A shift in the winds. A change in the quality of light. A gentle call to soften the edges. The colors morph into gold. Summer is moving out of the way, leaning into the seeds of new beginnings, and the aging bodies of earth’s children that weave together the tapestry of another season. The portal of Autumn is opening.
Fall initiates the beginning of a new academic year. Fall marks the Jewish new year. Fall brings transformation. It moves us into the darkness. It begins the end of the growth cycle. It’s harvest time, the trees begin their striptease, and creatures collect and prepare for times of lack. Nourishment is in abundance, but the threat of hunger sends its messages.
The Jewish year dies and rebirths itself through scattered seeds or pomegranate. In Greek mythology, Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds offered by Hades, which binds her to live half of each year in the land of the dead with him. The Gregorian year shifts gears toward completion. Death and life, beginnings and endings interweave.
The commingling of chaos and cohesion becomes an art form as winds send leaves and seeds in many directions, as fruit drops to the ground, and as what isn’t gathered by animals is being reabsorbed to fertilize the soil and create the next cycle of life.
This is the time of year when we’re invited to reset, to recalibrate, and to redefine ourselves through a process of transformation, as the mythic, symbolic language of the season takes us into the underworld.
Death and decay take away the life force of Summer, and bring us into the playground of renewal through release, receiving what is offered and composting the parts we no longer want or need.
This is the season that begins the journey of elderhood. Whatever our age is, there are aspects of us that mature into deeper wisdom. There are parts of us that shed skins to unveil what we’ve learned, and obscure who we were before. We’re not yet in the wise old person time of the year, but the archetype of elder is being brewed in the northern hemisphere.
In many myths and folklore, the wise old woman is portrayed as a witch. The woman who passes her “prime” is portrayed by the patriarchy as a monstrous one. Her aging turns her into an evil queen. She enters a phase where her power deepens as she moves into and through the initiating fires of the underworld in the form of menopause, and society rejects her. She is fearsome. She is fierce. And her wisdom is a threat to the status quo. (read Hagitude by Sharon Blackie. She does an incredible job exploring these themes).
I think of this time, as the season shifts from Summer into Fall, as the time of Snowwhite’s stepmother. She’s still beautiful, but the maiden becomes more attractive than her (according to the standards of the overculture). Summer’s vitality has passed. It’s still harvest time. There’s plenty of food, but there’s a shift toward decay… you see where I’m going with this… She loses her place of power in a patriarchal society. But in many ways she becomes more powerful. Her magic, her knowledge of the arts of alchemy deepens and strengthens. Perhaps her rage and her grief, and the intensity of hormonal shifts cook her as she journeys from Mother toward Crone.
If only she could get a chance to work through those fantasies of killing the innocent maiden so that she herself could maintain her status as the most beautiful in all the kingdoms, she would become the Wise Woman, and claim her seat on the throne of the Crone.
I think many women in our culture go through a grieving period when they’re no longer casted in the role of the “hottie.” And I think many women are grappling with it in different ways. For some it’s easy to say a big Fuck You to the patriarchy and to cultivate an inner strength through the whole process. For others it’s really hard and painful. There’s jealousy and rage, depression and anguish. Some are consciously weaving together a new self through the loss of the old, while others are struggling with an identity formed for them by the overculture.
When the overculture turns someone into a monster, and hormones storm through them, and they have no tools, no support, no guidance, no circles of elders to take them through the threshold, and they go through major psychological and physical changes, and they are angry – possibly for some good reasons – they could easily fit into the mold created for them, and become a raging monster.
If we don’t integrate our shadow, it does haunt us, and we unconsciously become the very embodiment of what’s lurking in the dark alleys of our unconscious.
Autumn is the season of the shadow, and in the unsettling eerie energy of growing darkness, and the need for shelter, we can cultivate the warm glow of cohesion as we bring more of our parts – particularly the fragmented ones that we tend to push away – together.
