We want to stay in the wondrous phases, in the innovative, creative, exciting phases. But we can't. Life in the cosmos is dynamic, never static. Human experience being what it is, we cannot avoid the Via Negativa. At the second harvest, the god dies, leaving his seed buried in the ground.
Animals withdraw into caves and hidden places to sleep and dream.
This year, the Fall Equinox happens in the midst of the darkest phases of the waning moon - so even that source of light is faint and inaccessible, as the moon disappears to the size of a thin crescent, rising earlier and earlier in the morning until it becomes synchronous with our great Sun and seems to disappear altogether. The effect is a double whammy. The Sun is weakening by day, and the Moon by night. We frantically build the fires, light the lamps, install the mercury vapor crime lights. We are terrified of the dark.