Merry Mabon, happy Autumnal Equinox!

(future Mabon dates: September 22, 2012; September 22, 2013; September 23, 2014)

The Autumn equinox signals the beginning of Fall. It is the point where there is exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness at the equator. If you live anywhere else, however, you will see a little bit more or a little bit less than 12 hours of daylight. The daylight hours are dwindling and will continue to do so until we reach the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the start of winter.

In ancient times, the Autumn Equinox was cause for a variety of pagan festivals, among them the celebration of the birth of Mabon.

It is also a time to celebrate with a variety of Fall and Harvest Festivals. People enjoy fall festivals as they sense the closure of a great summer season and the coming of a long winter. The fall festivals are the last of the outdoor events until spring. Just getting there is half the fun as you drive through hills and forests ablaze in fall color. So, get out and enjoy them.

More info, nabbed from www.earthwitchery.com:

Autumn Equinox, around September 21, is the
time of the descent of the Goddess into the
Underworld. With her departure, we see the
decline of nature and the coming of winter.
This is a classic, ancient mythos, seen the
Sumerian myth of Inanna and in the ancient
Greek and Roman legends of Demeter and
Persephone.

In September, we also bid farewell to the
Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. He is
the Green Man, seen as the cycle of nature in
the plant kingdom. He is harvested and his
seeds are planted into the Earth so that life
may continue and be more abundant.

Mabon ("Great Son") is a Welsh god. He was a
great hunter with a swift horse and a wonderful
hound. He may have been a mythologized actual
leader. He was stolen from his mother, Modron
(Great Mother),when he was three nights old,
but was eventually rescued by King Arthur
(other legends say he was rescued by the
Blackbird, the Stag, the Owl, the Eagle, and
the Salmon). All along, however, Mabon has
been dwelling, a happy captive, in Modron's
magickal Otherworld -- Madron's womb. Only in
this way can he be reborn. Mabon's light has
been drawn into the Earth, gathering strength
and wisdom enough to become a new seed. In
this sense, Mabon is the masculine counterpart
of Persephone -- the male fertilizing principle
seasonally withdrawn. Modron corresponds with
Demeter.

From the moment of the September Equinox, the
Sun's strength diminishes, until the moment of
Winter Solstice in December, when the Sun grows
stronger and the days once again become longer
than the nights.

Symbols celebrating the season include various
types of gourd and melons. Stalk can be tied
together symbolizing the Harvest Lord and then
set in a circle of gourds. A besom can be
constructed to symbolize the polarity of male
and female. The Harvest Lord is often
symbolized by a straw man, whose sacrificial
body is burned and its ashes scattered upon the
earth. The Harvest Queen, or Kern Baby, is made
from the last sheaf of the harvest and bundled
by the reapers who proclaim, "We have the Kern!"
The sheaf is dressed in a white frock decorated
with colorful ribbons depicting spring, and then
hung upon a pole (a phallic fertility symbol).
In Scotland, the last sheaf of harvest is called
the Maiden, and must be cut by the youngest
female in attendance.


Altar Dressings
* candles should be brown or cinnamon.
* decorate circle with autumn flowers,
acorns, gourds, corn sheaves and fall
leaves.


Mabon Magical Herbs

Rue, yarrow, rosemary, marigold, sage, walnut
leaves and husks, mistletoe, saffron, chamomile,
almond leaves, passionflower, frankincense,
rose hips, bittersweet, sunflower, wheat, oak
leaves, dried apple or apple seeds.


Incense

Pine, sage, sweetgrass or myrhh. You can also mix
marigold, passionflower, and fern, using
frankincense or myrhh as a resin for Mabon incense


Mabon Magickal Stones

During Mabon, stones ruled by the Sun will help
bring the Sun's energy to you.clear quartz,
amber, peridot, diamond, gold, citrine, yellow
topaz, cat's-eye, adventurine.

Mabon is a good time to cast spells of balance
and harmony. It's also a time of change.
Protection, wealth and prosperity spells are
appropriate as well.


Holiday Fare

Mabon is the Witch's Thanksgiving, a time to
appreciate and give thanks to the Goddess for
her bounty and to share in the joys of the
harvest. Fall fruits, squash, gourds, pumpkins,
grains, nut breads, vegetables.

A magickal Mabon beverage: hot apple cider.
Apple rules the heart, cider alone is a self-
love potion. By spicing it with cinnamon, ruled
by Jupiter and the Sun, we are in essence,
ingesting the sunlight.

Sample menu #1: Mabon Wine Moon Cider, Roast
Chicken Rubbed with Sage, Basil, and Thyme,
Acorn Squash made with Sweet Butter, Cinnamon
and Honey, and Apple Bread.

