September is a Spell: The Autumn Crossroads
We made it, Witches.
With the Fall Equinox less than one week away, the Season of the Witch has finally arrived! How does it feel to be perched atop this seasonal shift? Take a few moments to admire your surroundings:
Do you see any ghosts creeping around the garden? Which plants wave hello? How many colors are winding their way up your ankles, around your spine, and into your heart? Where are the crossroads carved into this next chapter?
Celtic lore tells us September is a threshold. It begins a season of reflection and inner explorations, where Underworld rumblings welcome back the ghosts of autumn.
The poets say September spurs the month of the vine. Roman Virgil called autumn “vine-leafed,” foreshadowing the arrival of Bacchus, the wild, horned god of the vine. His Greek persona, Dionysus, was raucous come spring and even more so at harvest season. As Dionysus was married to the Underworld, in stories, the god sometimes shows up as Persephone's husband or her child. Other times, he is simply a friend of the goddess and her assistant during the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The Moon suggests September is a holy month. Perhaps that's why Greek Demeter and her daughter Persephone hosted the Eleusinian Mysteries as September's moon waxed full. The Eleusinian Mysteries were an annual ceremony dedicated to the Goddess, her Grain Mysteries, and her mysterious antidote to humanity's greatest fears - deaths and endings, the unwritten chapters beyond the veil.
But, while the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries have never been revealed (lest one spite the goddesses' gifts), Persephone does promise this: just like magick, Spirit, and our stories, the soul endures.
“At the end of the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis, a mass initiation held for over two thousand years in ancient Greece, the Goddess Persephone returned from the Underworld of Death. At the visionary moment of her return, her celebrants poured water from two vessels into two cracks in the Earth. Persephone is the Queen of the Dead, a Goddess who died and come back to life, and who promised life after death to her initiates.” – Rachel Pollack, A Walk Through the Forest of Souls: A Tarot Journey to Spiritual Awakening
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Fall Equinox takes place around Sept. 21st, when Witches and Pagans celebrate the sabbat Mabon. This year, the equinox is met with a 1st quarter moon, sometimes dubbed a 'half moon.' Coincidentally, equinoxes are all about finding our balance and embracing dualities. The Autumn Equinox is a meeting of opposites, a seasonal check-in for reflection and redress.
During the Fall Equinox, Mother Earth dutifully passes the seasonal torch. She parts the otherworldly veil, and we step into the dark half of the year. Unlike the Spring Equinox when we expand, stretch, and reach for the light, right now, come September, we have our eyes on the shadows and the stories hidden within.
For many of us, equinoxes and solstices are crossroads moments.
This September, Little Witch Books' author Kristin Lisenby and Word Witch Kate Belew invite you to join them at the Autumn Crossroads - a five-week creative coven with weekly gatherings, rituals, prompts, folklore, and stories about the autumn witches and their potent plants!
Explore the crossroads, the realm of these stories, the liminal where magic is made…
During this five-week series and program, Kristin Lisenby and Kate Belew hold space with you at the creative cauldron of fall. Gathering by the hearth, the lit candle, and Oak, you'll explore and tell the tales of the Autumn Witches, potent plants, folklore, and myth.
These stories are fodder for your creative work. They are rituals to hold you in the shifting of the season as you descend into the underworld. They are offerings to leave as compost, to decay and make good soil as the wheel turns. Together, you'll celebrate the harvest, release that which is ready to fall from the trees of your life, offer gratitude, and celebrate autumn's magick. You'll gather Artemisia vulgaris in your arms, listen beyond the veil, rest in the cathedral of the Pine, and listen to the ancient stories sung from the roots. Autumn has arrived, and so have you.
Week #1: The Dance, Maenads & Pine
In your first meeting at the Crossroads, you're invited to meet the Maenads and their wands of Pine. Painted as lunatics and wicked women of the woods, the Maenads were followers of Dionysus, the Greek God of the Vine. In stories, this band of women possessed superhuman strength, fiery tresses, and lacked any stitch of self-control. The Maenads' frenzied dance both enticed and frightened uninitiated mortals, the people who'd never tasted the language of the moon. But to the outcasts, the wild ones, the people surrendering to their feral roots, the Maenads were not madwomen but messengers, sisters to witches, heathen guardians of the fairy tale forest. To them, movement was prayer, intoxicating and intuitive.
In your first gathering at the Crossroads, a coven of dancing women beckons from a wooded haven. Dionysus prepares the harvest while his muses, the Maenads, writhe to the tune of madness. As the Maenads swirl in the forest with the madness of their dance and moon, their pine-tipped wands cast a spell. Pine is symbolically intertwined with the archetype of Peace, however, in the hands of the Maenads, Pine casts the spell of freedom. “We are most at peace when we are most ourselves,” they cackle. Pine is a wayfinding tree. Follow its tall stature to the center of the forest, where you'll find shelter in the cathedral of their branches, held by the ancientness of dance and song.
