1852 Vuillemin Astronomical and Cosmographical Chart
The autumnal equinox is that moment in space-time when the sun's most direct rays are shining right on the Earth’s equator, equally distant from the North and South poles.
The September equinox marks the beginning of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
Equinox Celebrations
Pagan celebrations of the autumnal equinox have been referred to as Alban Elved, Harvest Home, Mabon, Night of the Hunter and Witch’s Thanksgiving.
Mabon is observed by some Wiccans as a thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth.
It is one of eight seasonal celebratory days in which Pagans and Wiccans celebrate on the wheel of the year.
According to Wiccan and Pagan spirituality, this is the time when the sun God prepares to depart and develop once again in the mother's womb.
Harvest Home is celebrated in England much as Thanksgiving is observed in the U.S. and Canada. Celebrations include singing hymns, praying and decorating churches with baskets of fruit and food.
Celestial Equator
If the plane of the earth's equator were projected out into space, the celestial equator would be evident. Instead, it is an imaginary circle in space located halfway between the north and south poles.
Precession of the Equinoxes
The equinoxes are not fixed points on the celestial sphere but move westward along the ecliptic, passing through all the constellations of the zodiac in approximately 26,000 years. This motion is called the precession of the equinoxes.
Walter Cruttenden, an amateur "archaeo-astronomer" and author, argues that myths and stories of repeating cycles of Golden Ages and Dark Ages are caused by this precession and its "stellar forces" affecting the Earth and its inhabitants .
"When we finally reassemble our past with the realization that we are part of a greater system with a precession cycle just as real in terms of light and dark phases as the day and the year -- then we can begin to understand our place in the Great Year and its seasons," he writes in Lost Star of Myth And Time. "From this we might find that history is no longer a menagerie of disconnected and often anomalous facts."