We woke up in Summer and we’ll sleep in Fall, writes Disney Brar

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The Autumnal Equinox 2026 arrived on September 23; this day marks the formal coming of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Chandigarh, September 23

The Autumnal Equinox is the dramatic transition from Summer into Fall’s vibrant foliage. Everywhere you set eyes on, you come across a profusion of passionate shades of gold, browns, coppers, reds, and ambers. On this date, the sun crosses directly over the Earth’s equator, making day and night nearly equal in length across the globe. The Autumn muskiness and crisp tanginess lend a very endearing feel to the whole ambience, ringing in with festive delights strewn across the season to cherish.

Ahh! The Delicious Autumn

The word equinox comes from Latin roots, which means “Equal night” and also signals a gradual shift towards shorter days and longer nights. It marks a turning point in between the extremes of summer and winter solstices. It is essentially the season to pause, reflect, and contemplate. With the shift in the light of the day, we as human beings and nature on the whole as ecosystems also change and metamorphose into more baked and ripe versions of themselves, flowing forward just as life does, like a river.

The living world responds to the change in the light

During this time, billions of birds are on the move southwards, navigating themselves by studying the stars and the Earth’s magnetic field. In the weeks leading up to the Fall equinox, the Bears also enter a state of compulsive eating, consuming around 20,000 calories per day to build up fat reserves to survive the upcoming harsh Winters ahead. In this season, the deciduous trees also break down the chlorophyll in their leaves, pulling the nitrogen back into their trunk and roots for storage during winter, and when they stop producing chlorophyll, they reveal the glorious colours of the season hidden underneath, like blazing reds, fiery oranges, burnt ambers and lustrous golds. Even 100 million Monarch butterflies head down south, navigating up to 3000 miles to their wintering grounds; they are the great-great-grandchildren of the butterflies that made the journey last year.

Harvesting the season’s bounty

The equinox is a time when many cultures celebrate their harvest with a lot of gratitude up their sleeves, such as Mabon in modern pagan traditions, and people gather in famous places like Stonehenge in England to observe the light and shadow alignments on this day. At the Mayan site Chichen Itza in Mexico, people gather during the equinox to watch the sun create a shadow pattern closely resembling a serpent descending a pyramid called El Castillo. The Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in East Asia with mooncakes, lanterns, and family gatherings.  

There is a whole season change happening on a Wednesday, which is an ordinary working weekday, but a lot is happening behind the scenes on this day. So don’t miss the celestial turn and the significant crossing; do pamper yourself with some meaningful rituals and ceremonies that matter to you as a person, and don’t forget to manifest new beginnings and set forth on enriching journeys by shedding away the clutter inside your being, just like the trees shed their leaves in this season. But do take out the time to watch those same leaves dance to their hearts’ delight with the slightest caress of the Autumn breeze. Happy Equinox.