Higan: How Japan Marks the Autumn Equinox, and a Quiet Way to Borrow It

Next week the year tips over. In the early hours of Wednesday 23 September the Sun crosses the celestial equator, and from then on the nights in the UK are longer than the days. In Japan, that same week has a name and a shape of its own. It is called Higan, and it is one of the gentlest ways we know of to notice a season turning.

What the equinox actually is. The autumn equinox is the moment the Sun sits directly over the equator, lighting the northern and southern halves of the planet equally. The Royal Observatory Greenwich puts this year's at 12.06am GMT on 23 September, which is 1.06am on British clocks. It is a moment rather than a whole day, which is part of why the old idea of "equal day and night" is only roughly true.

In London on the 23rd, the Royal Observatory gives sunrise at 6.48am and sunset at 6.56pm, which is 12 hours and 8 minutes of daylight. The day when light and dark really do even out, sometimes called the equilux, comes a little later. For the UK this year it falls on 25 September. After that, the dark has the larger share of every day until March.

Higan, the other shore. In Japan, the equinox sits in the middle of a seven-day Buddhist observance called Higan, running from three days before the equinox to three days after. This year that is 20 to 26 September. The word means "the other shore", from a Buddhist image of crossing from the busy near bank of ordinary life to a calmer far one. It comes round twice a year, once at each equinox.

In practice, Higan is a quiet, domestic week. Many families go back to their home towns, wash and tidy the family grave, leave flowers and incense, and spend a little time remembering the people who came before them. The equinox day itself, Shūbun no Hi, has been a national holiday since 1948. In 2026 it falls on a Wednesday, and because the Monday is Respect for the Aged Day, the ordinary Tuesday caught between the two becomes a holiday as well. That gives Japan five days off in a row, from 19 to 23 September. It is sometimes called Silver Week, and according to Nippon.com this is only the third one ever, after 2009 and 2015.

A sweet named for a flower. Around Higan people make ohagi, soft rounds of sticky rice wrapped in sweet red bean paste, and leave some as offerings at family graves and home altars. In spring the same sweet is usually called botamochi, after the peony, botan, that flowers then. In autumn it takes its name from hagi, the bush clover that blooms in September. The same little cake, renamed for whatever is in flower. It is a lovely habit, letting the season do the naming.

The flowers seem to keep time too. The red spider lily, higanbana, comes up along field edges and riverbanks around the autumn equinox, which is how it came by its name. In Japan its sudden red is often read as the sign that autumn has properly arrived.

There is an old saying as well: "atsusa mo samusa mo higan made", roughly "the heat and the cold last only until Higan". By the autumn equinox the worst of summer's heat has usually passed, just as winter's cold has usually eased by the spring one. It is less a forecast than a reassurance. Whatever the weather has been doing, it is about to soften.

Borrowing Higan, wherever you are. You do not need to be in Japan, or Buddhist, to take something from a week like this. What makes it work is simple. It gives a turning point in the year a few days of attention, rather than letting it slide past between emails. Here are a few quiet ways to do the same.

Watch one sunset on purpose. Around the equinox the Sun rises close to due east and sets close to due west, wherever you live. Pick an evening next week, find a window or a spot outside that faces west, and watch it go. In London that is a little before seven.

Tidy one small thing that holds memory. Washing the family grave is an act of care. Your version might be a shelf of photographs, a box of old letters, or the corner where you sit in the evenings. Ten unhurried minutes is plenty.

Think of someone who came before you. Remembering is at the heart of Higan. You might ring an older relative, look through an old photograph, or cook something a grandparent used to make. Nothing needs to be said out loud.

Eat something that is in season this week. Ohagi is named for a flower. Your equivalent might be the last blackberries from a hedge, a plum, or an apple from a tree that fruited this month. Let the season choose supper for once.

See it as a crossing, not a loss. If the darker evenings have felt heavy lately, it can help to borrow the image behind Higan. The bright, busy half of the year is on the near shore behind you. Ahead is a slower half, with its lamps on early and its long evenings in. Neither is better. You are simply crossing over.

If you would like something to listen to while the light goes, try a stream layered under a little birdsong, or slow rainfall with distant thunder on low, with a forest path on the screen. It will not change the season, but it can make the turn a little gentler to sit with.

Sources: Royal Observatory Greenwich, "What and when is the autumnal equinox?" and "Night sky highlights, September 2026" (equinox time, London sunrise and sunset, UK equilux date); Nippon.com, "Japan's National Holidays in 2026" and "Botamochi and Ohagi: Sweet Spring and Autumn Rice Cakes".