Los Angeles Mission College



Autumn: Party Time Across the World

By RICHARD COHEN September 17, 2011

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. Richard Cohen is the author of “Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life.”

WHEN is the fall equinox? For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it will fall very precisely, at 5:05, Eastern Daylight Time, on Friday morning. In 2010 it was also on Sept. 23, but in 2008 and 2009 it was on Sept. 22. (It has also occurred on Sept. 24.) It will not fall on the 21st, the date most people think is the equinox, until 2092.

When autumn has four different birthdays, the anniversary becomes devalued, which may explain why the September equinox — along with its sibling, the vernal equinox in March — has always seemed the slighter of the year’s markings, set against the summer and winter solstices.

Equinoxes are very exact points in time, yet the term itself is misleading: it derives from the Latin for “equal night,” and refers to the Sun’s center being directly over the equator at solar noon, creating a moment when the duration of day and night is reckoned identical. It is true that, for most places on Earth, there are two days a year when day and night have almost the same length — when sunrise and sunset are closest to being 12 hours apart. But day is about 14 minutes longer than night at the equator, and even longer toward the poles. This year it is 94 days from the June solstice to the September equinox, but only 89 days from the December solstice to the March equinox. Because of the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit, the seasons are not of equal length: so although we like to think that our year is neatly cut into quarters, it isn’t.

None of this stops the world from marking the September event as special. Throughout history, the first day of autumn has been considered a good time to take stock of the year’s successes and failures. For our hemisphere, Libra (the scales) — the only inanimate sign of the zodiac — is an occasion for balancing accounts. A myth in many cultures holds that some mystical force lets us stand eggs on their ends — but only for a few hours immediately before or after the exact time of the equinox.

Literature enjoys such staging posts as well. In “The Mysterious Island,” published in 1874, Jules Verne invokes equinoxes at length, while in the “Just So Stories,” Kipling tells of the Elephant’s Child, who suffers from “ ’satiable curtiosity”:

“One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this ’satiable Elephant’s Child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before. He asked, ‘What does the Crocodile have for dinner?’ Then everybody said, ‘Hush!’ in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him immediately.”

The next morning, “when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes, because the Precession had preceded according to precedent,” the Elephant’s Child sets out to find what the Crocodile has for dinner. “And they all spanked him once more for luck.”

Hardly cause for celebration; but then in Greek mythology, autumn begins when the goddess Persephone returns to the underworld to live with her kidnapper, Hades — in repayment of the six pomegranate seeds she illicitly ate: a harsh balancing. Other mythical creatures, like gnomes, minotaurs and the Sphinx, are associated with the autumnal equinox, as are wolves and birds of prey.

My own favorite celebration takes place in Annapolis, Md., where boatyard employees and sailboat owners recognize the spring equinox with a Burning of the Socks festival, re-donning socks at the colder equinox. The Japanese celebrate September with their weeklong Higan (Other Shore) festival, and honor the spirits of the dead reaching nirvana after crossing the river of existence by cleaning and decorating graves.

China has its own celebration, the Moon Festival, when the streets are decorated with lanterns and dragons dance. A moon cake, with filling ranging from melon and lotus seeds, almonds, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard to a salted duck egg yolk placed at the center, is particularly popular. Traditionally, 13 such cakes are piled in a pyramid to symbolize the 13 moons of a complete year.

In the Iranian calendar, the equinox is when Mehregan, the festival of Zoroastrianism, is celebrated. In Korea, Chuseok is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday.

The Christian church, not to be outdone, replaced early pagan celebrations with Michaelmas (also known as the Feast of Michael and All Angels), but set it on Sept. 29. Modern pagans celebrate Mabon by giving thanks to the Sun; the name was introduced sometime in the early 1970s having been drawn, seemingly at random, from Welsh mythology to impart a more authentic Celtic feel.

It’s not all ghouls and gales, though. The equinox is said to produce a reduction in the magnetic field of the Earth, allowing easier access to other dimensions, making this is a propitious moment to be in a power spot — in a forest, near a lake or sea, in a holy place — or even in your own backyard: no spanking necessary.

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