A few years ago I stumbled upon a sweatshirt for sale with the words “Fall is my Whole Personality” featured in the graphic on the front of the shirt. Fall is not my identity, but like a lot of other Witches and Pagans who love this time of year I get over anxious for it, and I’m not shy about sharing that excitement. It doesn’t help that my garden sprouted early this year, and the once thriving pumpkin patch in my backyard is little more than dead vines right now. (This to me looks like autumn.)
While grocery shopping last week I accidentally picked up a box of “Pumpkin Spice Frosted Mini-Wheats.” I had meant to grab the chocolatey ones, but the two boxes were similar in appearance and I grabbed the wrong one. I’m one of those people who likes pumpkin spice though, so no problem. Finding the whole situation amusing I posted a picture of my mini-wheats with the tag line “And so it begins.” Most of my friends got a good laugh out of it, but I had a few people react quite negatively.
No one was upset with my choice of breakfast cereal, but there were a few “too early” comments and a message about margaritas and how “it’s still summer.” I’ve seen similar comments in other places, as if my enjoyment of pumpkin spice forces others to consume it too. Perhaps my least favorite type of post in these situations is the annual “it’s still Summer until September 22,” which is one way of looking at things, but certainly not the only way of looking at things.
We associate certain memories and activities with particular seasons. Though school starts earlier and earlier in the United States, “Fall” has long been looked at as the start of a new school year. College football kicked off last weekend, a sport that has long been considered a “Fall” activity. The change of seasons isn’t just a physical thing, it’s also a cultural one. There is a shift in priorities every late August and early September, shiftings that I can’t help but think herald a new season. Seasons are about more than the temperature outside or the amount of light in a given day, seasons are also repositories of lore and tradition.
And despite what some people think, seasons are a rather arbitrary thing, and their start and end dates can vary depending on the circumstance. Tradition holds that the Irish-Celts began and ended their seasons at the Greater Sabbats of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnassa. According to that metric Fall began several weeks ago near August 1.
In the United States the holidays Memorial Day and Labor Day have long been looked at as the start and end of Summer. Both holidays have other associations of course (a holiday is capable of being more than one thing!) but when people think of Memorial Day and Labor Day in the United States they mostly think about picnics and barbecues. The pool I used to go to as a kid in Tennessee opened and closed over each of those weekends because those weekends were the start and end of a season.
When thinking about the Wheel of the Year most Americans probably use the Meteorological seasons when they label a month as part of a particular season. Meteorological seasons divide the year evenly up into four three months periods. In the case of Fall, Meteorological Fall includes September, October, and November. This lines up with how most people think of those months. Go visit a big-box retailer right now and you’ll see either “back to school” merchandise or Halloween stuff (and probably both). Both “back to school” and Halloween are associated with Fall. At my local grocery store yesterday all “Summer items” were 75% off, because the seasons they are a changing. (I got two very nice garden gnomes out of that sale for just $3.75 each.)
Of course when arguing about when the seasons start and end someone will always counter with “the Autumn Equinox is September 22” this year. That’s true, and certainly equinoxes and solstices are astronomical things that happen. But astronomical alignments only mean something because we assign meaning to them. The universe didn’t attach the words “Summer” and “Winter” onto the solstices, we did that as human beings. And certainly not every ancient culture (who would have been well aware of equinoxes and solstices) celebrated those mile-markers as the start and end of certain seasons.
And of course if you want to bask in Summer near the end of September, go right ahead and do so! No one drinking pumpkin spice lattes is stopping others from drinking margaritas or pina coladas. Seriously, I have never understood getting bent out of shape because someone’s calendar is a little different than mine. If you want to decorate for Halloween right now go right ahead, Mickey Mouse already has. I haven’t quite gone that far, but Demeter is back holding court on our fireplace mantle and our living room altars awash in fall leaves, pumpkins, and sunflowers.
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