Tomorrow (September 22) is the Autumn Equinox. Days and nights are perfectly equal, the sun rises in perfect East, and sets in perfect West. Be sure to eat some apples and ponder your ancestors (visit their graves if possible). Here are 6 very nifty and very ancient Autumn Equinox traditions.
Tag Archives: Equinox
Spring Equinox, End of March Holidays
March 19 – Eyvind Kinnrifi (Odinist / Norse)
– Athena’s Day (Greek)
– Minerva’s Day (Roman)
March 20 – Ala Festival (Nigerian)
– Iduna’s Day (Norse)
– Alban Eilir (Celtic, Druid holiday)
– Spring Harvest Festival (Egyptian)
March 20-21 Old Sumerian Vernal / Spring Equinox Festival – celebrating the return of Dumuzi (also spelled Tammuz or Tamuzi), the God of Life and Death from the Underworld to be with Inanna (Goddess of Life) for the verdant part of the year.
March 20 or 21 Spring Equinox aka Vernal Equinox aka Ostara. Marks the beginning of Spring. Days and nights are exactly equal, the sun rises and sets in the exact east and west. This holiday represents the first creation, but also the annual creation (planting so crops grow each year) and most symbolic, the perpetual creation. Fertility symbols abound such as eggs and rabbits. Spring or Vernal Equinox begins a forty day period which culminates with May Day, another fertility Spring festival of ancient origin. This forty day period is one of four such in the esoteric Church year. The other three forty day periods are: Fall Equinox (Sept 22 or 23) to Halloween / AllSaints Day (Oct. 31, Nov.1), Dec. 25 to Candlemas (Feb 1 or 2) and of course, Lent. Lent is the forty day period beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday every year.
March 23 – Venus’ Day
– Summer Finding (Norse)
March 24: Feast Day of Archangel Gabriel whose name means, “The High One’s Hero,” or “Hero of God,” or “Power of God,” or “Might of God.” Note this day comes one day before Annunciation Day when Gabriel performed his most famous task. Since 1970, the Catholic Church no longer recognizes this day for Gabriel, ending a thousand year plus tradition by opting to lump him in with Raphael and Michael for a Feast of the Holy Archangels Day on Sept 29. Originally the Church had an angel for each of the four “corners” of the year, the solstices and equinoxes. It was the Church’s only recognition of these “pagan” holy days.
– Britannia’s Day
– Heimdall’s Day (Norse)
March 25 – Annunciation Day, Christian feast commemorating Blessed Maria’s choosing to conceive Child Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit and to become a catalyst of liberation and redemption
– Hilaria’s Day (Roman)
– Return of the Goddess
– Mars and Neria (Roman)
March 27 – Greek Galaxia, Adoration of Cybele
– Smell the Breeze Day (Egyptian)
March 28 – Birthday of Kwan Yin (Chinese)
– Sacrifice at the Tombs (Roman)
– Pallas’ Day (Greek)
March 29 – Festival of Ishtar (Babylonian)
– St. Mark’s Day
– Delphinia (Greece)
– Expulsions of the Demons of Bad Luck (Tibetan)
March 30 – Eostre’s Day (Germanic) This is the goddess from whose name the Northern Europeans got the word Easter. She is a Spring goddess. Southern Europeans and Eastern Orthodox Christians call the holiday Pascha or the Passion, they do not use the term Easter because they did not have that particular goddess.
March 31 – Luna (Roman)
Fall Equinox: Athena, Sophia, Mother Mary have the same Birthday
Sep 13, Egyptian Lighting the Fire Ceremony for all departed souls
Sep 16, Greek Rites of Goddess Demeter
Sep 17, Hildegarde of Bingen Feast Day
Sep 19, Feast of Thoth, Egyptian scribe god
Sep 21, Nativity of Blessed Mary, Eastern Orthodox Church
Birthday of Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom also known as Sophia. Both Athena and Sophia are goddesses of “Wisdom”, one Greek pagan, the other Judeo-Christian-Pagan. Mother Mary was assigned their birthday which might be appropriate if she was not just an ordinary woman, but an incarnation of Goddess Sophia, come to the earth to birth a god-man.
Sep 22 or 23, Autumn Equinox, Mabon, Ishtar’s Day: This year Fall Equinox is September 22 at 10:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
In Catholicism both mainstream and “underground”, the Fall Equinox always begins the forty day All Hallows season, which culminates with Halloween, All Saints Day and then All Souls Day (Oct. 31, Nov. 1, Nov. 2 respectively). This forty day period is one of four such in the esoteric Church year. The other three forty day periods are: Spring Equinox (Mar 20 or 21) to May Day, Dec. 25 to Candlemas (Feb 1 or 2) and of course, Lent. Lent is the forty day period beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday every year.