Introduction
The final harvest has just passed. The fields are now empty, the soil bare and exposed, waiting. The lunar calendar and the tradition of ancestors are also laid bare. These provide a timeless guide to aligning with seasonal rhythms.
In a so-called preliterate society or community, it makes no sense that the reckoning of time and calculation of dates for festivals and celebrations was done according to a strict system of dates and months. Rather, time would have been marked by solar and lunar events, as well as being timed with the turn of seasons and the weather.
When is a field ripened and ready to harvest? This cannot be done with any success if relying only or solely upon a fixed date. What if the field is not ready? What if it is past ready? What if the weather is not right? It is important, even in this modern age, to read the Earth and understand the readiness and ripeness of crops in a field to time the harvest just so. Arbitrary and fixed dates simply do not work. It is necessary to know the weather patterns, the condition of the crop, the condition of the field, to determine when the harvest time is right.
Seasonal rhythms and the lunar calendar
Seasons do occur with some level of predictability. Exactly when it is warm enough for early flowers in spring to blossom, such as snow-drops, is not a matter of a calendar date. It is a matter of when the climate in a particular location is right– warm enough, dry enough, for blossoming and budding. It never occurs on a fixed date, but it does occur with cyclical regularity nevertheless.
The lunar calendar: guided by sun, moon and stars
Other natural events do occur with a precise regularity. This is not only the lunar calendar. These are solar and lunar events– the phases of the moon, the solstices and the equinoxes. These are events which are mapped into the sky, morning and night. The sun and the moon, the length of light and dark, are all part of the naturally occuring celestial calendar.
There are vast physical monuments across landscapes whose exact significance and purpose is not known, but it is supposed they marked these celestial events– maybe lunar events, maybe solar events, maybe both. What is not in doubt is that these lunar and solar events had deep significance to these pre-literate societies, even if the exact nature of that significance is lost to us in the modern day.
Celebrating the Final Harvest: Rituals, Lore, and Lunar Wisdom
A full moon has just passed. As well, the calendar event of Halloween, which is sometimes linked to the older Samhain celebration, has just occured. I feel no particular resonance with the modern Halloween celebration. Not even the date on which it is placed in the calendar resonates. Certainly the modern day observations of “trick-or-treat” do not.
Traditions of the first harvest and the second harvest celebration
To anyone attuned to the rhythm of the land– the arable land– it is no mystery that there is not just one harvest. Crops can be harvested across a range of several weeks, depending on the crop and the weather. Some crops can be harvested multiple times–hay can have multiple cuttings, dependent on a variety of factors.
Thus, it makes sense that there is more than one harvest celebration. The idea of a first harvest celebration, the literal culmination of weeks and months of work, is certainly a momentous event.
And it also makes sense that the final harvest, when the last crop is brought in from the field, is worthy of celebration. Such is the ancient observance of Samhain– the final harvest celebration.
But given the vagueries of exactly when harvest would conclude, and also given the lack of exact time reckoning by a fixed date and month, I myself question whether this very ancient festival had the fixed date and month that is often ascribed to it.
When thinking of the harvest and its celebration, it makes sense that the final celebration of harvest would happen when the final harvest in fact had occured. Until then, practically speaking, people would be too busy making sure the heavy work of the harvest happened. Taking arbitrary time out to celebrate seems antithetical to the aim of a successful final harvest.
But if a formal way of marking time for the celebration was needed, then it makes sense it was a lunar one. A full moon. Not an arbitrary date in a calendar. And with the full moon just past– to me, it was under this full moon that the final harvest would be celebrated with ritual and ceremony. To me, this full moon has all the energy and fire of a second and final harvest feast– of reaping all that was sown, one final time, the last gathering in.
The Enduring Relevance of Lunar and Harvest Traditions
And so in this modern age, it is worth considering the relevance of the sun, the moon, and the varied timing of seasons, as to when harvest is celebrated. This can be taken on a metaphorical as well as a literal level. When is your inner harvest ready to reap? We are all creatures of nature, we move with the rhythm of sun and moon, light and dark, even in this modern world. Tuning into the wisdom of a nature based observation under the full moon of Samhain for me makes this second harvest celebration a meaningful one. The celestial calendar is ageless and never loses its meaning and relevance.