Mabon Has Arrived!

[display_podcast]

The Thanksgiving of the Craft has arrived! It’s one of the magical times of the year when the light and the dark are in perfect balance.

As modern day followers of a magick path we don’t celebrate with the exact same emphasis as our ancestors. On this day the ancients celebrated Mabon with fires, festivals, and banquets featuring the crops of the harvest.  They would also take time on this special day to review the growing season and make plans for the next.  We attempt to keep the integrity as well as the fun of the holiday whilst giving it a more relevent twist for the culture of today.  Though we’re still just as dependent on the harvest in some ways, we’re not as directly connected to it.  So we take time on this special day to slow down and really consider the harvest and be thankful for the life it gives, but we also take time to examine the harvests in our day to day lives that’re intangible.  We consider what we’ve harvested in our personal, home, and communiy lives.

For all the things that have produced we give thanks.  We also consider all of the things that have died on the vine- such as all of our brilliant dreams we didn’t carry through with or poor relationships- and we make plans on how we can make them produce next year if we still believe them good.  If in this process we find things no longer needed in our lives we eliminate them.  There’s no room in our path for weeds or chaff.

Here is the ritual I like to perform with those close to me:

• We each have a seed, a piece of paper, and a pencil on us when we gather
• After closing the circle each person cups their seed in front of them and infuses it with the joys and successes they intend to have by next year.
• The seed is then put in their pocket.  Each person will take their seed home and plant it in their garden and what grows will keep the memory of the good intentions.
• Each person then writes all of their regrets down from the previous year
• The paper is crumpled and thrown into the cauldron
• When everyone’s regrets have become ash, the ash is given back to the Earth.

Once the ritual is over the celebration begins.  There are wonderful foods served from the harvest, laughing, and dancing by a bon fire as thanksgiving is lifted for all the blessings that are as well as those yet to come.