This is my most favorite season. I am feeling giddy as I type this. There’s so much to enjoy during this time of year!
Collecting
this is the season for acorns! As you might have noticed the ground around some oak trees are already sprinkled with them. You can collect acorns for runes or make acorn bell charms or make floating tea lights with the caps. I love collecting acorns for spells, especially wealth spells. I hold one and bless it, then visualize my spell as if it is already happening, then kiss or blow a kiss at it to seal it (it’s been on the ground so sometimes it safer to blow a kiss to it lol) then tuck it in the earth.
Collecting leaves! Fall leaves are great for banishing spells especially since they are something that was shed away. You can write on them what things you want to come to an end and burn or bury them. You can also use them to make leaf lanterns or decorate fairy lights with.
It’s also Apple season! You can go apple picking and use their deliciousness in cooking or dry them in an oven or fruit dehydrator for snacks or teas! Making apple tea is perfect for autumn and also makes a nice gift. Apples are also highly used in spells often for gratitude, offerings or fertility. You can leave out sliced apples as an offering to spirits if you work with them or bury them for spells. If you celebrate the equinox they can make great tea lights and decorations.
This is also a great time to start preserving. Start to pickle things for winter when a lot less stuff grows. Make extracts from fresh herbs. Gather a clean jar, hard white liquor like vodka and cheese cloth for straining and top your harvested fruit or herbs with vodka and let it sit for a week or two. Shake it daily if you want. You can even keep the ingredients in there for all of winter if you wish. I know you can buy most extracts of anything but I always find it far more powerful when I craft my own. Also infused liquor with fruits and sugar can make fantastic Christmas gifts!
Cooking
This is definitely the season for kitchen witches! So much is in season and there are so many gatherings that will happen! Perfect your pie making skills and eat the gifts of the harvest. A lot of spices makes its way into my food in this season to combat colds and also for hotter spices to warm the body up. One spice I associate with warmth as it has actual warming qualities is cinnamon and we know this is cinnamon season. Use it in teas, cooking, baking; you can put the oil in lotions and body creams but be careful to not put it on any sensitive areas or it will BURN. For a more savory version you can cook with black pepper. Black pepper paired with allspice makes a good autumn savory combo. I also love adding maple syrup to some dishes but very discreet amounts. For autumn equinox gatherings I bake BBQ chicken with a BBQ sauce that tastes smokey from a bit of bourbon I sneak in that goes well with its spiciness and the maple syrup goes well with the sweetness of the sauce. Maple syrup in savory-sweet dishes might sound weird at first but if you pair it right with sauces like Japanese eel sauce (and make baked glazed eggplants with that) or BBQ sauce, it will come out great. The trick is to add very little by little and taste as you go.
Also as Halloween is coming up its the time for candy! There’s so many cool ways to make your own treats from Halloween bark, to fudge (2), tocaramel, pretzels, gummies and it will be even more magical if you make it for your friends! (Better to make these for private parties cause it can get suspicious handing it out to trick or treaters). It’s also the season for candy coated apples. For the fall equinox each year I make caramel coated apples. I feel like candy coated is better suited for Halloween cause it’s glazed and more dramatic appearing. Making a chocolate covered apple can be a great substitute for candy since many people complain that candy covering is hard to bite through. Also chocolate is easy to color and flavor. I love to decorate with colorful fall sprinkles and crushed nuts (if no one is allergic of course) like peanuts and almonds if it’s a caramel apple.
Along with preserving, this is also brewing season!! Making cider might be a challenge for some but it’s incredibly rewarding if you go through with it. Look at your local breweries for equipment and advice. If you’re uninterested in doing all the work, supporting their fall brews is just as good! Plus breweries produce some DELICIOUS stuff during the fall. My friends and I have a favorite craft beer store we especially harass during fall. You can also make liquors and liqueurs from harvested fruits. You can either put chopped up fruits and berries with a stick of cinnamon or spices in a jar and top with dark rum, whiskey or vodka depending on how you want to influence the flavor and make an infusion. If you want something sweeter (and quicker to make), get a pan to make simple syrup (1/2cup water to 1cup sugar) and instead of water replace with something like apple cider and as it simmers add cinnamon. You can add the apple spiced syrup to a clean bottle and top with dark rum. The next morning shake it and you will have an apple spice liqueur! I like to make simple syrup with things in season this time of year such as juiced apples or crushed harvested berries and make a berry liqueur with it. It’s delicious and can make wonderful hot toddy drinks that taste like pie!!
