Sacred Altar of Autumn: A Fall Equinox Ritual

Establish one room in your house as the temple. Ideally, it is the room in which you normally keep an altar or sacred shrine. In any case, you should create an altar in the center of the space. Place four small tables in the four directions, which may be closest to either the walls or the room’s corners, and place four evenly spaced candlesticks between the tables. Place a loaf of freshly baked bread (bread you have made with your own hands is best) in the east, a bowl of apples in the south, a bottle of wine in the west, and a sheaf of wheat or a bundle of dried corn in the north.

Upon the main altar, place a candle, a plate of sweet cakes, and a goblet. Light incense and place it in front of the cakes. Before your ritual, take some time for contemplation. Think about what you have achieved during this busy year:

• What have you done?
• What do you need?
• What remains to be done?
• What are your aspirations?

Write down your thoughts and feelings and the answers to those questions. Read what you have written and ponder it. Look for continuing ideas or themes, and make notes of these on a piece of paper. Next, take a calming and cleansing quiet bath, and snip a lock of your freshly washed hair and place it on the paper where you wrote your notes. Dress yourself in a robe that feels right for making magic and enter your temple space. Light the candle on the altar, and use this candle to light all the other candles in the temple. Speak the traditional Hebrew words of self-blessing:

    Ateh, Malkuth, Ve Geburah, Ve Gedulah, Le Olahm, Amen:

    through the symbol of the pentagram in the name of Adonai.

Repeat this facing each corner, and then face your altar and say:

    In the east, Raphael; in the south, Michael; in the west, Gabriel;

    in the north, Uriel.

    Welcome to this place in the name of Melchisedec, the High Priest

    of the Godhead.

Then go to the east, and raising the loaf of bread in a gesture of offering, say:

    Raphael, Lord of the Winds of Heaven, bless this bounty born of sun

    and air and earth.

    Let us feed the hungry and bless the hand that gives it.

Place the bread back into the bowl and go to the southern corner. Raise an apple in offering and state:

    Michael, protector of the weak and the oppressed, bless this sun-

    ripened fruit,

    and let it be not the fruit of temptation but the fruit of our

    knowledge,

    so we know how to make our choices and understand the measure

    of both good and evil.

Place the apple back into the bowl and go to the western corner. Lifting up the bottle of wine, say:

    Gabriel, bringer of the word of God, bless this wine that we may

    take into our body

    the wine of life shed by all saviors since time began.

Place the bottle back on the western table. Turn to the north, and raising the corn or wheat as an offering, say:

    Uriel, Lord of the Earth and all its bounty, bless this crop

    that it may be plentiful all over the earth,

    that this may be a year when all humankind

    will know the comfort of food and hearth.

Now return to the altar in the center of the temple. Light the incense and place some bread and the chalice of wine on the altar. Dip a piece of bread into the blessing wine. Proclaim:

    Melchisedec, priest of the most high God, in the desert after the battle

    with the kings of Edom you brought bread and wine to Abraham. In

    this communion shared between man and priest of the most high God,

    a covenant was made. I pray that this coming harvest makes bread

    for the world. In token of the ancient custom, I take this bread and

    wine into my body. Now in this sacred place, guide and teach me,

    show me how to pursue knowledge for the power of good. Help me to

    grow in wisdom. Bless me. Bless those who share my life. Bless all of

    those with whom I work. Bless this earth, this sweet, green world that

    gives us all the blessings we enjoy—all the water and wine, all the corn

    and wheat, all the joys of life in this body. Bless my home.

Take a lock of hair, light it from the candle, and burn it in the bowl of incense, saying:

    This is the offering of myself.

    In the east—blessings to Raphael.

    In the south—blessings to Michael.

    In the west—blessings to Gabriel.

    In the north—blessings to Uriel.

    Blessed be to all.

Now go around your temple space in reverse order, extinguishing all candles. Then declare your temple closed. The common wisdom is that you should place the apples, bread, and wine in your garden the next day as an offering and a blessing to all of nature.