The Autumn Equinox: How to Mark Mabon and Notice the Changing Season

The Autumn Equinox: How to Mark Mabon and Notice the Changing Season

The autumn equinox arrives at a point when the season is becoming difficult to ignore. The evenings are drawing in, the hedgerows are heavy with fruit, spiders’ webs show clearly in the morning dew and the first leaves are beginning to change colour.

In 2026, the autumn equinox in the UK falls on Wednesday 23 September at 1.06am BST, according to the Royal Observatory Greenwich. It is the astronomical beginning of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, although meteorological autumn began on 1 September and the natural season rarely changes according to a single date.

Around the equinox, the Sun illuminates the northern and southern hemispheres almost equally. We often describe it as a day of equal light and darkness, although this is not quite exact. In London, for example, the Sun will rise at 6.48am and set at 6.56pm on 23 September 2026, giving just over twelve hours of daylight.

For some people, this period is also known as Mabon. It is commonly marked between 21 and 24 September, depending upon the year, personal practice and the precise date of the equinox.

Is Mabon an ancient festival?

Mabon is part of the modern Pagan Wheel of the Year, but the name was not historically used for an ancient autumn equinox festival.

The name came into modern Pagan use through the work of Aidan Kelly, who was developing a calendar of Pagan festival names in the early 1970s. Kelly chose Mabon after Mabon ap Modron, a figure from medieval Welsh literature. Mabon ap Modron belongs to an old body of Welsh story, but there is no firm historical evidence that people in ancient Britain celebrated an autumn equinox festival bearing his name.

This does not make the modern observance meaningless. Customs are not fixed objects passed down unchanged from an unknowable past. New traditions grow around older stories, familiar seasonal changes and the needs of the people practising them.

It is simply useful to distinguish between the history of the equinox, the old harvest customs found across Britain and the modern Pagan festival now called Mabon.

Historian Ronald Hutton has written extensively about the development of modern Pagan festivals and the tendency to present comparatively recent practices as unbroken survivals from the ancient world. The history is more complicated, but also more interesting. Mabon is a modern way of marking a genuine point in the astronomical and natural year.

The equinox and the British harvest

The equinox falls within the wider harvest season, but Britain did not have one single ancient harvest festival observed in the same way everywhere.

The timing of harvest depended upon the crop, the weather and the part of the country. Lammas, traditionally observed on 1 August, was associated with the first grain and the baking of a loaf from the new wheat. Harvest Home customs marked the completion of the harvest later in the season. Michaelmas, on 29 September, became another important date in the agricultural calendar, associated with rents, hiring, the settling of accounts and the beginning of a new farming year.

The familiar church harvest festival developed much later. The Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker held a harvest thanksgiving service at Morwenstow in Cornwall in 1843, helping to establish the form of Harvest Festival that became widespread in British churches.

Rather than searching for one lost equinox ceremony, we can look at this whole collection of seasonal customs. They tell us that early autumn was a practical and significant part of the year. Crops had to be gathered, food preserved, animals prepared for the coming cold and stores assessed before winter.

What is happening in nature at the autumn equinox?

The date of the equinox is fixed by the movement of the Earth, but autumn in the landscape arrives gradually.

Blackberries, elderberries, rowan berries, crab apples and rosehips colour the hedgerows. Hazelnuts begin to fall, although squirrels may reach them first. In damp woodland, fungi appear among the leaf litter and on decaying wood. Swallows and house martins gather before migration, while redwings and fieldfares will soon begin arriving from colder parts of Europe.

Ivy comes into flower at a time when relatively few other nectar sources remain. On a warm day its small greenish flowers can be crowded with bees, hoverflies, wasps and late butterflies. Spiders become particularly noticeable as their webs catch mist and dew.

The leaves may only just have begun to turn. Shorter days and cooler temperatures reduce the production of chlorophyll, allowing the yellow and red pigments in deciduous leaves to become visible. The timing varies considerably according to the tree, location and weather.

These are all useful things to record because they connect the broad idea of autumn with what is actually happening where you live.

Five simple ways to mark Mabon and the autumn equinox

There is no need to reproduce a ceremony from a book or buy a collection of special objects. The most useful starting point is to go outside, pay attention and respond to the season as you find it.

