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The secular media finally seems to be cottoning to something that pagans have always known: that the sunsteads and evendays (that's “solstices” and “equinoxes” in Witch) are intrinsically noteworthy events, something to celebrate.

(A cute little graphic popped up today when I turned on the computer: a large blue Earth—pale blue on one side, dark blue on the other, right down the middle—flanked by a smaller yellow Sun and full Moon. A nice visual shorthand, although of course the Moon isn't full, and has nothing to do with Evenday anyway. I suppose the image makes sense if we read Sun and Moon, respectively, as “Day” and “Night.”)

For cowans, who measure days from midnight, today is Equinox Day, and the Eve of the Equinox would have been last night.

Some of us see it differently.

Astronomical Equinox comes tonight at 8:03 local time, after local sunset: hence, for those of us who—like the Hwicce, the historic tribe of Witches—reckon the religious day from Sundown, the Evenday itself begins tonight.

That's why we've scheduled our 42^th Annual Harvest Supper for tonight. (Welcome to Paganistan, the Land of Long-Lived Covens.) Think Witches' Thanksgiving: a ritual held around a table, with lots of singing, toasts, autumn flowers, and enough steaming, good food to feed at least a couple brigades of the Wiccan army. It's our last outdoor feast of the year, with wild geese skeining overhead, leaves beginning their change, and a wee nip in the air.

Since the official leap into Autumn falls during the feast itself this year, we'll be able to have a countdown, too: a modern tradition, but a good one.

This is a public service announcement from the Paganistani Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

42 days from now, on the Vernal Equinox, Sunday March 20, 2022, Spring will begin in the Northern Hemisphere at 10:33 a.m. PST (Paganistan Standard Time).

All witches, pagans, and heathens—if they have not already done so—should therefore begin to save onion skins so that, by the Equinox, sufficient dyestock will have been amassed with which to dye the requisite number of eggs.

(Authorities agree that every egg dyed, and eaten, brings Spring just a little closer.)

Please note that non-cooking households may apply to the Paganistani Ministry of Cultural Affairs for their annual allotment of onion skins. Please apply early, as supplies may be limited.

This has been a Public Service Announcement from the Paganistani Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

Silent, ineluctable, the golden shaft of light streams into the darkness of my room.

Because the street-grid of Minneapolis is laid out East-West, on Evenday mornings the Spring (and Harvest) Sun rising due east shines in through the eastern windows, down the hall, and into my bedroom on the west side of the house.

It's like living in Newgrange, but with heat and running water.

They say that Zeus appeared to Danaë in a Shower of Gold.

They say that Shiva revealed himself as a Lingam of Fire.

I jump out of bed and stand in the Lordly Light. His godly touch gilds my naked skin.

The Autumn Equinox: it's a holiday of many names.

None of them—to be perfectly honest—quite there yet, if you know what I mean.

Equinox, of course, comes from Latin: “equal night.” It has the advantage of being readily comprehensible, at least. The down side is, of course, that it's ambiguous, since it's got a twin in the spring. And somehow it's got that clinical sound to it.

Then there's Evenday. This is a modern loan-translation from the word for “equinox” in the Scandinavian languages. (Interesting that, to describe a time when day and night are of equal length, the Southrons focus on night and the Northrons on day; make of that what you will.)

“Evenday” has a nice, colloquial sound to it, and is probably relatively transparent to anyone with light behind the eyes. Interestingly, it has already developed two pronunciations, and (curiously) I find myself using both of them: Even-day and Even-dee, just like the days of the week: the formal and less formal options, respectively.

Wishing folks a “Happy Evenday” has a good sound to it, certainly. But, of course, there's still that vernal-autumnal ambiguity.

So far as we can tell, the ancient Kelts did not observe the sunsteads and evendays as holidays (focusing instead on what we would call the “Cross-Quarters”), so there were no traditional names for them in any of the Keltic languages. To rectify this situation, Druidic Revivalists in the 19^th century coined Welsh names for them; the autumn evenday is now called Alban Elfed (supposedly, “Light of [the] Waters”), and the name has gained a certain currency in Druidic circles.

 Now the falling of the leaves, now the shortening day:

for Summer is a-going out, and Winter's on the way.

You won't find our Autumn Evenday ritual in any Book of Shadows.

In some ways, it looks more like Thanksgiving at your mother's house.

Well, assuming your mother was Sybil Leek.

After all, this is Witches' Thanksgiving.

I start awake with the prickling knowledge that someone is in the room.

Every house has its secrets. I am about to learn one.

My eyes fly open. A luminescence hovers mid-air at the foot of the bed.

We'd been in the house nine months. My bedroom faces west, so I was accustomed to wake to darkness.

But now a shaft of red-gold, ancestral light slants in, spans the room, and illumines the windows of the west.

Minneapolis is a four-square city, its good Midwestern street-grid laid out cardinally. As the Sun rises due east at the equinoxes in his annual journey along the horizon, his light shines in through the east window, streams in a thick, tangible column down the hall, and into my bedroom on the west.

Like something out of New Grange.

One day the Goddess went away.

The Moon wanes away into darkness. The seed goes down into the soil. Summer descends into Winter.

Each Spring, we too descend. Into the Underworld we go. We seek Her, we find Her, and we bring Her back.

There was a time in history when it seemed that the Goddess had gone away.

So we descended into the Underworld. We sought Her, we found Her, and we brought Her back.