Harvest Moon - September 28, 2023
The summer heat might be hanging on, but it's time to get excited for autumn shenanigans all the same. Grab your canning supplies and your favorite cider mug - it's time for the Harvest Moon!
Harvest Moon
The Harvest Moon is the name given to the full moon which occurs closest to the autumnal equinox. It does not matter whether the moon occurs before or after the equinox or in which month it falls. In some years, this means the Harvest Moon may occur in October, in which cause the September moon might go by the name of Corn Moon or Rice Moon, depending on where you are.
In 2023, the Harvest Moon falls once more in the month of September. The same will happen in 2024, when the Harvest Moon will also be a supermoon! However, in 2025, the September moon will come early in the month, making it a Corn Moon. The Harvest Moon that year will be in early October.
The September moon is particularly beloved by farmers in the Northern Hemisphere, as it rises earlier and shines brighter than other full moons due to the relative angle of the Earth in relation to the moon during the equinox, which is helpful for lighting up the tail end of those long work days. In addition, the Harvest Moon may also appear full for multiple nights, providing additional illumination for labor or evening strolls. As such, while the peak of the Harvest Moon will occur in the wee hours of September 29th, it will appear to be full on both the 28th and 29th.
Other North American Indigenous names for the September moon include a number of variations of the aforementioned Corn Moon (used by numerous nations), such as Corn Maker Moon (Abenaki), Corn Harvest Moon (Dakota), and Corn Is Harvested Moon (Zuni). Other names refer to seasonal changes or animal behavior, such as Autumn Moon (Cree), Falling Leaves Moon (Ojibwe), Leaves Turning Moon (Anishinaabe), and Rutting Moon (Cree). Some European and modern pagan names for the September moon include Barley Moon (Old English), Singing Moon (Celtic), and Fruit Moon (general).
It's also worth noting that our Jewish friends and neighbors will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah this month, so remember to share your apples and honey and wish them Shanah Tovah (Happy New Year)!
What Does It Mean For Witches?
As autumn begins, we continue to reap what we've sown over the course of the year. It's a time to pause and reflect on what we've accomplished, let go of any unnecessary burdens we're still carrying, and focus on taking care of hearth and home for the cold months ahead. Now is a good time to do one last clutter purge or finish those repairs you've been putting off all summer!
Change is in the air as well, and transformations begun earlier in the year will burst into vibrant life. Just as the flowers bloom in spring, the leaves turn in the fall, and those of us who come alive in the autumn will start to fell that zing coming back.
Community also comes back into focus during harvest time, both because of the sharing of resources and the accompanying start of the school year. Take a moment to reinforce positive and supportive connections with friends and neighbors, or reach out to your local or online circle to strengthen existing bonds.
This a time of great abundance, so if you've been meaning to draw any kind of increase into your life, take steps to do so now. Harness that Harvest Moon energy to help carry you through the lean times in comfort and plenty.
What Witchy Things Can We Do?
This is the time for feasting, bonfires, and outdoor gatherings. September and October will give us a few more warm weeks before the weather turns cold and rainy, so make the most of it! Have a potluck supper with a menu made of everyone's favorite seasonal recipes. Visit a local farmer's market and bring home that fresh seasonal produce. Thank the earth for the bounty it provides and renew your promise to be a good steward of the land where you live.
Technically, this is the second "harvest" moon of the year, since the harvest of most seasonal crops began back in August with wheat and corn and late summer fruits. The harvest of corn and grain continues into September and is joined by additional late-season fruits and vegetables, the most iconic of which is the annual apple crop.
Apple-picking is easily my favorite autumn activity and it's fantastic way to get outdoors, get some fresh air, and come home with tasty produce for uses both mundane and magical. From cider to applesauce to pies, apples are delightfully versatile. They also feature in a number of folk traditions and party games which double as divination rituals.
