Mabon - Autumn Equinox

For many it is just another day on the way to fall and the impending winter months. The crisp clean scent perminates int air we breath with a unique scent. The smell of Autumn. As we watch the leaves turn and fall, the weather getting a little cooler day by day, we are reminded that everything changes. Winter makes way for spring, spring makes way for summer, and summer is now making way for fall. We are always in a spiral ever moving, folding into it's self.

Autumn equinox is one of two days a year when the Northern and Southern hemispheres receive the same amount of sunlight, each receiving the same amount of light as they do dark. This is because the earth is tilted at a right angle to the sun, and the sun is directly over the equator. In Latin, the word equinox translates to "equal night."

Globally the idea of a harvest festival is nothing new. People have celebrated it for millennia, all around the world. In ancient Greece, Oschophoria was a festival held in the fall to celebrate the harvesting of grapes for wine. In the 1700's, the Bavarians came up with Oktoberfest, which actually begins in the last week of September, and it was a time of great feasting and merriment, still in existence today. China's Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated on the night of the Harvest Moon, and is a festival of honoring family unity. Lets not forget the pagans and later the wiccans who also honor this as a sabbat.

Some symbols of Mabon include:
•Mid-autumn vegetables, like squashes and gourds
•Apples and anything made from them, such as cider or pies
•Seeds and seed pods
•Baskets, symbolizing the gathering of crops
•Sickles and scythes
•Grapes, vines, wine
You can use any of these to decorate your home or your altar at Mabon.

Mabon is a time of equalizing. we clear our minds of the recent past, celebrate the end of harvest, and make way for the coming seasons. It is a time of winding down of going inward, reflection and apple crafts and magick are big at this time of year.