Week #2: The Eviction: Inanna & Date Palm
In week two, in all her winged forms – the dove, the goose, the vulture, Inanna circles the earth. Both a bringer of light and a harbinger of death, Inanna's white plumage reflects her celestial status. She is, after all, the moon god's eldest child. In her cosmic form, the planet Venus, Inanna is our Morning Star and nighttime compass, Hesperus. Fluid and sensual, ancient poetry describes our Lady of the Largest Heart as a vessel for alchemy and sacred partnership. People call her their Battle Planner and Foe Smasher, but Inanna also tends to the land. In her wild garden, she speaks to willow trees and Date Palm. She whispers to the rivers; their Underworld currents swell and deliver.
Inanna and the ancient date palm are stories grown from the same seed, fertility. For the ancient Sumerians, Inanna was the one who ensured that the dates would come to full abundance each cycle. And over time, it is believed that these ancient people had over 150 words for these plants and each of their parts, an honor through language. Dates are fertility magick. Dates were and are precious, small gems in the desert landscape of nutrients, magick, and support. As allies to the goddess Inanna, they line your pockets as we journey during the full moon, as the moon reflects on the sacred sands where they grow.
Week #3: The Cauldron: Cerridwen & Oak
This week, you travel, cradled within the arms of ancient oak trees, to a quiet lake called Bala. Beneath its enchanted waters, the Lady of the Lake stirs a potent potion. Poetry bubbles up from the deep, hymns to the moon, the mountains, and dedications to a boy with a radiant brow. Visions of a giantess ripple across the water, memories of a Crone-Mother, the keeper of an earthen cauldron. In the third gathering at the Crossroads, you meet Cerridwen of Wales. A goddess and guide, Cerridwen introduces you to her growing family. As you pack fresh oak beneath her cauldron, the goddess forages for sacred plants to inspire her latest batch of Awen, her most popular recipe. When the brew begins to bubble, Cerridwen reflects on the pursuit of our muses, alchemizing creativity, and what she's learned from her adopted son, the bard Talisen.
Oak is a tree of great strength, and in the garden of Cerridwen, a reminder of the ancient magick. As Cerridwen stirs her cauldron, the spirit of oak looks on, whispering spells into her ears. And if we listen carefully, we might learn a thing or two. For the Druids, oak was a holy tree. Oak was considered the King of Trees. Wands were made from its wood. Acorns gathered at night were said to be fertility charms, and magical practitioners listened to the rustling of oak leaves in divinatory practices.
Week #4: The Labyrinth: Ariadne & Mugwort
In week three, Ariadne reappears at the labyrinth's threshold. With a spool of golden thread in her hands, the goddess leads you deep within the walls of the Minotaur's lair. Her name translating to 'holy' Ariadne expertly navigates the maze of becoming. Tying together the threads of betrayal, redemption, and initiation, in our third gathering at the Crossroads, Ariadne unravels a story about monsters, mugwort, and harvesting mysteries from the lunar labyrinth.
Mugwort is an expert traveler of the labyrinth and the underworld. Known for their intuitive properties, this Witching Herb and weedy and wild ally appears at the crossroads with messages from the other world. Put your ear to the earth of the Labyrinth, crowned in Mugwort, and connect with your wyrd and knowing self.
Week #5: The Void: Nyx & Poppy
Come week five, Nyx takes you back to the very beginning, to the formless crossroads of creation. A primordial Goddess of Night, Nyx is winged and chthonic. Held by the darkness, the endless void that is both feral and fertile, Nyx begins her life as a giant bird born from the swells of Chaos. In the final gathering at the Crossroads, led by the winds and the written word, Nyx shares a story about creation and cosmic force. Wreathed in poppies and draped in a starry cloak, the oracle shares a tale that spirals around the intent of stillness, dreams, and veiling the earth in her dark shades.
Much like the Goddess, Poppy knows the path to the Underworld, and their roots reach deep into the void. Nourished by mysteries, Poppy arrives with stories of initiation, of cosmic birth, of beginnings and endings intertwined and linked together. Standing at the gate of Samhain, we celebrate the dark.
The Autumn Crossroads begins on the Fall Equinox, September 21st! This five-week program includes five 90-minute classes (we meet every Thursday evening), with downloadable recordings, five downloadable PDFs with rituals and prompts for extended study, a Slack Community & Coven to connect with other Autumn Witches around the tales, potent pants, magic, astrology, ritual, ad storytelling. You can find more information here.
See you at The Crossroads, Witches.
