Dear Friends,
Mabon season always puts me in the mood for the coming holiday season. Plus, I am a cold weather person and this holiday gets me excited for pulling out my winter clothes and bundling up for some good rain and snow. Mabon is the second of our harvest festivals and is celebrated between September 20 and 23rd. It changes from year to year depending on the date of the Equinox. During Autumn, we begin to see the waning of the Sun more obviously now as the days continue to grow shorter until the Wheel of the Year spins around again to Yule.
At the Autumn Equinox, the days and nights are equal. It is a time of balance, but light gives way to increased darkness. It is the second harvest, and the Goddess mourns her fallen consort, but the emphasis is on the message of rebirth that can be found in the harvest seeds. The Autumn Equinox is a wonderful time to stop and relax and be happy. While we may not have toiled the fields from sunrise to sunset every day since Lammas – as our ancestors did – most of us do work hard at what we do. At this time of year, we should stop and survey the harvest each of us has brought in over the season. For us, like our ancestors, this becomes a time of giving thanks for the success of what we have worked at.
For your Mabon ritual, focus on the fading God and the continuing harvest of the Earth’s bounty. The following ritual is the basis for our current coven ritual.
Decorate the altar with acorns, oak sprigs, pine and cypress cones, ears of corn, wheat stalks and other fruits and nuts. Also place a small rustic basket filled with dried leaves of various colors and kinds on the altar.
Arrange the altar, light the candles and censer, and cast your circle. Invite the elements and your Deities.
Stand before the altar, holding aloft the basket of leaves, and slowly scatter them so that they cascade to the ground within the circle. Say such words as these:
Leaves fall,
the days grow cold.
The Goddess pulls Her mantle of the Earth around Her as You,
O Great Sun God,
sail toward the West to the lands of
Eternal Enchantment.,
wrapped in the coolness of night.
Fruits ripen,
seeds drop,
the hours of day and night are balanced.
Chill winds blow in from the North wailing laments.
In this seeming extinction of nature’s power,
O Blessed Goddess,
I know that life continues.
For spring is impossible without the second harvest,
as surely as life is impossible without death.
Blessings upon You,
O Fallen God,
as You journey into the lands of winter
and into the Goddess’ loving arms.
Place the basket down and say:
O Gracious Goddess of all fertility,
I have sown and reaped the fruits of my actions, good and bane.
Grant me the courage to plant seeds of joy and love in the coming year,
banishing misery and hate.
Teach me the secrets of wise existence upon this planet,
O Luminous One of the Night!
Works of magick, if necessary, may follow.
Close the circle and enjoy the bounty of the season.
Brightest Blessing,
Rose Ariadne, Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”
