North-September 21
South-March 21
The Fall Equinox, or Mabon, is celebrated as the final harvest of the season. This holiday was pivotal in ancient times, since a good final harvest was crucial to surviving the winter months ahead. This is the time of year where we truly reap what we have sown and we prepare for the long winter that lays before us. The day and night are again equal in time and the God has traveled at last to His place of rest. Now, He has sacrificed the last of Himself to provide us with a final harvest of food before the winter begins. Celebrants gather to mark the turning of the wheel and to give thanks for the ultimate sacrifice of The God, recognizing that He will be reborn at Yule. This holiday has been called “The Witches’ Thanksgiving” and is a time for feasting together with family and friends. This is also the time to welcome the season of the Crone. Kore’ goes to the Underworld to learn the secrets of the Crone (or in some stories she is kidnapped by Hades), and the earth is bare as Her mother, Demeter, mourns Her loss. But although the winter is before us, we know that the wheel will turn again, life will be reborn, and our blessings are bountiful.
Mabon is the second of the three celebrations of the Harvest Festival, the harvest of fruit and wine. The powers of light and darkness are now in balance. This is a time to celebrate blessings of the year. The Goddess is mature now and manifests her bountiful mother aspect. The Underworld Goddess returns. The Year Goddess approaches her Crone time now, as the nights lengthen and the days shorten. We feel her bite, the crispness of the air, the brightness of the moon.
Demeter yields her daughter to the underworld. Persephone has descended to the land of Hecate and the dead, and Demeter in despair halts all new growth until her return. The God, who was Lord of the Greenwood in the Summer, and the Corn King at Lughnasadh, now dances his last dance upon the Earth, as Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine, Music and Dance, before making his descent to the underworld to take up his role as Dread Lord of Shadows. The God’s presence is shadowy. His face is turned towards the Underworld, yet He is heard in each sign of the wind and glimpsed in the shades of early dusk. He leads us to the hidden, inward places of our souls and invites us to explore.
The leaves falling from the trees and rotting into the Earth are a reflection of the Horned God’s journey from the Greenwood to the Underworld, deep into the womb of the Mother, here He will reside until He begins to emerge with the new green shoots in the Spring. The Autumn Equinox marks the completion of the harvest, and thanks giving, with the emphasis on the future return of that abundance.
This is the time for both mourning and joy, as we face the darkness and look back over the year we have just lived. For many witches this begins the most powerful time of the year – the dark time when the sun’s light recedes to give more focus to the moon and the deep self of the female principle. As Persephone must separate from the world and her Mother for a time for teachings with Hecate, so must each of us undergo this mystery in our lives. Rituals of grieving are appropriate now as well as acknowledging the rebirth and joy to follow. It is a time when the Goddess must say farewell to her Consort.
The separation between mother and daughter, and that between lovers is a dominate theme of this time. We are in deep need of rituals that help us through these transitions. This night, when the hours of light and the hours of darkness are equal is a night to honor the balance of the Goddess and the God and the balance of matter and spirit because the Craft religion celebrates not only spiritual life of the next world, but also the physical life of this world.
Colours: Brown, Green, Russet ,Orange and Yellow
Herbes: Benzoin, honeysuckle, marigold, myrrh, oak leaves, pine, roses, sage.
Foods: Pomegranates, Potatoes, Carrots, Breads, Apples, Onions, Garlic
Deities: Herne, Cernunnos, Ishtar, Isis, Demeter, Persephone, Rhiannon.
Symbols: Cornucopia, autumn leaves, pine cones, gourds, corn cobs, mushrooms, apples.
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Witch's Well 