Ancient Autumn Celebrations

Spiritual rites that revolved around the harvest have been a part of humanity since agriculture was developed.

You have to remember that many of the phenomena that have been explained away by science were poorly understood by the ancients and therefore took on an aura of magic. Even before the advent of formal religious practices, mankind believed that the earth and their crops contained spirits. Appease the spirits and your crops would grow, anger them and you went hungry. Earliest cultures associated these spirits with animal imagery but as we developed a better sense of self so did our spirits. They began to resemble us in deed and thought and stories that explained the mysteries of nature in more human terms evolved. The Greek stories, or myths as we have dubbed them, are basic to Western Civilization. And their explanation of the seasons is one of the most beautiful ever written.

The ancient Greeks worshipped Demeter as the goddess of the bountiful earth. She provided humans with all of the necessary ingredients for survival. If Demeter was happy, humanity, it was believed, thrived. But one day Demeter's world came crashing down around her. Her beautiful daughter, Persephone, was out joyfully picking flowers when she was abducted by the enamored Hades and taken to the underworld to be his queen. Demeter was distraught and she bagan to neglect her earth-motherly duties. What was once fertile and fecund, became parched and dry. Zeus watch as his master creation began to starve and die. He beseeched his brother Hades to reconsider and allow Persephone to return to her mother and, consequently, save humanity. Hades remarked that it was out of his hands. Persephone had eaten the seed of the pomegranate, the fruit of the dead, and was duty bound to remain his queen. Zeus sought some sort of compromise, and finally one was reached. For nine months Persephone would be allowed to be with her mother, Demeter, but for three months of the year she must return to Hades and resume her position as Queen of the Underworld. When Persephone and Demeter are together the earth is fruitful and we have Spring, Summer and Fall. But when Persephone is with Hades, the sorrowful Demeter renders the earth barren and we have winter.

It was this idea of a bountiful harvest enabling winter survival that is at the root of almost every harvest celebration. The ancient Romans celebrated Cerealia in honor of their Goddess of Agriculture, Ceres (where we get the word for cereal). The Hebrews' harvest festival is called Sukkot and has been celebrated for over 3000 years. The name comes from Sukkah's, small temporary huts in which Moses and the Israelites lived as they wandered the dessert. On the first two nights of the eight day Sukkot, families eat their meals in these simple huts under the evening sky. The ancient Chinese harvest festival, called Zhong Qiu Jie, is the biggest festival of the year save for the Chinese New Year. There are many stories behind their autumn tradition but the loveliest is that of the beautiful moon fairy. The legend states that one day ten suns appeared at one time in the sky. The worried Emperor called for the greatest archer in all the land to come and shoot the nine extra suns down. The archer came and successfully completed his task. To reward the archer for his heroic deed the Goddess of the Western Heaven gave him a pill that once taken would make him immortal. But his wife found the pill and swallowed it herself. Angered by this, the Goddess banished the wife to the moon. It is there that she resides in her crystal castle. On the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the moon is at its brightest and the archer's wife is at her greatest beauty. The Moon Festival is the celebration of that beautiful brightness.

Our modern Thanksgiving has a lot in common with these other celebrations and can be seen as an extension of them. The crops have been reaped, and winter survival is assured. We all share in the plentiful harvest and we are truly grateful.