WASHINGTON — As the September equinox ushers in a pivotal astronomical turning point, contemporary Pagan, Wiccan, and earth-centered communities across the globe are marking the shift in seasons. Known traditionally as Mabon or Harvest Home in the Northern Hemisphere—and the Vernal Equinox or Ostara in the South—the equinox represents a fleeting moment of cosmic equilibrium where day and night stand of equal length before the Wheel of the Year tips toward the darker months.
To capture the mood and spiritual landscape of the holiday, The Wild Hunt convened a special edition of "Pagan Voices." Six prominent figures within the modern Pagan movement—Rev. Selena Fox, Lady Belladonna LaVeau, Lilith Wolf, Jim Sayers, Macha NightMare, and Manny Tejeda y Moreno—shared their personal and communal reflections on the themes defining the autumn threshold: harvest and gratitude, death and ritual, personal balance, and the enduring nature of the divine.
Main Facts: The Turning of the Cosmic Wheel
The September equinox, occurring annually between September 21 and 24, holds deep religious and cultural significance for hundreds of thousands of practitioners of contemporary nature-based religions. While secular calendars mark it simply as the transition from summer to autumn, the Pagan community views the date as an active spiritual milestone.
Key developments surrounding this year’s equinox celebrations include:
Interfaith Engagement: High-profile Pagan leaders are increasingly taking their rituals and public ministry outside traditional coven spaces, bringing earth-honoring liturgies into Unitarian Universalist congregations and interfaith coalitions.
A Shift in Focus on Mortality: Several elders have used the Mabon season to critique modern, sanitized approaches to death and grief, calling for a return to ancestral death-awareness and conscious release.
Balancing Activism and Rest: Amid global socio-political stressors and continuous news cycles of crisis, leaders emphasize that gratitude and stillness are not forms of escapism, but vital tools to replenish activists working for social and environmental justice.
Chronology: Rituals, Services, and Global Observances
The lead-up to the 2026 equinox saw a flurry of liturgical preparations, community gatherings, and digital broadcasts:
Mid-September: Circle Sanctuary initiated preparations for its annual Welcome Fall Festival, culminating in interfaith outreach led by senior minister Rev. Selena Fox.
Sunday, September 21 (The Equinox): Rev. Selena Fox delivered the opening words and harvest liturgy at the Unitarian Church North in Mequon, Wisconsin, weaving traditional Pagan reverence for the biosphere into a broader liberal religious service. Concurrently, practitioners worldwide began private and coven-led rituals involving hearth fires, gratitude jars, and release workings.
Upcoming, Friday, September 25: Circle Sanctuary is scheduled to broadcast its livestreamed Harvest Traditions Full Moon Circle via its official YouTube channel at 7:00 p.m. CDT, inviting a global digital audience to participate in post-equinox rituals.
Supporting Data and Community Voices
The reflections gathered from this year’s contributors highlight a multifaceted approach to the equinox, blending ecology, psychology, and ancient tradition.
1. Rev. Selena Fox: Honoring the Biosphere
Rev. Selena Fox, a certified clinical psychotherapist and high priestess who has spent over three decades as a public spokesperson for Wicca, emphasized the interconnectedness of Earth’s systems during her service at Unitarian Church North.
"We Honor the Biosphere that is Planet Earth, our Home," Fox told the congregation in her opening liturgy. "And the greater Universe, the Cosmos. We Honor the Great Spirit, the Interconnecting Sacred Source that is within & around us."
Fox also highlighted her long-standing "Harvest Thanksgiving Chant," designed to ground practitioners in appreciation for the year’s physical and spiritual abundance. Circle Sanctuary continues to anchor these traditions through ongoing virtual gatherings, bridging isolated practitioners with communal rituals.
2. Lady Belladonna LaVeau: Confronting the Season of Death
Lady Belladonna LaVeau, Matriarch of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, addressed the often-overlooked association between Mabon and mortality. She argued that modern culture—including contemporary Paganism—has largely sanitized death, outsourcing it to professionals rather than engaging with it as a natural part of the seasonal cycle.
"Mabon is the Harvest, and it’s also the funeral," LaVeau noted. "If we are born at Ostara, at Mabon we return to the dark half of the year, to the embrace of the mother… In today’s Pagan culture, we no longer actually fear that without a coin, or proper passwords, we will not arrive at our intended destination. We expect the journey to be straightforward."
