The equinox, with its trade of light for dark, stirs strong emotions of loss as the ease of summer passes. While the celebrations of the harvest and the equinox have changed among modern people, especially Pagans, the core meaning remains the same: life is precious, and we are lucky to sustain it.
Mabon, because of its spiritual underpinnings, also must acknowledge shared secular values in order to experience the full, rich scope of this spoke on the Wheel of the Year.
Other Pagan Autumn Celebrations
Some Pagan traditions celebrate Mabon, but others celebrate other holidays on the Autumn Equinox. Some, especially Celtic Reconstructionist faiths, only observe the four major fire festivals, (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh) and do not do anything specific for Mabon. Autumn is also the time of the largest pan-Pagan (meaning “all Pagans”) celebration in the world: Pagan Pride.
At this event, Pagans around the world gather to host public rituals and run a food drive. Their purpose is to educate the public about Pagan religions and thus to reduce xenophobia. Each celebration differs just a little bit: some run it like a street fair, others like a small convention, and others just host a picnic and invite the public. Pagans that participate in Pagan Pride often see the event as a sort of community reunion and an opportunity to interact with those outside their immediate spiritual circles. The public is invited and is encouraged to talk to Pagans about their beliefs and practices.
Pagan Pride borrowed its name directly from the Gay Pride movement. Both movements celebrate individuals choosing openness about who they are rather than hiding to protect themselves from society’s sensibilities. While no one knows exactly when the first Pagan Pride event happened, an official Pagan Pride Project grew out of Cecylena Dewr’s work with the Pagan Awareness League in 1997. Dewr proposed three elements to the project: first, that in every location that could gather enough Pagans, they host an event with at least one ritual open to the public, Pagan and non-Pagan alike. Second, that the pride event runs a food drive in honor of Mabon and other Thanksgiving holidays of the autumn season and to serve as a reminder to Pagans of their responsibilities to city, state, and country. Third, that organizers invite the press so they could see some positive portrayals of Paganism outside of the Halloween season. In 1998, the world saw the first international Pagan Pride Project with seventeen communities in the United States and one community in Canada participating. It had a total attendance of around nine hundred people. In 2000, Pagan Pride gained coverage from the New York Times; held its first events in Rome, Great Britain, and Brazil; and donated 8,671 pounds of food (and several thousand dollars) to charity. By 2005, the Pagan Pride Project counted over forty thousand attendees globally. While Pagan Pride International has stopped tracking its data, the celebrations around Mabon continue every year.
Druidry
Modern Druids celebrate the Autumn Equinox, calling it Alban Elfed. Alban Elfed means “the Light of the Water.” This is a time when Druids observe darkness consuming more time than the light. They honor the equinox as a time to thank the Mother (their concept of the feminine Divine) for her abundance as it manifests in the harvest.
Hellenic Pagans
Modern Hellenics (people devoted to reconstructing ancient Greek religion) celebrate Boedromion, which translates from Greek to “September.” This starts at sunset on the first new moon of September and honors different gods of the harvest for the next nine days, reminiscent of the Eleusinian festival. Each day, Hellenists make offerings and libations to these gods in gratitude for an abundant harvest.
Heathens
Heathens, people of Norse Pagan traditions, call the Autumn Equinox Winter Finding. On the equinox, they hold a blot, where they make offerings to the god Odin and others in his pantheon with ale and bread. After sharing a meal, everyone present passes a drinking horn and makes boasts, takes vows, or honors their ancestors when the horn comes to them.
Traditional Witchcraft
Traditional witches are those who practice the forms of Witchcraft prevalent in the United Kingdom before the advent of Gerald Gardner. Sometimes they call themselves practitioners of the Craft. Others identify as Hedge Witches or Hedge Walkers. These people use shamanic methods and deep connection with nature to practice magick and to sense the Divine. Most celebrate the turn of the seasons and the holidays as befits the region they live in. Those who live in temperate zones may well have their own private practices to acknowledge Autumn Equinox.