1. Take an equinox walk

Choose a familiar route and walk it without hurrying. A place you know well is often better than somewhere spectacular because you are more likely to notice what has changed.

Look for:

  • The first leaves changing colour

  • Ripe fruits, nuts and seeds

  • Ivy flowers and the insects feeding upon them

  • Spiders’ webs

  • Migrating or newly arriving birds

  • Fungi appearing after rain

  • Changes in the quality and direction of the light

Only gather wild food when you are completely certain of its identification, have permission to collect it and know that the area has not been sprayed or contaminated. Take a modest amount and leave plenty for wildlife.

2. Make an autumn nature-journal page

Record the sunrise and sunset times for your area, along with the weather and temperature. Note three things that have changed since your last walk.

You could add a fallen leaf, sketch a seed head, make a colour palette from the landscape or write down the birds and insects you saw. It does not need to be beautifully illustrated. A useful nature journal is one that helps you remember what happened and compare one year with another.

If you would like a simple place to keep these observations, the Hedgerow & Moor Nature Journal is an A5 blank notebook made for field notes, botanical sketches and records of the changing season.

Recording first leaf colour, ripe fruits, migrating birds and other seasonal events can also contribute to our understanding of a changing climate. The Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar has records reaching back to 1736 and welcomes observations from across the UK.

3. Prepare a seasonal meal

The autumn equinox sits within a season of apples, blackberries, hazelnuts, squash, roots and the last of the summer herbs. A meal made from what is plentiful locally is one of the most direct ways to acknowledge the time of year.

You might make baked apples filled with blackberries and nuts, an einkorn hedgerow crumble, a round loaf to break and share, or a simple supper of roasted vegetables followed by an apple pudding.

The Hedgerow Kitchen contains seasonal recipes drawn from the Almanac, including ways to use familiar fruits from the garden and hedgerow.

There is no need for the meal to be elaborate. The important part is noticing why those particular ingredients belong to this moment.

4. Gather a small seasonal table

Bring together a few things that represent the landscape around you: fallen leaves, empty seed heads, acorns, feathers or windfall apples. Avoid picking living plants unnecessarily, and do not remove fungi.

You could include a candle for the shortening days and a bowl, basket or cloth that you already own. This can become a temporary place for the things you find during September rather than a formal altar.

At the end of the season, return natural materials outside where it is safe and appropriate to do so.

5. Give thanks and make room for the rest of the year

Harvest customs were concerned with what had been gathered and what would sustain people through the months ahead. A modern version can be very simple.

Write down a few good things that have happened during the year so far, including ordinary things that might otherwise be forgotten. Then consider what you no longer need to carry into the final months of the year.

If you have a safe, properly maintained fireplace or wood-burning stove, you might burn a small dried herb bundle or a slip of paper as part of this reflection. Only use known, non-toxic plant material in very small quantities. Never burn herbs indoors without suitable ventilation, never leave a fire unattended and do not burn plants around children, pets or anyone with asthma or respiratory sensitivities.

You can also tear the paper into pieces, compost it or place it beneath the soil. Fire is not necessary.

The purpose is not to perform something perfectly. It is to stop for long enough to recognise what has passed and decide where you would like to place your attention during the rest of the year.

Marking the season in your own way

You do not have to call the autumn equinox Mabon in order to notice it, and you do not need to follow a Pagan practice to find value in the date.

The equinox gives us a useful point at which to pause and look properly at the season. The exact moment passes in an instant, but the changes surrounding it unfold over many weeks.

Watch where the first leaves turn. Notice when the swallows disappear from the wires. Look at what is ripening in the hedgerow and which insects are still visiting the ivy. Record the time of sunset and return to it a week later.

The real world is still here, waiting to be noticed.

Continue noticing the turning year

The Hedgerrow & Moor Monthly Almanac follows these changes throughout the year, bringing together British wildlife, plant lore, folklore, seasonal customs and original illustration in a new box each month.

Each edition considers what is happening in the landscape at that particular point in the year, from plants flowering and fruit ripening to wildlife movements and the old dates once used to organise rural life.

You can also browse the complete Almanac collection, including individual editions, printed zines and gift subscriptions.

Sources and further reading