LaVeau urged practitioners to use the transition into winter to examine ancient death rituals, decolonize their spiritual practices, and consciously let go of aspects of their personal and cultural lives that have reached their natural end.
3. Lilith Wolf: A Three-Part Working for Release
Author, artist, and High Priestess Lilith Wolf offered a structured ritual framework for practitioners navigating the shift from outward action to inward reflection. Pointing out the psychological need to purge unfinished business, Wolf outlined a three-part equinox working utilizing a "Happiness Jar" and controlled, safe paper-burning rituals.
Part One: Documenting and celebrating the successes, victories, and community improvements achieved since the spring.
Part Two: Writing down unfulfilled desires, failed projects, and burdens, then safely burning them in a cauldron or censer to return their energy to the universe.
Part Three: Placing nascent, growing goals upon the altar as a reminder to nurture pending manifestations through the darker months.
4. Jim Sayers: Finding Presence Amid Uncertainty
For folk herbalist and Wiccan High Priest Jim Sayers, this year’s equinox brought deeply personal lessons regarding physical health and professional redirection. Reflecting on a year marked by unexpected cancellations and bodily limitations, Sayers reframed the darkness of winter not as an antagonist to light, but as a period of divine rest.
"During one quiet prayer, I said only, ‘Here I am,’" Sayers shared. "There was no grand revelation… I realized that feeling alone was not proof that I was alone. My harvest this Mabon is not filled only with victories. It includes better health and a new direction. It also holds the limits I had to accept and the plans I had to release."
5. Macha NightMare: The Angle of the Light
Northern California Witch Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien) turned her attention to the aesthetic and physical manifestations of the seasonal shift. Drawing on the poetry of Steven Posch and Robert Burns, she explored the dual nature of harvest lore—including the classic folk archetype of John Barleycorn.
For urban and suburban practitioners detached from agrarian fields, NightMare suggested that the true harbinger of the equinox is optical: the shifting angle of the sun.
"In Midsummer, the high Sun illuminates everything," NightMare observed. "But the angle of sunlight at the Autumn Equinox shows everything in sharp relief, in light and shadow, something similar to the visual revelations of the Dutch Masters’ paintings."
6. Manny Tejeda y Moreno: Gratitude as Resistance
Manny Tejeda y Moreno, National First Officer of the Covenant of the Goddess and editor-in-chief of The Wild Hunt, addressed the psychological toll of living in a hyper-connected world dominated by crisis-driven news cycles. He argued that cultivating gratitude during the equinox is an essential psychological and spiritual counterbalance rather than an act of denial.
"Gratitude is not denial, complacency, or toxic positivity," Tejeda y Moreno wrote. "It does not erase injustice or ask us to look away from suffering… When the daily news cycle feels like an endless succession of crises, we can easily become accustomed to living in a state of alarm. Gratitude can help widen that field of vision."
Official Responses and Institutional Context
As modern Paganism continues to formalize its presence in the United States and abroad, institutional bodies are adapting to the needs of their constituencies. Organizations such as Circle Sanctuary, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, and the Covenant of the Goddess are seeing increased participation in both physical sanctuaries and digital programming.
While these groups operate independently with diverse theological frameworks—ranging from traditional Wicca and Celtic reconstructionism to eclectic nature spirituality—they share a unified institutional goal: advocating for religious freedom, protecting the Earth’s biosphere, and providing safe spaces for minority religious expression.
Implications for the Modern Pagan Community
The collective reflections of these six leaders point to several broader implications for contemporary Paganism as it navigates the latter half of the 2020s:
Integration of Activism and Rest: The community is increasingly recognizing that sustainable social and environmental activism requires deliberate cycles of withdrawal and rejuvenation. The dark half of the year is no longer viewed merely as a time of dormancy, but as a necessary incubator for future resilience.
Reclaiming Sacred Rites: By critiquing the sanitization of death and advocating for conscious releasing rituals, Pagan leaders are offering alternative cultural frameworks for grief and transition in a secularized society.
Digital Adaptation: The blending of in-person rituals (such as Fox’s Unitarian service) with global livestreamed broadcasts (such as Circle Sanctuary’s Full Moon circles) ensures that earth-centered religion remains accessible to isolated seekers, reinforcing a resilient, decentralized global community.
As the Wheel turns further into shadow, Pagan communities worldwide stand poised to utilize the lessons of the harvest—celebrating abundance, making peace with loss, and preparing the soil of the soul for the winter to come.