Neopagans
Neopagans are Pagans who see themselves as modern polytheists but prefer not to affiliate with an organized form such as Wicca. Often they celebrate Mabon as a day of personal balance, designing their own rituals or simply honoring the change in seasons through their daily living practices.
Eclectic Witchcraft
Eclectic witches are Neopagans who draw from multiple traditions and backgrounds to create their own practices. If Mabon as the Autumn Equinox speaks to them, they will practice it, often using rituals they have designed based on their own spiritual experience and association with the harvest season.
Celtic Pagans
Some Celtic Pagans also call the Autumn Equinox Feast of Avalon. Avalon translates to “land of apples” in modern English, and often the apple harvest happens about this time (Springwolf).
Stregheria
Italian Witchcraft calls the Autumn Equinox the Equinozio di Autunno. This minor festival honors the earth. In their own sabbat cycle (treguenda), the Lord of Light becomes the Lord of Shadows and the god Janus dies and departs for the underworld.
Modern Harvest Festivals
Many Harvest Festivals now are both secular and spiritual, celebrating heritage and community together. Fewer people farm now, and in some ways that enhances the mystery. We must now make an effort to appreciate food and to learn where it comes from, and cultivation comes from a spiritual calling.
Harvest Festival in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has replaced Harvest Home with Harvest Festival. This holiday takes place on the Sunday closest to the full moon before the Autumn Equinox. Congregants decorate the churches with cornucopias, wreaths, and baskets, and parishioners give thanks for the bounty. Local farmers bring baskets filled with produce that local priests bless. After services, church members distribute the baskets of food to impoverished community members. After services, the community often has a celebration for the whole town that includes old games from the Harvest Home celebration.
Dozynki
Dozynki is the living Polish tradition of Harvest Home. The Slavic Pagan and feudal roots remain beneath the Catholic veneer. At Dozynki in medieval times, the landowner hosted a feast to reward his laborers for their backbreaking work through the season.
In the twenty-first century, the Polish celebrate Dozynki anytime between mid-September and late October. Celebrations usually include a harvest festival mass, sometimes held outdoors, followed by a procession either by someone representing the old “Lord of the Manor” or by two women selected for their competence in harvest work. The church is decorated with harvest baskets and crafts made from the grain crops.
Singing and procession is an important part of Dozynki celebration; the girl deemed the best at harvesting leads this processional and wears garlands woven of grain and decorated with wildflowers, apples, and ash berries. The girl or woman presents the symbolic lords and ladies of the manor with the wreath on her head—and this person gives that wreath a place of honor in his or her home. The person representing the Lord of the Manor then shares a shot of vodka with the eldest male harvester, toasts the entire group, and invites them to a feast hosted on his/her land.
Erntedankenfest
Erntedankfest is a series of festivals that take place throughout rural Germany. Erntedanktag, like Harvest Home/Harvest Festival, includes a church service that displays baskets of local harvest bounty that afterward go to the poor. After services, civic celebrations include processions, parades, and a mix of Pagan-rooted traditions ranging from effigies made of corn to decorated beasts of burden.
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest has purely civic origins. Started on October 12, 1810, to celebrate the royal wedding of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, the sixteen-day celebration has lasted more than two hundred years. It has been moved to September for better weather and has become something of a worldwide celebration observed where beer is served.
In 1811, Germany added horse races to the festival to enhance awareness of regional agriculture. Now the Munich festival hosts beer stands, festival rides, and a thriving annual fairground trade. While perhaps not a conscious harvest festival, Oktoberfest certainly celebrates specific aspects of agriculture as Mabon in the Pagan context does.
Jewish Holidays in September
September is an especially sacred time for the Jewish faith, with each week marking a day of spiritual significance, many of which share similar spiritual meanings with Mabon. While ancient Jews set their calendars by the new moon, modern Jewish holidays follow a specific Jewish calendar that differs from the popular civic calendar.
Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. This starts a ten-day period of reflection, meditation, sharing, and repentance. This holiday may include sounding the shofar (an instrument made from the horn of a kosher animal), eating challah (a braided bread), and partaking of apples and honey to represent a sweet new year. Apples, honey, and bread are also longtime harvest symbols honored by Pagans old and new.