The old woman is a trickster; an archetype of disruption, dissolution, and disarray. Fall brings with it an energy of falling apart. It unfolds as scattering and dispersing. It makes a mess, so that we can reorganize. Seed pods fly in many directions so that new life can be created in time.
The process of aging is one that reformulates a person, reshapes their environment, and revolutionizes who they are in the world.
The aging woman is portrayed as a witch and a monster because the transformative process she undergoes is so ferocious, that it brings her deeper into her power, and she becomes a threat to the status quo.
Fall drops us down into the underworld. It’s a journey, not a sudden shift. It initiates a process of reclamation – the reclamation of the monstrous.
We move into the shadows. To beat the metaphor of the aging woman to death; she becomes less seen by society. And there, in the shadows, she can reframe the ways in which she’s internalized misogyny. If she can integrate the monstrous, she will become the Wise One. She will become Hekate, who helps the maiden, Persephone, find her way in the underworld, and helps her mother, Demeter, find her daughter.
As the season shifts from Sexy Summer to Fierce Fall, we can explore characters from stories that have suffered an unjust treatment by the patriarchy.
Characters like Greek Medusa, who was raped, and then blamed by Athene for unsanctifying her temple. Athene curses the maiden to become a gorgon; a monster with snakes (symbols of goddess empowerment) uncoiling and hissing out of her head. Anyone she casts her gaze over turns to stone.
Characters such as the Babayaga, who is a Slavic witch flying in a wooden mortar through the woods, living in a house with chicken legs, surrounded by lanterns made of human skulls. She is dangerous, demonic, but could be helpful if she finds you worthy of her support.
Creatures such as the Greek Harpies; hungry spirits, with bodies of birds and faces of women, who steal food from people to leave them starved. Autumn prepares us for a season of hunger. The monstrosity of the kind of hunger that cannot be satisfied is one we can see clearly in big corporations within a capitalistic society. But can we see it in ourselves? Can we recognize where we might be leaving others, or some parts of ourselves, to starve? Where do we snatch nourishment?
Seeing our own shadow is the invitation of Fall. Looking into what is hard for us to see. Being honest about what’s difficult to admit. Turning toward the imperfection so that we can own who we are more fully. Reclaiming the monstrous so that it doesn’t control us. Integrating the pieces we tend to send into exile. It will peak in the middle of the season, when Samhain brings with it death and the dance of decay, but it begins now, in the threshold of the season, in the portal of Autumn – not yet the Crone, but in transition, not yet the Wise Old Woman, but on the journey to the underworld.
If this wakes you up and stirs something in you, join me for the Autumn Equinox Somatic Ceremony. We will dive deeply into the mythopoetic exploration of seasonal themes, and bring them into the body through asana, pranayama, mantra, mudra, meditation, and kriya.
If you ever feel the need to get in touch with aspects of you that tend to reject, this Somatic Ceremony is a powerful journey, steeped in magic, reflective, contemplative practices, and tools to support your process of integrating and innovating.
This is not a Pagan ritual, and it isn’t exactly a series of yoga classes, but it (respectfully) weaves elements from different traditions, to create a space for deep inner work, that inspires work in the world.
Take your time with the process. You will have unlimited access to the material, and you can keep returning to it throughout the season, as well as revisit it every year.
The Crone will be more present in the next Somatic Ceremony, when we celebrate Samhain, so if she calls you, keep your eyes open for that. In this Somatic Ceremony, as we move through the portal of Autumn, we will explore Medusa and a bit of her origin (she’s more ancient than Ancient Greece), we will dance with Demeter and Persephone, and we will tell the story of Celtic deity, Mabon (Mabon is also the Pagan name of the Fall Equinox), and play with a wide range of symbols and metaphors to inspire profound connection with many aspects of who we are, and what the world around us holds.
If you have any questions, please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.
All the details are here. I’m excited for you to join this world of myth and magic, embodied rituals, powerful practices, and a sacred space to stir the soup of life into a brew of meaning and enchantment.
Much love,
Hagar