A Reaping Blessing for the Equinox

Back in September 2017, I had the privilege of presenting a workshop at Dayton Pagan Pride Day, which was one of the best PPD events I’ve ever attended. That year’s theme was Walking Our Earthen Path, and main ritual was hosted by Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary. This was the first time I’ve met Selena in person, although I’ve been following her online for years, and she is an absolutely delightful human being.

Selena invited the presenters to participate in main ritual, and asked each of us to contribute an invocation or chant focusing on the theme of celebrating the earth. Since it was time to celebrate the fall equinox, I wrote an invocation looking at the blessings of the earth during the reaping season. During ritual, I delivered a shorter, abridged version of this, because there were time constraints, but I wanted to share it with you in its entirety here, because it’s a solid way to mark the move into the harvest season as the land around us begins to die. It started off sort of loosely inspired by a prayer included in the Carmina Gadelica, but then took on a life of its own as I was writing it.

You’re welcome to use this in your personal rituals as you wish, and tweak if you need to – all I ask is that if you choose to share it on your own pages, that you include a link back to this page, as well as credit to me.

Reaping Blessing for the Earth

As the rise of the sun bursts bold and bright over the fields
And the corn and crops sway high in the morning light
I will go forth with my sickle and basket beneath my arm
And I will reap that which I have sown

As the sun moves higher in the morning sky
Burning and blazing across my back
I will move along the rows, cutting and threshing,
Grateful for the bounty of my fields

As the noonday sun glitters high and hot overhead
I will set my sickle down,
Counting my blessings as I fill my basket
And wiping the sweat from my brow

As the shadows begin to grow, gray and long,
The sun traveling nomadic from east to west,
The cool winds of the north move across my fields,
Towards the torrid heat of a far-off south

And I will give thanks to my gods
And to the Mother herself, for her blessings and her bounty,
Her beauty and abundance, and the graces and gifts she bestows upon me

And as my crops growing in the ground
Begin to darken and die in the deepening dusk,
I know that I have much gratitude to give

For each ridge and plain and field
For each sickle and scythe
For each ear in the basket
For each stalk in the sheaf

And I will rejoice in the earth’s blessings on each maiden and youth,
And I will rejoice in the earth’s blessings on each healer and warrior
And I will rejoice in the earth’s blessings on each crone and sage
And I will rejoice in the earth’s blessings on the living and the dead
As I bring my harvest home.