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur, the highest holy day of the year for the Jewish faith, happens a week after Rosh Hashanah. On this day, the Jews seek out those whom they have sinned against and make amends. The individual must determine the best way to do so him- or herself. This is also a time for forgiveness of others. For Pagans who meditate on the season turning from light to dark, this practice has strong spiritual parallels. While many Pagans do not define sin under the same categories as monotheists, most place strong values on personal responsibility including a sense of duty for making repairs when they have done harm.
The Feast of the Tabernacle (Sukkot)
Sukkot has the most direct connection of the September Jewish holidays with Mabon as it expressly celebrates the fall harvest. Always celebrated five days after Yom Kippur, this holiday observes the forty years that Jewish tribes wandered in the desert. Its literal meaning/command is “rejoice.” Another name for this feast is Sukkot is Chag HaAsif, meaning “Feast of the Ingathering.”
Simchat Torah and Sh’mini Atzerat
Immediately after Sukkot, the Jews celebrate the completion of the annual Torah reading. The Torah scrolls are taken from the ark that stores them, and people dance around them or carry them in a procession seven times. This concludes with a Torah reading—and thus completes the celebrations that mark the cyclical nature of the Jewish faith.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a descendant of Harvest Home festivals. It appears likely that the Pilgrims recreated the Harvest Festival feast that became US Thanksgiving. While not a universal holiday, Canada, Liberia, and Grenada also celebrate some form of Thanksgiving. Canada’s Thanksgiving in October is a long weekend akin to the US Labor Day. Liberia observes Thanksgiving on the first Thursday of November; it is a mixed-religious holiday celebrated with foods native to the country. Grenada observes a Thanksgiving expressly to thank US military service people who intervened during a bloody military coup in 1983. Only the US and Liberian Thanksgivings have a direct connection to the results of the harvest.
Suggested Activities
Mabon is both celebratory and solemn. It also happens at one of the busiest times of year for many people. With themes of gratitude, death, grief, and looming winter, this is a time to acknowledge mixed feelings and do our best to tend to our inner balance. It’s important to take time out to hear ourselves and hear the Divine at these action-packed phases of life. Because it is the harvest, it is also a spiritual act to go about routine organizing to make life flow all the more easily in the cold season.
Prepare for Winter
Even the most trivial action can become spiritual if performed with intent. Therefore, Mabon can be a day of spiritually getting organized. You may wish to partake in practical winter preparation activities: plant bulbs to bloom in spring, winterize your house, or even go over your calendars and to-do lists to ensure you can get as much as you can done in small chunks.
While outside planting or harvesting your garden, you may want to say a prayer or sing, just as the reapers used to when out in the fields. Celebrate your harvest and sing to the land.
A suggested prayer for winter bulb planting is:
Seed Prayer
I sow the seeds
into the earth.
I send love;
I send yearning.
It fills,
it swells,
it reaches upward
toward the warmth
until the time comes
to burst from the soil
then to dance the dance of life.
Along with preparing your home in a practical manner, you may wish to sweep clutter out of your house to make room for the fruits of the new harvest.
Negotiate
September was a time of negotiating contracts and agreements for the harvesters of yore. Take a cue from them. Got something you need to work out with a credit card company, landlord, or service person? Use this time to hammer out a friendly agreement. Read up on negotiation tactics, and ask for a raise. Log in to your accounts and review your bills to see where you might get some breaks on routine bills such as utilities or insurance.
Can, Freeze, Pickle, and Dry
Harvest season often coincides with hunting season in temperate areas. For those with hunting families and big gardens, likely this regular activity goes back generations. Take a weekend to preserve the goods of your garden for winter. If you want to dry your own food, check a local thrift shop for a dehydrator. You can often find instructions for canning and pickling in cookbooks. Freezing preparation depends on what you freeze; different fruits and vegetables require different treatments. The Internet has plenty of information for all forms of food preservation.
