It’s Autumn – we’re thinking cosy, we’re thinking orange and rust hues, we’re thinking crisp morning and crunchy leaves. I do love this season and the very important place it holds as a transitional space between Summer and Winter. Here are some activities you can do that get you in the autumn mood and that also have connections to ancient celebrations and rituals.
Harvest Festival and Hayride
This may be something you can do early in the season, just after the summers crop. Harvest celebrations stretch back millennia, where communities would gather and give thanks for the gathered crops that would see them through the cold months. Modern hayrides and harvest fairs carry echoes of those communal gatherings, blending festivity with gratitude, and can be a lovely way to connect to older traditions and mark the turn of the season.
Fruit Gathering and Foraging
Autumn is nature’s great harvest – hedgerows heavy with berries, apple trees dropping their fruit and the ground scattered with nuts and seeds. Foraging is one of the oldest seasonal activities, once essential for survival and now a way to reconnect with the land and notice the subtle changes in the season. Take a foraging walk and see what you can find that shows you autumn is here – leaves, chestnuts, acorns, seeds.
Seasonal Baking
Using seasonal fruits and vegetables in baking ties us into centuries of tradition, when communities would preserve and bake with whatever was fresh from the harvest. Think spiced apple cakes, pumpkin pies, or roasted squash risotto. If you have foraged some apples, berries or mushrooms this season, incorporating them into your baking can really rewarding and connecting to the land. I love making my apple crumble with foraged apples and picked blackberries as soon as the months turn.
Feasting
Why not tie in your seasonal baking with a “feast” with friends? Before electricity and entertainment on demand, people gathered by firelight to share food and stories at this time of year. Feasts bring warmth and connection and in the dark months having something cosy and social in the upcoming calendar can be really nourishing for the soul.
Celebrate The Autumn Equinox
The Equinox marks the balance point of the year — equal day and night. As the equinox is a balance of equal light and dark, fire and light are central themes of how ancient communities marked this day. See my post on celebrating the Autumn Equinox here
Autumnal Paint and Sip
The colours of autumn are so beautiful, and painting them with friends and a glass in hand is a lovely way to spend an evening. There are Paint and Sip classes such as Pinot & Picasso or The Paint Club you can join in on, or you could host your own like myself – stick on an autumnal Bob Ross Art Of Painting episode on Youtube, grab some mini canvasses and paint along with my friends.
Scenic Leafy Walks or Drives
Autumn offers trees ablaze with colour, golden light and mist curling through the fields. I know it sounds obvious but taking time to walk through a spot where you can really appreciate the changing seasons with a warm cup of something can really help you appreciate the beauty of the time of year.
Cosy Pub Roasts
Need I say more? This is the PERFECT season for it, warm cosy pub, log fires, smashing roast dinners… As the weather gets darker and wetter this is a fantastic way to spend a Sunday.
Bonfire Night and Fireworks
Celebrations of fire are big at the time of year, as they have been for centuries. Sitting by a warming bonfire as the nights drew in helped ward off darkness and encourage community by gathering together. A great way to connect with this is to visit a bonfire and fireworks display, of which there tends to be plenty! And as you watch the fireworks and flames you can connect with the ancient fire rituals that were often used as a reminder that light and warmth will return.
Toast Marshmallows
Following on from above, a nice twist on fire celebration themes is toasting some marshmallows on an open fire. If you are lucky enough to have a hearth you could try at home, or some local Halloween festivals or pumpkin patches may have that as an activity, and is a sweet way to embrace warmth and light (and sugar!) at this time of year.
Decorate for the Season
Doing this can really help you get into the seasonal spirit – garlands, leaf pressing, wreaths, pumpkins, squashes, chestnuts… the natural world has lots to offer. Natural autumn decor and garlands are not just pretty, they are a way of bringing nature indoors – a tradition that harks back to our need to keep the spirit of earth close during the darker months.
Pumpkin Picking and Carving
Pumpkin carving has its roots in Ireland, where they would carve turnips with scary designs to ward off “Stingy Jack({!), a spirit stuck wandering in limbo. The Irish then took it across the pond and found more native pumpkins that were also easier to carve, and voila the tradition began to grow and still goes strong to this day. The pumpkin patch is now a symbol of autumn joy combining community, history, and creativity in one simple tradition.
Celebrate Halloween
Halloween (or Samhain in Celtic tradition) was a threshold moment when the veil between worlds was thought to thin. Along with pumpkin carving and dressing up and gathering, you could also celebrate Halloween by:
- Painting a Day of the Dead Mask or sugar skull – think bright colours and floral designs.
- Make tin can or paper lanterns to hang in trees or windows.
- Create herbal sachets – making little pouches filled with rosemary, sage, or lavender can be a mindful way to connect with the season’s folklore of using herbs to ward off unwanted spirits.
A Spooky Film At The Cinema
Some cinemas do showings of old classics around Halloween time, I am definitely not one for scary movies at all, but a little lighthearted mildly-spooky film on the big screen has been a great date night activity.
Gratitude and Release
In past times this season was seen as one of gratitude – for the good summer just gone and the harvest that has been enjoyed. A way to incorporate this into your life could be listing things you are thankful for by journaling, making a gratitude jar or just a simple list on a piece of paper. For release, review the past year and embed new hopes into a decorated stone or a natural representation of the old year.
Autumn makes you slow down and start to get ready for winter hibernating, but there is so much to appreciate about this time of year and the turning inward. I hope you have a great time celebrating this beautiful season.
