It’s the season that ends the time of harvest – discover the meaning behind the harvest holidays from around the globe.
At the midpoint of autumn, we are struck by the unique beauty of this time of year. It’s wondrous to all, and especially children, how verdant green leaves change into gold, burgundy, orange, and brown. They fall slowly at times, drifting on a slight breeze, or in big clumps, leaping off the tree when a wind whips up. Other than perhaps the crunch of snow, there’s nothing like the crackle of dry leaves beneath your feet.
While winter offers snowflakes, spring boasts flowers, and summer is a time of joyful recreation, autumn’s finer qualities are decidedly different. This is a season that gains its beauty from death. The rich changing colors of fall result from leaves passing on. Autumn is the season of dying, and yet reaping as well.
The final harvest happens near the end of October. The fullness of summer is complete and the final grains, gifts of the earth, are taken from the fields. The remains are dry, done, and plowed over into the earth to renew her soil. The earth now has her well-earned rest.
Honoring the Final Harvest
Many cultures celebrate this end of the active farming season. The Saxons called this final harvest “Winter’s Eve,” and to the Celts, it was known as Samhain, “Summer’s End”, usually October 31st or November 1st. Samhain later developed into our modern-day Halloween. The Celts honored their dead on this day by offering food on the doorstep or an altar, and lighting a single candle in the window to guide their departed ones home. Death and life are intertwined as gratitude is offered for the abundance of the harvest, the crops die back into the earth, and those who have passed on are remembered by the living.
Samhain was transformed to Hallowmas (from which Halloween comes — Hallow’s Eve), or All Saints Day, as the Catholics influenced the traditions of the peasant people. All Saints Day (November 1st) commemorates the blessed souls who had been canonized that year and all saints, even those who remain anonymous yet lived pious lives. This is followed by All Souls Day on the 2nd, where the faithful offer prayers for the purification of the dead, especially relatives and loved ones. Throughout Europe and other countries around the globe, visits to the cemetery are common, placing lit candles and flowers on graves and remembering deceased relatives.
Harvest Celebrations Around the World
Perhaps the most festive celebration of this kind is the popular Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, honored throughout Mexico. A blending of traditions, including Catholic influence from the Spaniards and local influences from the indigenous peoples of the region, Dia de los Muertos is lavish and playful compared to the more austere European observances of All Souls Day. Mexicans celebrate their beloved who have passed on, as well as the continuation of life and children. In addition to welcoming the dead back to their homes and visiting relatives’ graves, families often picnic at the gravesite. Homes are decorated with large altars of items thought to please the departed, including offerings of flowers, food, candles, and items that remind the family of their deceased relatives. Dia de los Muertos is a varied cultural, social, and religious event throughout the country.
On the other side of the globe, in India, one of the most popular festivals of the year happens in mid-autumn: Diwali, the Festival of the Lights. The victory of light over darkness is seen through oil lamps illuminating homes night and day for five days throughout India. Light signifies goodness in Hindu tradition, so the lighting of the lamps represents truth prevailing over falsehood, wisdom overcoming ignorance, and love triumphing over hatred.
There are many legends associated with Diwali that follow this theme, but few know that this holiday is also a harvest festival, signifying the end of the cropping season. The clues to this origin of Diwali as a harvest celebration are in the traditional honoring of Lakshmi, goddess of abundance, at this time. Special pujas, or ceremonies, are done for her to ensure good fortune. In the rural areas of India, the last of the rice is now reaped, and delicacies known as Poha or Pauva are made from this grain. Diwali is seen to these farmers as a day to offer prayers and gratitude to the Divine for their abundant season.
Diwali brings yet another perspective to this final harvest time: the recognition that, even in the greatest darkness, there is an inner light that shines. Truth, Love, and the Divine prevail, especially when we turn our attention to that spiritual light rather than the growing darkness outside. And even when life seems precarious and death is near, the earth promises to renew again in the spring.
Reflections on Death, Trust, and Renewal
As Halloween and all these traditions remind us, mid-autumn is the ideal time to face our own mortality and to contemplate the meaning of death. We are palpably reminded of the impermanence of life as we witness the dying plants, withering flowers, and what were once verdant green leaves dropping off branches and slowly decaying into dust.
What does death mean to you? At some point in life, we all must come to terms with its inevitability and our beliefs around the meaning of passing. Whatever religious belief you may have about the afterlife, the truth is that we all face the unknown when we look into the face of death. This often brings up fear. But it also brings up the opposite of fear: trust.
Ultimately, death teaches us to place ourselves in the care of something greater. Whether we cease to exist after this life ends, journey on to heaven, or return in another body or another form, we can either choose to live in fear of that inevitability, or to trust the process. Just as nature inherently flows through death in autumn, knowing that it flows back into life in spring, you can trust that, as your body passes on and gives itself back to the earth, your spirit is reborn and renewed in a way you cannot yet fathom.
Autumn teaches us that it’s OK to let go and pass on, whether that’s an old way of living, moving away from our hometown, surviving a divorce, or graduating from college. Life is full of endings and beginnings, and the endings usher in, slowly but surely, rebirth. A divine order is in place, and although we may not understand it, we see it repeatedly through the cycle of the year and the events in our lives.
This time of the final harvest encourages us to live to the fullest while we can. Life offers us many fruits that come from patience and labor: tilling our potentials, sowing our dreams, tending to their growth with care, and then, at last, the harvest. We all have a great bounty waiting to be reaped, if we trust this perennial truth, and give this lifetime our full commitment and effort to uncover it.