Go Outside
If you live in a temperate climate, you likely already know how precious autumn is. Every day comes just a little closer to winter! Consequently, it’s a good idea to get as much outdoor time in as possible! If able, go outside and walk in the woods. Enjoy the autumn foliage and observe how the animals act in preparation for this time. Perhaps take a nature guidebook and practice identifying plants at this point in the season. If you live in an urban area, check with your parks department. Most cities have some wooded land set aside for public use. If there isn’t one, check a state parks guide for the nearest state park and enjoy a picnic among the trees.
Watch the Sunset
The sun feels especially precious in fall as the land becomes darker each day. Check your local newspaper or a good weather source to get the time of sunset and spend a week just sitting outside, watching it go down. You may wish to sing to it or perform a chant while you do.
Sunset Chant
Waning sun I feel you cooling;
waning day I see you darkening;
cooling, darkening winter comes
as the sun blazes away.
Watch the Sunrise
Sometimes finding time at sunset is just not a possibility. Early morning is the calmest time of day for most people. If you can, get up half an hour before the sun rises and watch its progress into the sky. You may want to do this every day until the next solstice, thus deepening your connection with the dark half of the earth’s light cycle. Again, you may wish to sing to the sun or perform a chant while you watch it rise.
Sunrise Chant
Hail sun, light and arc,
fight again against the dark!
Honor the Harvest Moon
When the Harvest Moon happened in September depended on your location in Europe. Some thought of it as the New Crescent Moon in September, others thought of it as a full moon in August, and still others as the full moon in September. The Scottish nicknamed the Harvest Moon the Badger’s Yellow Moon because it was the time that the small mammals collected winter supplies. They also sometimes called it the Hunter’s Moon, as this was the time to hunt wild game for winter supplies. Create your own moon ritual according to one of these nicknames. You might also want to participate in a Scottish divination tradition, where young men and women assembled bundles of grain and stuffed them with peas and beans from their gardens, then burnt them. When the fire was down to glowing embers, someone hid a grain or seed amid the embers—the person to spot the seed was thought to have secured the love of his/her future spouse.
Host a Barbecue
Sharing food is a key activity of a harvest celebration. Invite other like-minded Pagans over for your own Mabon/Harvest Home dinner or invite your neighbors and simply enjoy the spirit of sharing. Serve food that suits the land where you live. In temperate areas, this may be wheat in the form of bread, corn on the cob, and fresh greens. If you’re closer to the equator and you eat meat, serve animals that local farmers raise such as chicken, lamb, or goose. If you don’t quite have the resources for a barbecue, invite people for a potluck. Make a list of recommended dishes for your guests to make, with the rule that each person should be able to eat what he or she concocts.
Roast Nuts
The eve of September 14, called Roodmas or Fe’ill Roi’d, was nicknamed “Night of the Nut.” On this day, children went nutting—picking nuts for food. Rood referred to both the Christian cross and to deer rutting season (Campbell, 280).
Go Apple Picking
Start a fall tradition of visiting an apple orchard. While most go to the orchards to pick apples for their own canning and preserving, some offer other entertainments. For instance, some have apple canons that allow visitors to shoot an apple or a potato at a target, others offer hayrides, and some farms have also started producing local wines. Afterward, make a household ritual of preparing apple butter, making pies, or drying apples for the coming season.
Go to Wine or Beer Tastings
The festival of Dionysus has its own harvest mysteries, so if you are able to do so safely, partake! As more local vineyards proliferate in the United States, more are hosting autumn events inviting the public to come sample the season’s vintage. As the craft beer movement grows, there are also more small breweries inviting people into their distilleries for tours. Wine and beer are sacred beverages in more than one Pagan pantheon, and Mabon is a great time to celebrate the artistry it takes to make them.