Continue your preparations for winter by canning or preserving fresh foods, hanging harvested herbs and flowers to dry, or refreshing your stocks of moon water and magical oils. Make your own magical brews using a stock pot as a cauldron and soups, stews, punch, cider, and mulled wine as your potions. Kitchen witches, your time is NOW!
Wear the colors of the season boldly and revel in all the gifts you've received and joys you've experienced so far this year. If you've been particularly blessed, pay it forward to share the bounty with others. Reflect on everything you've accomplished, celebrate your progress, and maybe set one or two small goals for the end of the year.
And since the decorations are already appearing in stores, start stocking up for Halloween!
Happy Harvest Moon, witches! 😊🍎
Further Reading:
Additional Lunar Calendar posts
Secular Celebrations - Autumn Equinox
Harvest Moon, The Old Farmer's Almanac.
What Is The Harvest Moon?, The Old Farmer's Almanac.
Harvest Moon 2023: The Spiritual Meaning of September's Full Moon, The Peculiar Brunette.
Full Moon 2025 Calendar, Full Moonology.
Rosh Hashanah, Wikipedia.
Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison, Llewellyn Publications, 2004.
(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)
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By Allison Pearson
23 March 2024
OH, NO. No. A sense that something was not right, that our wonderful Princess was perhaps in more trouble than we’d been told, was confirmed at 6pm on Friday with an unprecedented TV address that dealt a blow to the nation’s solar plexus.
Some will simply have been stunned by the news, hardly able to comprehend it (what, cancer twice in the Royal family within two months? But she’s so young).
Others will have been in tears, as I was, watching our Princess of Wales, parchment-pale, clearly fragile yet valiantly composing herself to record a message in that crystal-clear voice, reassuring us that, although it had been “an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family,” she would be OK, given enough time, space and privacy.
One friend who heard it on the car radio pulled over to the side of the road and sobbed. “I am just so upset,” she texted.
Another confessed she was relieved that the Waleses hadn’t separated – one of the wilder rumours that had been flying around since the Princess of Wales was pictured in that photoshopped, too-smiley Mother’s Day picture without her wedding rings.
“For the backbone of Britain, we need those two to be together and happily married,” said my friend. So true.
William ’n’ Kate, Kate ’n’ William, a couple for almost the whole of their adult lives, one unimaginable without the other.
Our monarchy is assured as long as there is them (the Waleses will celebrate their thirteenth wedding anniversary on 29th April, six days after little Louis turns six).
Suddenly, with this announcement, we are reminded that they are only human too, vulnerable at times, and Britain is badly shaken.
As she finished her statement, the ramifications started to sink in. Prince William has to deal with a father and a wife with cancer at the same time.
There are haunting echoes of Diana, too, another beloved princess whose personal challenges played out so publicly.
Poor William must feel like there are snipers in the garden taking aim at his family.
You could tell the children were uppermost in her mind, just as they are for any parent who is told they have cancer.
George, Charlotte and Louis, she spoke their names aloud, her darlings. You know, I think they were the real reason she steeled herself to do it.
To sit there on that wooden bench with spring bursting out behind her. Daffodils on a grassy bank, trees in blossom – a cruelly lovely backdrop for such sad tidings.
How simply dressed she was in a matelot jumper and jeans, stripped of finery and clothed, instead, in a becoming humility, her beauty thrown into sharp relief by the strain on her face.
A 42-year-old who is uniquely privileged yet now confronts every woman’s frightening brush with mortality.
Her statement was carefully timed to coincide with the start of the school Easter holidays so the children could be safe at home and wouldn’t have to endure whispers in class about Mummy’s illness.
(Sparing them the agonies of embarrassment young William and Harry suffered at boarding school when Charles and Diana were getting divorced.)
It’s not easy to protect your children when their grandfather is the King and their father his heir.
The Prince and Princess of Wales have always been concerned to make things as normal, as Middleton, as possible, for their young family; this is their toughest test yet.
