For the second time in the year day and night are equal – but now the light is sinking. It is the time of the main harvest, of stores and thanks, before winter comes.
When It Falls
The autumn equinox falls around 22 or 23 September – this calendar computes the exact moment. After it the nights grow longer than the days; the year leans toward the dark.
What the Sources Say
A distinct autumn-equinox blót is not clearly attested for the Viking Age; the practice rather gathers harvest-thanks and preparation for winter. Bede gives the frame: the Anglo-Saxons called October Winterfylleth, „winter full-moon" (winter counted as opened when the first full moon followed it), and November Blōtmōnath, the „month of sacrifice" – now the beasts that would not survive winter were slaughtered.
The Meaning of the Feast
The autumn point is the counterpart of Ostara: balance once more, but the scales tip. It is a feast of gathering in and of letting go – one takes what is ripe and lets go what withers.
Celebrating Today
Bring in the harvest, lay up stores, pause. A feast of thanks – and of letting go what the year has spent. Balance once more: a candle at dusk.
A verse for the feast
but now the light sinks,
the barn fills up,
the leaves fall still.
Take what is ripe,
let go what withers:
in the letting-go
lies the thanks.
And now you: write your own short verse for this feast – four or five lines are enough, it need not rhyme. Recite it next time by the fire or at the sumbel. That is the finest honour one can pay a feast.
Sources
Equinox astronomically after Meeus; Bede, De temporum ratione 15 (Winterfylleth, Blōtmōnath). A distinct autumn blót only weakly attested (honestly noted).