Build a Bonfire
Most harvest festivals concluded with a fire. Be sure to check with your city about legal restraints on fires in your area; this is one to skip if you live in an area of heavy droughts! If you get the all clear, gather up twigs, branches, and garden leftovers to build a fire. Have a great time roasting items on sticks in the fire, meditating on the flames, or dancing around it while singing or chanting. Perhaps distribute beverages to those with you and have a toasting game—toast to the health of the hosts of the fire, to everyone’s prosperity, and then to everyone’s good health. This is also a great time to tell stories. Stories about old-world faeries such as pookas or tales of King Arthur might be particularly appropriate.
Go Dancing
Many a harvest supper concluded with dancing. Nowadays, you can make this modern and have everyone go to a favorite club after dinner, or you can do something more traditional by trying to re-create Irish reels or perhaps watching a performance by a troupe of Morris dancers. For people familiar with the Burning Man, they might want to try “trance dancing” and put on music in a safe place and dance into and out of an altered state. The harvest was a time of expressing relief, and dancing can be quite cathartic!
Make a Corn Dolly
Celebrate with an effigy of the vegetative spirit, just as your spiritual ancestors did. Fashion a corn dolly out of wheat or create your own character out of fruits and vegetables you have grown yourself. You can find clear instructions with pictures and videos online. You can use the corn dolly as a centerpiece on your table during Mabon dinner; perhaps even keep it in a place of honor for the next year and ritually feed it by leaving small offerings in a bowl that you dispose of the next day. You might also want to include the corn dolly in games that reflect the ones some reapers played during the harvest. In days gone by, people would hide alongside the pathway with buckets of water, waiting to douse the person carrying the effigy. As a modern twist, if having a ritual procession with the dolly, you might have your family or coven hide along its path with water guns, shooting at the doll and the person carrying it to represent the water needed for the next harvest. You might also weigh it down with stones, the symbolism being that the next year the harvest will be just as heavy as the stones.
Make a Wreath
Reapers often followed corn dolly processions holding wreaths on sticks. Make your own wreath using wheat or hay and decorate it with ribbons in the colors of the season. Hang it over your front door or on a door inside your house.
Visit Horses
In the Scottish Highlands, Michaelmas was also called Riding Day. There was always a horse race in Great Britain on this day with a man and a woman on each horse. Riders thought a woman falling off the horse was lucky. The women paid for the horse race and often brought large containers of oatmeal to share. Horse races are not as common in fall, but you might want to visit a petting zoo, farm, or rescue shelter and do something nice for a horse. You can top off the day by having oatmeal for dinner.
Have a Procession
Many localities had a procession at the beginning of harvest to cut the first sheaf and at the end of harvest after felling the last sheaf. Think of it as a parade without floats or fire trucks. It is a reverent if not necessarily serious affair. Because it has a playful element to it, it’s an excellent ritual for children. The easiest procession you can do at home is to organize a parade to the garden, where you and your family perform harvest-gathering tasks. However, if you live in a city and do not have any garden space you can also adapt and draw from the Harvest Festival tradition of feeding the hungry.
The Garden Parade
This is a fun activity to have with children. Fashion an effigy from wheat or make a more standard scarecrow. Then draw straws or names to determine who carries the scarecrow to the field. Let the other family members get in line behind the person with the scarecrow. Have the person in the back pull a wagon (perhaps a child’s red wagon) or carry a basket if your garden is small. Give your parade staff pan drums, rattles, and kazoos. If this might drive someone crazy, singing a song all the children know may be a better choice.
Lead the way from the front of the house to where the garden is while singing the song. If it’s a short walk, take the procession around the garden a few times before signaling the leader to plant the effigy in the center of the patch.
When staked in the ground, say, “Praise to the land god!” and then everyone should cheer or make noise. Then say, “Praise to the harvest!” and everyone again makes celebratory noises.
From there, fill the wagon or basket with the products of your garden. Use the rest of the day to can, freeze, or otherwise preserve your garden goodies. This is a good opportunity to teach children old enough to be around hot stoves about these preservation arts. Set aside a few products of your garden for a shared evening meal with your family, and be sure to bring a few of your canned items to a community hunger organization.
