Fall Equinox Magic: Rituals, Spells, and Seasonal Witchcraft

What is Fall Equinox?

Fall Equinox is the time of equal day and equal night. If you work with either land-based magic or the Wheel of the Year, it is the heart of the harvest season. Much of the abundance of the harvest has already been gathered in and safely preserved, but there is still more to come before either the first killing frost or the symbolic death of the land at Samhain.

It is a reminder to gather what we need and take stock of what still needs to be done to prepare for the cooling of the land and fall storms.

Fall Equinox Magic for Green and Kitchen Witches

If you’re a green witch, this might look like making sure you have herbal syrups or herbs that boost immunity on hand. Things like rosehip or elderberry syrup, fire cider, apple vinegar, and tinctures of respiratory herbs.

If you are a kitchen witch, it’s a time to shift to working with warming spices like cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and deeply colored roots and vegetables.

These warm flavored herbs were once worth many times their weight in silver, so they have become associated with prosperity, and they are another way to bring abundance magic into your food.

You can also go through your cupboard and notice what herbs and spices you use most in your food. Do a bit of research to find their magical properties.

When appropriate, sprinkle those herbs in your food and ask them to bring their magic into your life. It’s fine to keep it simple, even saying something like: “I call on you to bring me delight in this meal.”

Deepening Your Magic in September

If you like to use the shifting seasons to explore and challenge yourself, journaling on the themes of balance, community, and what you want to reflect on over the winter can be helpful.

Perhaps set aside some time to do some divination and ask, “What do I need to explore during the remainder of the fall season?”

If you are like many people, September is the month when you want to delve into learning and go deeper into your magic. Make a list of topics you want to learn about, then buy books, get them from a library, research, or take classes from someone reputable.

It’s also a good time to get to know land, house and harvest spirits of your ancestry. You won’t learn much from quick online searches, but you can find names and then track down more resources to develop a relationship with them.

What is the Magic of Fall Equinox?

The magical essence of Fall Equinox brings us the magic of abundance and balance, and we can also use it as a time to assess what we need in our lives, what we are completing, and what we want to consider releasing at Samhain. What can we return or release to the earth as the leaves fall to compost into wisdom for future growth?

Magical colors associated with this time of year include gold, yellow, scarlet red, brown, and the pairing of white and black. You can bring these colors into your magic in your altar cloths, candles, offering bowls, and glasses.

It’s also a time to share abundance with others as the days get cooler and the expenses of the colder weather start to catch up with people who are struggling in some way. And even if you aren’t, sharing resources and building safety nets within our communities and beyond just makes sense at any time of year. It’s how we survive as humans. I have a spell about that below in the tips section.

Deities for Fall Equinox

There aren’t specific Deities specifically associated with this point on the seasonal wheel. But you can call on any Deities relating to grain, agriculture, or abundance.

What is Mabon? History and Myth in Paganism

While the Fall Equinox may or may not have been an astronomical point that was noticed, it wasn’t a holiday that was traditionally celebrated within historical times, and it wasn’t even named Mabon.

In Welsh mythology, Mabon ap Modron (his name means “Son of the Mother”) appears in the Mabinogion. His mother’s name, Modron, is translated as “The Great Mother.” Clearly, there is more to this pair that has been lost to time.

Mabon is a divine youth who was stolen from his mother when he was just three nights old and later rescued by King Arthur’s men in order to help hunt the magical boar Twrch Trwyth. Mabon is associated with strength, hunting, and the idea of rebirth or return, since he is taken away into darkness and then found again. His time in the dark and his story reflects themes of loss, initiation, and renewal.

In modern Paganism and Wicca, “Mabon” has become the name of the Autumn Equinox celebration, part of the Wheel of the Year. This use is much more recent. The term was popularized in the 1970s by Aidan Kelly, an influential figure in American Paganism, who borrowed the name from the Welsh deity and applied it to the equinox.

He was searching for a deity name that had a story similar to Persephone’s return from the darkness at the Spring Equinox. As far as I can tell, Mabon was not taken in the fall season. His association with that time is symbolic rather than literal. Before the 1970s, the Fall Equinox was not traditionally called Mabon.

Fall Equinox Four Card Reading

You can use tarot cards, oracle cards, runes, or any divination system that works for you. You can lay it out however works best for you.

A lot of people really like a horizontal spread for this kind of reading, but I actually prefer a diamond-shaped base for this particular reading.

• At the base of the diamond, or the spot that represents “below,” I place one card for what I’ve integrated in the past season or two that can support me in the future.

• The second card I pull I place on the left, and that is what I’ve accumulated over the past season or two that I need to release.

• The third card I place at the top, and that represents what I should keep doing.

