A friend sent me this press release from Juliet Batten, the author of the (really good) book Celebrating the Southern Seasons: Rituals for Aotearoa…

Autumn is with us: the season to turn inward as the weather cools, plants withdraw their energy and the light turns towards the dark.
Light a thousand candles for Halloween on April 30 and restore the true festival of Last Light

Did you know that
Halloween is a festival of the dead?
That Halloween is an autumn festival?
That in NZ we are celebrating it at the wrong time of year — in Spring?

Juliet Batten, author of Celebrating the Southern Seasons: Rituals for Aotearoa (Random House, 2005) is asking us to restore the true meaning of Halloween. ‘Let’s light at least a thousand candles between us, and use this night to remember those who have died,’ she says. Halloween developed out of the Celtic festival of Samhain, held in late autumn (October 31 in the northern hemisphere; April 30 in the southern hemisphere).

‘By lighting a candle inside a hollowed out pumpkin, and placing it on our doorstep on April 30, we honour our loved ones who have passed over,’ says Juliet Batten. ‘We also mark the passing of light as we enter the darkest months of the year. Let us realign this festival to the point in the seasonal calendar where it belongs. In this way we honour our old traditions and also the land in which we live.’

Last Wednesday evening I celebrated the Autuimn Equinox, it was lovely, friends and family turned up and we enjoyed some seasonal foods, and had a few drinks. It was great to catch up with people again and it was good to think about the changing of seasons and reflect on what ancestors may have said or done at such a time.

Traditionally, at this time of the year food would have been harvested and people would be enjoying good food and taking some rest after the hard work over the summer period. This was also a time to begin preparing to move into the dark time of the year and is a time for reflection and an inner focus.

Equinox timetables
Stonehenge Aotearoa

Whatever you do, don’t miss the fabulous Lantern Festival. Closing tomorrow evening with, as usual, fireworks brought to you by Wah Lee.

Happy year of the Fire Pig! Not too sure what this means for a Fire 火 Snake 蛇 like me.

Here are some images from last year’s festival

In the Southern hemisphere, Winter Solstice or the longest night of the year falls between June 20 - 23. To celebrate this event, we held a Solstice dinner party and enjoyed some delicious seasonal foods, rice and other grainy salads, warm wintery soups and of course mulled wine.

We kept some of the traditional Winter Solstice themes, evergreens, candles, red and other warm coloured decorations, roast veges, and nuts. Winter Solstice celebrations and traditions were adapted for Christmas, in an effort to ease the transition from paganism to Christianity - and secure more converts of course (during the reign of Emperor Constantine I).

In many cultures the Winter Solstice signals a turning from the darkness of winter into the productive seasons of spring and summer, it is often a big celebration as people gather to welcome new growth and productivity. It is a time to reflect on what you might be cultivating inside and draw on inner strengths, as well as plant new crops and enjoy foods that were preserved using traditional methods such as sun-dried tomatoes and nuts. Here in New Zealand it also kicks of Matariki (Moari new year) celebrations as the Matariki or Pleiades constellation rises in the morning sky.

Read more about Winter Solstice and other celebrations in the book: Celebrating the Southern Seasons by Juliet Batten, it’s perfect if you are interested in alternatives to contemporary celebrations so popular today.