Make a Harvest Basket
This is not quite the same as a procession, though you can encourage children to pretend it is. Take children to the grocery store and have them pick out nonperishable items for a local food shelf. Along with items such as canned fruits, vegetables, and meats, be sure to add items such as diapers and hygiene products. Assemble all of these in a basket. Conduct a short prayer around the basket, praying that those who partake of its contents receive good luck and bountiful harvests of their own in coming years. One such harvest basket prayer is:
Harvest Basket Prayer
Hail to the spirit of the land and to the spirit of the
community.
Hail to the Goddess who gives all things!
We ask that you bless this basket of food and goods
meant to help those around us in need.
Let each item carry a blessing of good luck,
good health, good healing, and bountiful harvests.
Let our community be well and strong
by your hand and by ours.
So mote it be!
Participate in Pagan Pride
If Pagan Pride happens in your town, volunteer! Each municipality handles the event a little differently. Look online for your local coordinator and offer specific skills you can bring. If you work with a coven, grove, or other group, ask your fellows about performing a public ritual at Pagan Pride. If you are solo but want to connect, offer to run a ritual yourself! If the event doesn’t happen where you live, consider starting one—the international Pagan Pride Project website is available to the public and its organizers can give you advice on starting your own.
Mabon Celebrations
No two sabbat celebrations look exactly alike. Even the exact time to celebrate Mabon differs across Pagan traditions. Some groups observe the sabbat on the full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox, or the UK Harvest Festival. Others try to place any ritual or feast as close to the actual moment of equinox as possible. Other groups use a “three days before or three days after” approach to accommodate coven members with busy work and family schedules.
These observances ideally include a shared meal and an acknowledgment of gratitude for sacrifices made. You can express this spirit in myriad ways: rituals are creative challenges. This is what makes Pagan faith practice enjoyable for many. With the themes of the harvest season and the sacrifice of a Divine king in mind, a coven or a solo practitioner can apply a great deal of imagination as to how these themes are expressed both inside ritual and in the greater world.
For instance, a feast may include food grown in the participants’ gardens or food selected from any grocery store. What matters is that the food is seasonal to the area. In temperate climates, that might include squash, green beans, onions, peppers, and ground cherries. In areas closer to the equator, an Autumn Equinox feast might have cassava and plantains. What matters is that it reflects and connects to the ground you walk on every day.
Perform a Sacrifice
If sacrifice is the focal theme of your celebration, draw from how people experience sacrifice in modern life. Set up an altar with pictures of war heroes and emergency workers. Ask guests for stories about loved ones who made sacrifices. Write letters of thanks for those who made sacrifices for you. That might include parents who worked extra hours to help you finish your education, someone who took time off work to care for you while you were sick, or someone who donated blood or organs to save someone’s life.
You may also wish to make a sacrifice of your own. Your action should fit the context of your life. There are causes that call for a person’s time, especially causes that strengthen the whole community beyond your religious group. Perhaps you can offer a meal to friends unable to cook for themselves. You can volunteer at a local nursing home or with a road-cleaning crew. You might even take some of your garden abundance to your neighbors as a means of connecting your community to the earth you share. Hosting a barbecue corresponds to the Harvest Home sacrificial animal and is a familiar modern ritual. So is spending time at a dying person’s bedside or giving up a few hours at the computer every night to help build a Habitat for Humanity house.
Make It Personal
You might start by picking one of Mabon’s spiritual themes or integrating all of them to get the most out of this time of year. For instance, if you had a loved one die in the past year, you may want to create rituals and observances around mourning the passage of time and the dying light. You may feel especially grateful for what came to you by Harvest Tide; in that case, choose activities that express your gratitude and share your abundance. Acts of preparation for your own family or your community for winter (even if winter is hard times in hot weather) are excellent activities for this season. Most Mabon rituals involve expressions of gratitude, offerings made to the God and Goddess of the land, and a shared meal. You may wish to set aside a little bit of your garden or a little wine and beer for offerings and libations. If you feel especially flush, you might even gift someone from the labors of your own garden! Whatever you choose to do, celebrate Mabon to its fullest.