Mabon: Bringing the Harvest Home

In older times, the harvest was celebrated with feasts and festivals. Once the crops were mostly in people knew their hard work had paid off. We are spoiled in this modern era to a degree. We no longer need to depend on what we personally can grow to feed us and our families during the winter. If we run out of something, there is a grocery store nearby that we can go to to buy more food (or just get it delivered to our door). A bad year no longer means that we will starve before the next harvest. For good or bad, we have become separated how our food is made and where it comes from. As pagans and spiritual people, we try our best to reconnect to the cycles of nature and Mabon is a time to honor the origin and bounty of the food we eat.

Mabon is one of the Eight Wiccan Sabbats on the Wheel of the Year. It falls every year on the Autumnal Equinox or the point when the hours of daylight and nighttime are equal in the Autumn. This usually occurs between September 20-23. The holiday dates back to the Harvest feasts in Europe around this time of year in the distant past. It was traditionally a time to give thanks for the bountiful harvests. This was the time in Ancient Greece that the Eleusinian Mysteries were held. The Eleusinian Mysteries centered around the myth of Demeter (the Goddess of the Grain and Harvest) and her daughter Persephone who leaves her mother to go live with her husband, Hades.

This is the Pagan Thanksgiving festival. Mabon is the second of three harvest festivals within the Wiccan Calendar. The name Mabon was from a Welsh myth involving a god named Mabon. The holiday took on that name around the year 1974 when American witch, Aidan Kelly coined the name for the Sabbat. Kelly was looking for a Celtic equivalent to the myth of Persephone and discovered the myth of Mabon ap Modron (Divine Son of the Divine Mother). The god was stolen from his mother’s side when he was just 3 days old and he then spent years imprisoned within the walls of a castle in Caerloyw. This story is told in the Mabignogi. For whatever reason, Kelly decided that this god’s name should be the name of the holiday at the Autumn Equinox. Mabon, according to writer Mhara Starling, has nothing to do with the autumn or the holiday.

The holiday is a reflection of the old harvest fairs and festivals celebrated throughout Europe this time of year. Many of the pre-Christian traditions for the season carried over into the Christian Church as days of thanks and feasts of harvest home. Even as a child, the Lutheran church I attended, the Last Sunday Service in September was the Harvest Home Service. The Church would be decorated with brightly colored leaves and cornucopias filled with apples and little pumpkins. The kids in the Sunday School classes were given apples to eat for a snack and everything was about being thankful.

So how can a modern pagan or witch celebrate Mabon. There are a lot of things that can be done today from formal rituals focused on giving thanks to taking a walk in the woods to look at the leaves changing colors. Ritual wise, you can focus your ritual on giving thanks and setting goals for the coming year. Get some friends together for a day of apple picking and then bake apple pies. Fall clean and bless your house. Some artsy witches like to go foraging for dried seed pods and grasses to use later to make arrangements, crowns, and wreaths. One of my favorite things to do is hold a feast outdoors, go for a nature walk, and end the day with a bonfire and s’mores. For all you solitary witches out there, treat yourself to a pumpkin spice latte and journal about what you are grateful for. Also, check your area for Apple festivals, hay rides, farmer’s markets, and pumpkin patches you can visit. Mabon is a great time to be outdoors enjoying the day because the weather will soon be turning cold. Also, depending on what area you live in, many Pagan Pride events are held around this time of year.