Mabon--The Pagan Thanksgiving

It's Mabon time-the time of the autumnal equinox-a time when light and dark hang in perfect balance. In the pagan and Wiccan traditions, Mabon is a time of thanksgiving, when Wiccans and pagans come together to celebrate the second harvest.

Wiccan and pagan tradition boast three harvest festivals: the first is called Lammas which takes place in August; Mabon which takes place on the autumnal equinox, and Samhain (pronounced sow when) which is celebrated on October 31, 2008. The ancients celebrated Mabon with fires, festivals and banquets featuring the fruits, grains, and vegetables of the harvest. They reviewed the growing season, examining their successes and failures and making plans for the next planting season.

Modern Wiccans and pagans celebrate Mabon in much the same ways. They stop their hectic lives to reflect on the harvest. Not just the physical harvest of fruit, grain, and vegetables, but the intangible harvests of their spiritual, psychological, and financial lives. Their reflection centers on the crops that they have sown this season in their personal, family, and community fields. What crops were successful? Which crops did not produce as anticipated?

Celebratory rituals for Mabon can be elaborate or simple. Most focus on an activity that will symbolize retaining the successes they wish to carry forward into another year and releasing the negative or failures back into the earth.

One set of activities that often appear in Mabon rituals is to give each participant a bulb, a piece of paper, and a pencil. During a guided meditation each participant infuses the bulb with the joys and successes of this planting season. Joys and successes that they will plant in the form of their bulb in their home garden. Also during this meditation they will write down all the things that did not go well during this season. After the meditation is over, each participant moves to the cauldron or sacred fire and releases their regrets into the fire where they are transformed into ash and smoke.

Once the ritual is finished the celebration continues with drumming and song and a Thanksgiving-like feast. This year Mabon occurs on September 22, 2008. Use the weeks leading up to Mabon to reflect on all this year has brought. What will you carry forward?

What will you release?