• The fourth card I place to the right, and that’s the card that represents what I need to steer toward or navigate toward through the winter months.

Seasonal Magic for Fall Equinox Altar

I also like to start collecting fall objects from the outdoors to use in my spells and to place on my altars to give my magic a little boost.

For me, this can include things like:

• Acorns for luck and prosperity.

• Nuts in general, including the shells.

• Fall leaves to represent the season and to use in releasing spells and rituals.

• Dried seed heads to represent the cycle of the whole year coming to completion, getting ready to rest, and starting a new cycle.

Especially as a beginner, if you’re strongly connected to nature and the land, it can be really helpful to have things that represent the season available to you to work with and give your magic a boost.

Grounding to Bring in Balance

I think fall equinox is an amazing time of year to learn and incorporate a grounding practice into your witchcraft.

For many of us who grew up in Western industrial culture, we’re really focused in our heads and minds, sometimes even out of our bodies. Fall equinox is really all about balance, and grounding can help with that.

Grounding helps you visualize or feel the energy of the earth and be more balanced in that way. It helps anchor you so you can return to your body after doing magic. It also brings up the vital force of the earth for you to use in your workings so you don’t deplete your own system. It opens up the magic of the earth and the deep below so you can get to know it and work with it.

Grounding is also a really basic step in learning to alter your consciousness, and that is a step that leads you into more advanced magic and intuitive skills.

How to Make a Magical Doorway Charm for the Equinox

My next piece of fall equinox magic is to create some kind of doorway or entrance charm that you can use to bring the energy into your house that you need.

This is one that can be discreet if you don’t want others to know that you’re a witch.

At this time of year, good intentions include: ease, safe home, abundance, and balance.

If you have time to make a wreath, that’s ideal, or you can buy an autumn wreath and charge it with your intention and add in a few extras that you have gathered to make it more personal. I like to make these things myself, but when I don’t have the time, I just make a decorative bundle of foliage and herbs.

I gather seasonal things or plants that carry the properties I want, then arrange them how they look good to me. Some plants I like to use:

• Rosemary or pine for protection and clearing.

• Lavender flowers for ease.

• Rose hips for beauty.

• Rowan berry sprigs for protection.

• Seed heads for seasonal magic.

• Oak leaves, either tied in individually or as part of a fallen branch.

Tie everything tightly with string at the base, wrapping it several times, and as you tie, charge it with what you want it to hold. I usually do this by speaking my intention as I tie the knots.

Seasonal Protection

At any liminal time, like a seasonal holiday, it’s good to go around the house and assess your protective charms and doorway protections. I usually only create one for summer and one for winter, but I always check them at the shifting of the seasons.

See if they need to be renewed or added to. If they look dusty, disheveled, dilapidated, or just old and stale, replace them or add to them.

Rowan and Juniper berries, along with Oak leaves, are nice fall additions to fall equinox charms along with  more general protective herbs like rosemary, pine and blue vervain

If you don’t get to this at fall equinox, the full moon in October is another good time. While you’re at it, go around your house and see what you’re done with magically. Change out your altars, and take down charms you’ve forgotten about. Do a little general magical cleaning.

Donation Magic Spell

Another idea is to do a little donation magic at this time of year, especially around issues of food and housing scarcity.

This is a simple practice. Pick a group that works with your chosen issues. Light a candle, focus yourself, and as you write the check or make the donation, imagine that more people are donating too, and that you are paving the way for that to occur.

Of course, if you have the ability and time to do something physical to help that group, that’s even better.

Seasonal Ritual for Fall Equinox

A seasonal ritual always helps me adapt to the changing weather. You can start by taking a relaxing shower, then do whatever you do to start the ritual. Cast a circle, call beings, or just start.

Place a candle on the floor that represents summer sun or the summer season in a fireproof container. About five feet away, place a candle that represents the autumn season or winter, if that feels better for you.

Take slow breaths and focus on your intention of moving into alignment with the seasonal flow. Picture the changing season in your body or mind. Breathe that intention into the candles, seeing the pathway between them as a gate.

When you’re ready, walk through the gate slowly and gradually, moving into the darker part of the year.

This can be a group ritual. Each person walks through the candle gate and is welcomed on the other side. Encourage each other with blessings of the season, and share a harvest feast afterward.

Fall Food Abundance Spell

My next piece of magic is very simple. Take a little dried alfalfa and place it in a jar in the corner of your cupboard. Ask it to call into your home the food that you need to survive and thrive.

Obviously, the problems of the culture are what create food scarcity. Magic alone won’t fix those things, but magic can open the door a little bit for action and change.

I hope you all have a wonderful fall equinox. May you never hunger, may you never thirst.

Blessed Mabon
Colette Gardiner
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