Its also spiced tea season! Brewing spiced teas to help cold, plus I was told my spiced teas taste like seasonal candles lol. I love making an orange spice tea and an apple tea with dried apple slices. The orange spice is simple. In a pot of simmering water combine orange slices or peeks, cinnamon sticks and star anise and let simmer for a while. You can add brown sugar to the pot of sweeten it in your cup after. For the apple tea I like to put roobois in a pot and let steep or simmer with apple slices and cinnamon. Another popular tea I drink especially the closer to winter we get is ginger spice. In a simmering pot add slices of ginger, cloves and honey. My dad spikes this with Haitian rum if we feel under the weather. It helps sweat out the cold.
Crockpot recipes!! Get familiar with the modern cauldron lol!! There’s this wonderful post for crockpot recipes for the colder seasons. Stew season is upon us and there’s nothing better than coming home on a cold autumn evening to a rich stew of squash and pumpkins and oxtail.
Spirit Activity
if you want you could contact spirits easily since spirit activity will heighten. Maybe talk to ancestors since they could be less scary if you want a place to start. If you do NOT want or like spirit activity this would be a great time to set up wards!
Fall is also a time of gratitude and reflection. As you go harvesting make sure to leave offerings or give thanks to the trees and plants you harvest from! Even a moment of sending a boost of positive thoughts their way can work. Apparently plants can read and communicate through vibrations and are very sensitive so you saying thanks or sending love and gratefulness can make some plants happy lol.
Enchanting
While you change your wardrobe from warm weather to cold weather bless your sweaters and socks to keep you warm. If you have more time and need a boost put your stored away sweaters in the dryer for a few minutes with a very sealed cloth sack of herbs like cinnamon sticks (not powder) or anything you associate with warmth and comfort before exchanging them with your summer clothes in the drawers.
Also the witchiest season is upon us and if you are into make up and glamours you know this means darker richer lipsticks and richer colors. Enchant your dark lipsticks and make up to make you feel witchier and more powerful! It’s the one time of the year you can wear dark burgundy, chocolate Browns and blacks and no one will ask you about it. (Unless if you’re an all year round goth)
Pumpkin season is here! A wonderful charm for your home is this pumpkin incense lantern. It’s beautifully festive and will make your space smell like pie!
Also for pumpkin carving you can use magic to make them into wards. Jack-o-lanterns were created to ward away bad spirits. You can take the ancient tradition and make your Jack-o-lanterns ward away negativity, unwanted visitors and unwanted spirits. Some people like black candles for protection so filling them with black tea lights might look extra halloweeny and help with your ward!
Also charcoal is good for absorbing negative energy. If these holiday family seasons make you uncomfortable you can make sigils of protection inside of your Jack o lantern or carved incense pumpkin to help with negative tension in the household once family is over or use charcoal and sea salt to make black salt and hide it somewhere in the living room where people congregate or make it into a pretty centerpiece like a candle votive. You can add black glitter or stick in fake plants to make it look like some interesting modern art furniture piece when really it’s black salt to help your uncles, aunts and extended cousins to simmer the fuck down.
Reflection
Along with gratitude fall is a time of reflection. Reflect on past issues you faced in the year and how to improve them. Reflect on your craft and how you can improve it and what’s not working. Whatever is not good not working in your life right now it’s a good time for banishing magic. Once again you can use fall leaves because those leaves are something that’s been shed and you can imagine yourself shedding away those things too. Remember to be grateful of those things that are working. You can show gratitude to yourself by blessing acorns and planting them in the earth to grow as a gift back to the earth but also symbolic of those good things to grow.
Longer post than usual but this is my favorite season and I do a lot during it! Of course feel free to add if you have any other ideas or recipes!