Was there more than a hint of rebuke in the Princess’s carefully measured words for a media that really has shown neither patience nor “understanding” since she disappeared from public view to have abdominal surgery?
She could be forgiven for being furious. (Believe me, many of us are furious on her behalf.)
“William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family,” she said pointedly.
“As you can imagine, this has taken time. It has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment.
But, most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK.”
“Back off,” she was saying in the politest possible way, “leave me and my kids alone.”
Of course, she needed time to come to terms with the shattering blow of having a life-threatening illness and three children under 10. Every mother’s nightmare.
But time is one thing the vultures and conspiracy theorists were not prepared to give her.
In the vacuum Kensington Palace foolishly allowed to develop, the vilest rumours flourished.
Had she undergone cosmetic surgery? Wasn’t she just slacking? Why wasn’t William taking up more duties to relieve his sick father?
Had Catherine left William? Was it a lookalike pictured with William at a Windsor farm shop?
The gossip went global, causing universal hysteria.
Imagine feeling as sick and scared as the Princess must have done, yet being under pressure to show yourself in order to disprove the lies and appease the baying online mob. It’s barbaric.
I hope those who made such disgusting comments are burning with shame today now that we know the reason she hid away.
It wasn’t only ghouls with a conscience bypass who were trying to fill the gaps in the story.
Theories also came from people who adore the Royal family and were deeply worried for the absent Princess. We love and respect her so much.
Incredibly, in a poll earlier this month, the recuperating Princess still managed to emerge as the most popular royal, narrowly ahead of her husband.
Despite the slurry of accusations – not least the appalling claim in an early draft of a book by Omid Scobie (media snitch), that she was one of the two alleged “royal racists” who speculated on the baby’s likely skin colour – their figures are broadly unchanged since a previous poll in 2023.
Never Put a Foot Wrong is said so often it’s practically the definition of her.
Turns out there may be stresses and strains to appearing always in control, to aiming for perfection, that can eat away at a sensitive person not born to be royal.
Catherine says her job brings her joy; it must also have caused worry (such remorseless spotlight scrutiny).
We should reflect on that, I think. On what it’s reasonable to expect from one human being who expects so much of herself.
How the Princess came to win such a large place in British people’s hearts is better than any fairy tale.
Bullied at school, the quiet, sporty brunette was famous for her record-breaking high jump and tenacious character.
She had blossomed by the time she met William in their first term at St Andrew’s.
At 29, when they finally exchanged vows in Westminster Abbey, she was the first royal bride to have a university degree; the first to have lived with her husband before marriage; the first to be raised in a house that had a street number instead of a fancy name and a moat with swans.
As second in line to the throne, William was expected to pick his princess from a select group of well-bred young fillies.
Hot favourites included Davina Duckworth-Chad and one Isabella Amaryllis Charlotte Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe.
Enough hyphens to make plain Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire, feel a little inadequate, you might think.
Except that, when a friend at university told Catherine how lucky she was to be going out with Prince William, a smiling Catherine replied: “He’s lucky to have me.”
The years have proved her right, haven’t they?
The death of Diana left William a damaged, stubborn and angry young man, acutely aware he was a prisoner of fate and railing at the media who pursued his mother.
Catherine has calmed him, rebuilding trust while providing the regular family life he had never known.
She has grown brilliantly into the role and the Waleses are a formidable team, lighting up any event they enter.
Now, it is his turn to soothe and calm her, although he must be deeply worried.
“Having William by my side is a great source of comfort and reassurance too, as is the love, support and kindness that has been shown by so many of you. It means so much to us both,” she said.
The King was right to salute his daughter-in-law for her courage. Imagine what it takes to first tell your small children you have cancer and then tell the whole world.
She did it so naturally, so sweetly, with such great empathy for others with that cruel disease that no one could possibly guess what it cost her. But it cost her.
