Mea'n Fo'mhair - Autumn Equinox - Mabon
Autumn equinox falls on the doorway of September 21st, marking the day when the sun is almost directly over the equator, creating an equal amount of day and night. In the next year, I hope to travel to the United Kingdom to visit some of the neolithic (stone age) temples that were built as both devotional and methodical ways of keeping time and celebrating the dance between light and darkness.
Mabon, one of eight celebrations on the Wheel of the Year, is the second harvest in a set of three: with the first harvest being Lughnassadh and the last harvest being Samhain (modernly known as Halloween).
Traditionally, this celebration is named Mea'n Fo'mhair in Gaelic, pronounced ME-AUGH FOWWUD. However, in modern celtic practices, autumn equinox has become more commonly referred to as Mabon, since around 1970, named after the God of Welsh mythology.
Mabon marks a time of resting after a long and laborious harvest season. With the first harvest at the end of July and the last harvest at the end of October, this equinox threshold creates a container for completion: finishing projects, processing emotions, cleaning and preparing spaces for introversion and gentle creative energy. With this being one of the harvest festivals, this is a time to spend with people you care about and those within your community.
In the times of our ancestors this would mark a time of jamming and preparing food for winter storage, sharing wealth and abundance, as well as trading for other goods you or your family may need over the time of rest, marked by the great white blanket of winter.
Today, in our modern times, mabon invites us into circle to reflect on what our summer has brought us, what we need to do to prepare us for winter, and any projects or new hobbies we may want to take up to get us through the cold winter. Where our ancestors worried about their physical survival over winter, today we must worry about our emotional wellbeing and survival over the darker months.
Although time can change things, nature remains. What connects us beyond space and time with our ancestors is that Mabon brings us into reflection with ourselves about balance. As observed in nature at this time on the Wheel, we are called to reflect on the balance between: light and dark, work and play, extraversion and introversion, time inside and time in nature, creation and space, doing and non-doing.
Mabon is a time of what ceremonialists call the Great Mysteries, meaning it is a spiritually powerful time to honour the Spirit world. This is a beautiful time to show gratitude for what you have created through your personal harvests, as well as pray for your community’s and world’s harvests for the days and months to come.
Some Journal Prompts & Seasonal Reflections
What have you done this summer?
Has there been an overarching theme to what you experienced from June-August?
What have you created and grown in these harvest months?
How do you feel about the external energies of nature pulling us, slowly, inwards and inside?
What is something you want to do in the winter months this year?
Is there a new hobby or commitment you want to make to yourself for Yule: Winter Solstice?
Is there someone, an ancestor or spirit helper, that you want to connect with as the veils thin with Samhain, your final harvest?
If you’d like to move your body to some seasonal rhythms and sounds, check out my 90 minute Mabon: Fall Equinox playlist!