Harvest 2024 | Ritual Inspirations
I was blessed to celebrate the end of grain gathering this year (Autumn Equinox) with some of my favorite local plant work friends and a couple of special guests from further away. I wanted to share a few photos with you along with some inspirations from this year and ways we can engage with our plant spirit work aligned with this season.
While the astronomical configurations of solstices and equinoxes don’t play a big part in my own practice since I focus more on the ancestral agricultural dates or ‘cross quarters’, I love having a reason to gather up with my working group, friends, family, and guests to align to the tides!
This year, we did things a little differently to explore some new ritual workings and connect with some of the folklore in new ways.
We began our evening by kindling a needfire after reciting a really lovely bit of seasonal prose I found written by Stewart Farrar. The fire was kindled and caused us nothing but mischief to the point that we ended up having to douse it with soil. While kindling a bonfire at this time is traditional, it was made clear quite early on that the fire energy was not needed in our circle, so we released it and cooled things down with some sweet, minty tea made from locally-harvested herbs by special guests Rachel and Yassin. It was just the shift in energy we needed!
We had a full table of seasonal treats packed with apples, pumpkin, peaches, oats, and pomegranates. I made some dark chocolate pumpkin cookies and pomegranate-apple mocktails with lavender bitters. I always forget to adjust cookie and bread recipes to our high altitude so they turned out a little flat but overall tasty!
After sharing some stories about the season, conceptions of the grain spirits, deities of the grains, corn dollies (what the old texts refer to as ‘corn’ actually covers all cereal crops like wheat and rye), harvesting rituals, and movements toward the dark half of the year, we get to work crafting corn dolly inspired spirit vessels to keep on our hearths over the winter. Ancestral stories contain many rituals around the first or last sheaf of grain harvested being a hiding place or dwelling place of the grain spirit for the winter. In our group, we work this in to a vessel ritual whereby the verdant allies have a space to come warm themselves by our fires and visit our side of the hedge during wintertides. Everyone’s dollies turned out so beautifully!
Next we reaped and closed energies from the active year by writing out things we worked for and felt good about, whether they were wins or losses, on Bay leaves. Bay has associations at this time of year as a symbol of success and victory. Our leaves invited us to contemplate the year past, think about what we reaped, and then let the energy move on as we ignited the fragrant leaves in fire.
Having reaped, we then directed the energy to sowing. Each person plucked one of 13 apples from the altar, each having a scroll with an omen. We charged the apples, cut them to reveal the blessing, then read our omens and interpreted how they related to the dark half ahead.
This year was really special. We were also so fortunate to be joined by Coby Michael (Poisoner’s Apothecary & Botanica Obscura Conference) who brought all his magic and energy to the event. Coby and I have been friends for quite a while via social media and were finally able to meet up in person and connect; he is such a force in the plant spirit work world and I highly encourage everyone to check out his books on poison plant work and of course the Botanica Obscura Conference which I am so honored to be part of each year.
Wishing you and yours a good harvest of peace and plenty!
