{"id":376,"date":"2009-09-20T13:56:19","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T13:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/mabon-the-fall-equinox.html"},"modified":"2009-09-20T13:56:19","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T13:56:19","slug":"mabon-the-fall-equinox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/mabon-the-fall-equinox.html","title":{"rendered":"Mabon – The Fall Equinox"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fall Equinox has arrived, and with it the final Wiccan
\nSabbat celebrating the harvest, the reaping of the riches produced throughout
\nthe year.  <\/span>Like the Spring Equinox,
\nMabon is a time of balance, but balance with a different flavor.  <\/span>In the wheel of the Year the powers of
\nlife stand in balance with the powers of death. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nIn many parts of the country our gardens are still producing
\nabundantly, but if you live in a temperate zone with a real winter, look
\nclosely.  <\/span>Signs of declining vigor
\nand abundance are everywhere. 
\n<\/span>Plants are showing wear and tear, their growth not as exuberant as it
\nwas not long ago.  <\/span>Many flowers are
\nlong gone, having wilted, their centers turned to seeds.  <\/span>Other plants often just look
\nexhausted.  <\/span>The squash are heavy
\nwith their fruits, but often their leaves are past their peak.  <\/span>In many places, here and there touches
\nof color are appearing on particularly sensitive trees.<\/p>\n

The times are still good in terms of the harvest –
\nespecially the tomatoes and peppers and corn – but in most places the harvest
\nis starting to wind down.  <\/span>By the
\nend of the month it will be obvious. 
\n<\/span>Mabon celebrates and honors the final harvest.<\/p>\n

Here in Sonoma County where the cycles of our seasons dance
\nto different steps than to the East, traditional symbols still fit, though they
\nmanifest differently. September is often our hottest month, life-giving rain is
\na distant memory and future promise, though a freak storm sneaked through last
\nweek.  <\/span>But the water it dropped
\nwill soon be baked out of the earth. 
\n<\/span>With the aid of human-supplied water our farmers’ market is at its
\nheight in productivity and beauty. 
\n<\/span>But when we look into the wild world, the declining energies are very
\nmuch to be seen.  <\/span>The growing
\nseason is over.<\/p>\n

More importantly than the exact agricultural line up between
\nSabbat and season is what Mabon honors: the last abundance of life before it
\npasses into death.  <\/span>It is a time of
\nbalance, but the movement is now from life to death.  <\/span>Mabon honors stock-taking more than promise-making.  <\/span>Promises and plans were made – how well
\nhave they been kept?<\/p>\n

In societies which honored wisdom as well a knowledge, the
\nelders were always accorded positions of respect.  <\/span>They might not have the vigor of younger people, but they
\nhad accumulated the years of experience to be better able to judge what to do
\nwith their vigor.  <\/span>They had the
\nbiggest contexts within which to make their judgments.<\/p>\n

Our youthful oriented (though hardly youth-honoring) culture honors knowledge and
\ntechnique, and these skills are more easily acquired when young.  <\/span>I am far from denigrating either youth
\nor the unique strengths that come with it.  <\/span>But a society in balance, a society unlike ours, also honors
\nexperience, and the wisdom accumulated by that experience.  <\/span>That even our conservatives have
\nrespect for neither genuine tradition nor the lessons of the past says volumes
\nabout this lack of balance.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why Mabon is not one<\/strike> given the emphasis we give to many other Sabbats.<\/p>\n

Mabon is the Sabbat to honor in particular the fruits of a
\nlifetime, of a season, of the turning of a wheel.  <\/span>It is easy to feel regrets over possibilities not attained, but there are always possibilities not attained.  More important, like the harvests around us, what are the possibilities we have attained?  This is the time to honor those.  Our next Sabbat will have quite a different tenor.<\/p>\n

What have you achieved over the past year?  <\/span>How can you honor it?  <\/span>If you are on the downhill side of
\nlife, with fewer years ahead than behind, this is especially the time to honor
\nthe wisdom you’ve gained, the different perspectives you can bring to problems
\ncompared to when you were young. 
\n<\/span>For these are the genuine riches you, and all of us, will take with us
\nwhen our time of passing comes.  <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fall Equinox has arrived, and with it the final Wiccan Sabbat celebrating the harvest, the reaping of the riches produced throughout the year.  Like the Spring Equinox, Mabon is a time of balance, but balance with a different flavor.  In the wheel of the Year the powers of life stand in balance with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-holidays-and-sabbats","category-pagan-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nMabon - The Fall Equinox - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/mabon-the-fall-equinox.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mabon - 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