I have fond, slightly surreal, memories of each autumn in primary school being filled with leaves cut from orange and red paper, bread dough sculptures of bundles of wheat, scarecrows, and tables covered with cans of food. I don’t have children myself, so I don’t know – do schools still celebrate harvest festival?
Traditionally scheduled to coincide with the annual appearance of the harvest moon – which is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox – harvest festival was a celebration of the busiest time in the growing season coming to a close. At this point in the year, when the wheat had been harvested and the fields were being cleared, rural communities would gather to give thanks for the food that would sustain them through the leaner months.
Corn dollies – or harvest tokens or trophies as they’re otherwise known – are small figures traditionally woven from the last sheaf to be gathered. Dating back many hundreds – if not thousands – of years, these pagan creations were thought to embody the spirit of the corn, the spirit of the harvest. They were made in the hope they would carry the season’s fertility through the winter and then, having been ploughed back into the field come spring, coax another productive season into unfolding. Different regions have different traditions and different designs for their corn dollies.
I share this because I believe our land-working forebears were doing something essential when they made the effort to mark the point before autumn begins to shift towards winter. In taking the time to reflect on a busy growing season and give thanks for all it has yielded, we too can note how the shifting climate is affecting our plants, while acknowledging our good fortune – and learning from all that didn’t go so well. And, most importantly perhaps, it is a time to offer deep gratitude for the abundance that lots of us take for granted when too many around the world go without – especially as that abundance is often the result of the labour of workers whose names we’ll never know.
Before the shortening days and colder nights, and the clearing of crops and mulching of beds pull you into more doing, perhaps there’s a ritual that’s calling to you as a way of marking the end of the season. With this year’s harvest moon set to rise on 7 October, there’s still a few days left to plan your own harvest festival.
One autumn, as the harvest moon rose over the water, I went for a cold sea swim with two of the people I’d spent the growing season working alongside, leaving behind the ups and downs of the year in the water. Perhaps, if the weather is kind, I’ll try doing the same again this year, establishing a ritual of my own.
