal equinox rites, Sámi traditions emphasize the balance between humans, animals, and the land. The autumn turning was the time of slaughter, sacrifice, and offering, ensuring both sustenance for the community and respect for the spirits.  For the Sámi, the equinox is not just an abstract concept, but a lived threshold,  the moment the long light of summer gives way to the encroaching Arctic darkness.

The Vikings and Norse peoples too felt the pull of this turning. Their agricultural year divided into two halves: summer and winter. The autumn equinox, sometimes linked to Haustblót, was a sacrificial festival where offerings of ale, animals, or harvest goods were given to the gods and ancestors. The deities most honoured at this time were Freyr, god of fertility and harvest, and perhaps Odin himself, whose wisdom bridged light and shadow. It was a time of feasting, community, and reverence, with burial mounds and sacred groves serving as places of offering. To the Norse, this balance of day and night echoed the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

In Japan, the autumn equinox, called Higan, remains a national holiday even today. Rooted in Buddhist teaching, it is a time to visit ancestral graves, sweep and adorn them with flowers, and leave offerings of food. Families gather to reflect on impermanence,  the truth that life, like the seasons, is fleeting. The equinox is seen as a bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead, when the sun sets directly in the west, the direction of the Pure Land of Amida Buddha. For the Japanese, the harmony of light and dark became a metaphor for spiritual balance: harmony, respect, and remembrance.

Though separated by oceans and centuries, these traditions all tell the same story in their own tongue: the equinox is a sacred threshold. Whether through stone pyramids casting serpentine shadows, fires lit for gods and ancestors, or quiet prayers at a family grave, humanity has always known that the moment when light and darkness meet is not ordinary. It is magic. It is myth. It is harmony itself made visible.

The Season of Harmony

Imagine the sky of equinox dusk: the sun lingers, but shadows lengthen, and for a fleeting breath, light and darkness weigh the same. To the ancients, this was not mere astronomy but a sacred pause. Autumn Equinox is that threshold. The earth offers its riches, heavy sheaves of grain, honeyed fruit, vines bursting with wine,  yet with each gift comes the reminder of decline. For tomorrow, the nights grow longer. The warmth wanes. What is gathered now must sustain until spring’s first green shoots. And so the festival is both a feast to celebrate all the food, and farewell to the leaves, grains, trees, insects and animals that go to live someplace warmer for a season. It's the ending of one season, and the beginning of another. 

Rites and Symbols of the Equinox

Autumn Equinox has always been a time of gratitude and remembrance, a season when people pause to honor the turning of the year. Apples, plucked fresh from the tree, may be shared with family and friends, their hidden star at the core a reminder of life’s sacred balance. The last of the grain becomes bread and beer, raised in thanks to the gods, the ancestors, and the living earth. Bonfires glow against the cool dark, sparks rising like prayers into the night.

In a world that often rushes forward, the equinox calls us to pause, be grateful for what we have and look over our lives to see what we need to do different before next winter. If you celebrate Autumn Equinox/Mabon, you can do that in a various of ways.

If you have the ability, you may share meals of apples, bread, and cider, as well as sharing moments of reflection, releasing what no longer serves and storing up inner strength for the colder days ahead. Autumn Equinox asks us: what have you gathered in your own life this year? What must you now release, as the trees release their leaves, to endure the winter to come? You can have long walks on your own through autumn woods, gathering fallen leaves and acorns to put on your alter or in a nice glass jar. Just remember to give thanks and offerings back to Mother Nature. Even the simplest gestures matter. A piece of bread left on a doorstep, a bowl of milk poured into the soil, small offerings for the unseen ones.

In Europe and Scandinavia, rosemary, thyme, or juniper have long been burned as offerings and blessings, their smoke cleansing the home and carrying intention into the air. These herbs connect us to our own landscapes and traditions, just as other cultures hold their own sacred plants for the same purpose. Each land has its own voice, its own way of honouring the cycle. When we use what grows from our own soil, we keep that connection alive,  not as imitation, but as belonging.

Despite different versions of celebration, they all carry the same truth: the Autumn Equinox is a doorway, and a reminder that every abundance carries its shadow.

And so, when the days shorten and the evenings grow cool, perhaps you, too, will hear the ancient call of Autumn Equinox/Mabon:  to feast, to give thanks, to honor the turning of the seasons, and to trust that even in darkness, the seeds of light wait to return.

Happy Autumn Equinox/Mabon and Blessed Be!