Hail! Journeyer of the Heavens,
Queen of Brightness, King of Magnificence!
Items of gladness richly bringing,
Autumn sheaves and purple leaves’ fall.
Beneficiant be the guts inside us,
Open be our arms to all,
Justice to be in equal measure,
Harvest thankfulness our name.
Greeting to the Autumn Equinox
by Caitlín Matthews, A Celtic Devotional
Blessed Mabon! Comfortable Equinox!
Hail and welcome on this celebration day of the good turning!
This morning at round 8:43, Japanese Daylight time, the Solar strikes into the signal of Libra (in tropical astrology) and Her arc is instantly above the Earth’s equator.
That implies that right now is the Equinox, taken from the Latin for “equal night time.” It’s the Autumnal equinox within the Northern Hemisphere, and the Spring equinox under the equator.
For a quick day or so, mild and darkish are in steadiness. However from today on, till March, within the northern lands, the night time will outlast the daytime.
With the diminishing daylight hours, we transfer from the seasons of planting and progress to the time of harvest and relaxation. That is the seasonal transition for the Northern Hemisphere from heat into chilly. Thus begins the inwardly targeted season of endarkenment.
Right this moment, we Witches and Pagans have fun the Sabbat of the second harvest, the midpoint of the harvest season.
With urgency now, we within the north collect within the remaining bounty of Summer season, and put together for Winter. The ultimate harvest at Samhain is just six weeks away.
And under the equator, our brothers and sisters are in search of indicators of Spring, as their days will now stretch past the nighttime hours, and they are going to be making ready to plant seeds of actual and metaphorical crops for his or her fertile season.
Allow us to want them a most merry Ostara right now!
Traditions of Mabon
Amongst some traditions, this date is called the Witches’ Thanksgiving and plenty of Earth-based practitioners name it Mabon. Some lore says that is for Queen Mab of the Faeries, or perhaps the Celtic heroine Queen Maeve.
However, no, the reality is rather less romantic.
The identify “Mabon” was launched because the designation of Autumn Equinox within the Seventies by Aidan Kelly, co-founder of the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Daybreak, as a part of their systematic method to revive and steadiness the fashionable Pagan Wheel of the 12 months.
He selected the identify from Welsh mythology—Mabon ap Modron, whose tales are discovered within the Mabinogion, the traditional tales of Gods and People in Welsh mythology. The tales of the Mabon are the “tales of the hero.” They derive this that means from “mabon” or “meibon” — that means a younger man or youth. It is usually the identify of the God named Mabon ap Modron (Mabon in Welsh means “son”). So this can be a reference to the son of the Welsh Goddess Madron. She is the Divine Mom and He’s, merely, the Divine Son.
Most students agree that the Celts didn’t name the Autumn Equinox by the identify Mabon. Nonetheless, it appears to me that the invention of this newer adaptation is in line with the high quality historic Celtic follow of adopting festivals, myths, and Deities from different cultures.
Many Druid traditions know this competition as Alban Elfed, “Mild of the Sea.” That is so superbly apropos (as Druidry at all times is), since we’re bidding farewell to the season of Summer season, South, and the ingredient of Fireplace, and welcoming within the quarter of the yr outlined by Sundown, West, and the ingredient of Water.
At the moment, the Mom Goddess of the Harvest turns into the Previous One, the smart grandmother who teaches us to relaxation after our labors. And so we honor the Goddess Demeter, who presides over all rising issues, and Her daughter Persephone, who turns into Queen of the Underworld now.
As Persephone descends into the Underworld, Demeter covers her face, and darkness descends, with killing frosts and naked landscapes forward, till Persephone returns at Ostara.
The Stability
Every thing in Nature is consistently giving to and receiving from the whole lot else. Contemplate, nonetheless, that steadiness is sort of by no means a 50-50 equality.
Solely at Spring and Autumn Equinox, solely two days of the yr, are mild and darkish precisely equal. A fifty-fifty equality just isn’t essentially the perfect, neither is it the pure means of issues. In truth, it appears to me such a notion is a simplistic idea that may bear bitter fruit, like “a watch for a watch.”
I encounter so many well-meaning folks struggling to handle their lives, their households, their work, their passions, their leisure, to allow them to be “in steadiness.” But — no shock — this can be a uncommon, momentary exception, and almost not possible to even briefly obtain, a lot much less preserve.
However a harmonious give and take is the pure means. This may be true in our lives as nicely, if we might solely have the persistence and perspective.
Giving Thanks — Paying It Ahead
As I’ve realized, and also you studying this absolutely know, there are blessings that Life Herself, and that our family members have given us that we will by no means repay equally, beginning with the reward of our very being. This legacy is given, not simply from our moms and dads, however from hundreds of ancestors reaching again to the daybreak of Time.
So it’s proper and simply that we give thanks, and be pleased about all now we have been given. And we repay them by paying our thankfulness ahead by our deeds and the way we stay.
At the present time particularly, allow us to suppose extra soberly after which act with extra braveness on behalf of the generations to return.
For there has by no means, in all my seventy-one years, been a time so harmful and doubtlessly harmful. Not solely is our democracy on an existential razor’s edge, however each the human household and all the youngsters of our beloved Earth Herself are in determined peril, because of the local weather disaster.
So let this sabbat name to the hearts of every certainly one of us, to behave with fierce knowledge and passionate kindness.
As we’re gathering in all of the items and blessings of the Goddess on this holy day, allow us to bear in mind to present one thing again, to make an providing, and to precise our gratitude by doing good for others at each alternative.
It is a second to look again in any respect the issues and other people now we have to be glad about. It is usually a time to take inventory of ourselves, and see how a lot now we have grown and altered all through one more extraordinarily troublesome yr of profound change and problem.
Warmest Needs
To you and all of your beloveds, I want a splendid harvest of these qualities and blessings that nurture what’s finest and most valuable to you. Could you reap candy abundance and goodness of each type.
Could your rites be wealthy, magical, and divine. Could you by no means starvation. Could you by no means thirst.