She has told George, Charlotte and Louis that Mummy is well, and getting better, but the only way she will make a full recovery is if she’s left alone as she completes her treatment.
Will the vultures listen? Will they give her the time she needs or go back pecking for more?
Millions of us are praying for the return to health of our wonderful Princess of Wales. She has all our support and love.
A Britain without her is unthinkable, unbearable. Take your time, Princess, take your time.
💙🌹💙
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The Master Post from Serizawa Week 2024
I had lots of fun participating! Mine are little snapshots from the week, linking one day to the next.
If you would like more story read below.
Thanks @ygodmyy20 & @acermp100 for letting me bound ideas off you the whole week. Also, @yu-artist for sharing the Seriweek prompts!
Monday, March 25th - Friends
Serizawa made going back to school look so fun Minegishi decided to join. Sometimes Dimple/Yoshioka likes to stop by and say hello. Today he was a distraction to Serizawa, so he had trouble paying attention and listening to the homework assignment.
Tuesday, March 26th - School
Poor Serizawa, having to stay up late to finish an assignment. At least he's not alone. The cat's name is Gizmo! Thanks @acermp100 for the cat name suggestion. @secretagent9 I really love the idea of a Gundam name, but not being a fan I didn't know what to choose.
Wednesday, March 27th - Outfit
Reigen and Serizawa were hired to exorcise mischievous spirits that kept harassing the maids at a cafe. Serizawa was very tired from yesterday's school assignment and not on his A-game today.
Reigen volunteered to lure out the ghost by wearing a maid's outfit, but maybe he just wanted to wear it. Serizawa is wearing his cute butler outfit! The maids were very excited to dress him up, not so much Reigen
Reigen: Those brats! Wont even help me tie my apron. Grumble. *struggles to reach behind*
Serizawa: Here, let me. *zips up and hooks Reigen's dress and ties the apron*
Reigen: *many hand gestures* Competition, that's what is is Serizawa! I'm competition because of how good I look.
Serizawa: *chuckles* You do look good sir. Very pretty, very cute.
Reigen: R-really? *blush* I-I er, I mean of course! Now! Let's get to work!
Poor Reigen, he got ice water dumped on him several times that day. He wasn't feel great before the exorcism, but was wiped out by the end the assignment.
Thursday, March 28th - Food
Mrs. Serizawa is teaching Kastuya how to cook, so he can stop living off instant noodles. Today is a hearty beef & leak stew!
Mrs. Serizawa: Remember, the leaks need to be thoroughly washed.
Kastuya: Nods, Nods!
Mrs. Serizawa: Also, the more passion and enjoyment you put into your cooking will reflect in the final dish. So, relax and take it slow and your love will shine through.
Serizawa is learning how to make tonjiru soup. He wants to make it for someone "special" this week.
Friday, March 29th - Spring
Dimple: I don't get it. If you're worried about Reigen go check up on him.
Serizawa: I don't want to intrude on his privacy.
Dimple: Ugh, you two are impossible.
It was an unusual day. Reigen didn't show up for work and Serizawa just got a message from him saying "I n68 sick".
Saturday, March 30th - Comfort/Bravery
Serizawa: Reigen, please eat a little more.
Reigen: No, I feel so sick.
Serizawa: But you've not eaten since Thursday. Here, let me get you just some broth.
Reigen: Kastuya...
Serizawa: Y-Yes?
Reigen: I.... I... Bucket. I need the bucket.
Reigen proceeded to dry heave into the bucket while saliva and tears fell in. Serizawa rubbed his back while he continued to convulse for several minutes.
Sunday, March 31st - Birthday
Serizawa went over to check on Reigen, who surprised him by throwing a little birthday celebration. It was just the two of them, but Reigen originally had planned something bigger. Luckily, the present, a multiplayer game, arrived on time, so they could play together.
Reigen was still sick, and drugged up, and making bad decisions. But Serizawa didn't mind. A love confession from Reigen made this the best birthday.
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