Sample menu #2: Wine from the god and beans and
squashes from the goddess. A hearty multi-bean
soup with smoked meats (optional), including
such as cut-up mild sausage like mild Italian
or Polish.

Mabon Wine Moon Cider

4 cups apple cider 1/2 tsp. whole cloves
4 cups grape juice additional cinnamon sticks
2 cinnamon sticks for cups, 6 inches long
1 tsp allspice

In a 4-quart saucepan, heat cider and grape
juice. Add cinnamon, allspice and cloves.
Bring just to boiling. Lower heat and simmer
for 5 minutes.

Serve with ladle from a cauldron. Makes 8 cups.

Mabon Activities

* Make grapevine wreaths using dried bitter-
sweet herb for protection. Use ribbons of
gold and yellow to bring in the energy of the
Sun, and decorate with sprigs of dried yarrow
or cinnamon sticks.

* Make a Magickal Horn of Plenty.

* Make Magickal Scented Pinecones.

* Make a protection charm of hazelnuts
(filberts) strung on red thread.

* Collect milkweed pods to decorate at Yuletide
and attract the faeries.

* Call upon the elementals and honor them for
their help with (N-earth) the home and
finances, (E-air) school and knowledge,
(S-fire) careers and accomplishments,
(W-water) emotional balance and fruitful
relationships.

* Make a witch's broom: Tie dried corn husks or
herbs (broom, cedar, fennel, lavender,
peppermint, rosemary) around a strong,
relatively straight branch of your choice.

* Make magic Apple Dolls: Apples are sacred
symbols of the witch. Our holy land, Avalon,
means Apple-land or Island of Apples. Slice
an apple through the midsection and its seeds
reveal the sacred shape of the pentacle.
You will need two large apples, one for Mabon
and one for Modron, 2 pencils and 2 dowels
about 12 inches long, a paring knife, a glass
or bowl of water to wash your fingers, a plate,
and a towel to wipe your hands. Peel and core
the apples. Carve a face in the apples. Place
apples on a dowel and stand them in a jar
to dry (start now). Then charge in a magick
circle. After 2 or 3 weeks, they should look
like shrunken heads. Make them into dolls. Use
wheat, dried herbs or doll's hair for hair.
Dress them in tiny robes and bring them into
the circle, asking god/dess to charge them with
their light.

Hang these Mabon and Madron heads on a Witch's
cord or a Mabon wreath.

From "Celebrate the Earth" by Laurie Cabot,
Green Witchcraft by Ann Moura, and The Witches' God
by Janet and Stewart Farrar.

"There's a horror in my head"

And, keeping true indeed to the lyrics from Curve's alluring melody "Horror Head", there's long been a horror in my head. One could be so bold as to say the horror's also in my aspect and my eye, but at that point we take an unseemly detour into pretentiousness land. >;-)

The earliest memory of my gravitation toward the spooky was when I was 5, and had a child's unswerving inkling that any humanoid dolls or store mannequins were sentient and desired my doom in the slowest, most tortuous of ways. I had many terrifying realistic dreams on this subject, and they didn't stop until I turned 7. At which time, I dreamed that in reality all that the dolls had desired to do was trim my toenails with their teeth, not to frighten or harm me *chuckles*.

At 7, somehow I was convinced a sarcophagus was in our attic, above my bed. I also dreamed, reoccurring, that I hovered a foot above the floor and floated throughout the house on a night watch, a reassuring all's clear routine. Before kindergarten, I was convinced the neighbor's shrub covered the gateway to a subterranean netherworld. I had to steel myself and speed past on my bright yellow Bigwheel when I was playing outside, which was more often than not. I was relieved to pass the brush unmolested, yet there was the smallest yearning to have my theory confirmed, to once have some wart-riddled mole man or stereotypical-looking devil leap out and attempt to abscond with me as I sped from his grasp. Around 7 is when I rifled through dad's college copy of The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (which, to my surprise and delight, is available free in PDF format at: http://0775776.student.wdka.nl/herothousandfaces.pdf). He explained the philosophical gist of in an accessible manner. The pictures, though... paleolithic line art, ancient figurines, antique paintings of fanciful foreign beings and deities. Absorbing such expanded my brain and broadened my already hyperactive imagination. In particular the Shaman of Trois Freres Cave line art.

Once in school, I focused on studying the history of witchcraft. I'm really not sure what prodded me in that direction, but my interest in that same subject hasn't diminished after all this time. I found a great love in short horror stories, most of which seem innocent now, but at the time struck me as edgy. Horror films, though, terrified me to the point of hysteria, and I avoided them like the plague. When I was 8, 9, 10, even 11, I was made to quake in my shoes passing through the hallways to the movie theaters in Steamboat Springs, which were plastered with stills and promotional flats from a myriad of films. The ones for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night Of The Living Dead, even Jaws unsettled me and I always ran past them. When I turned 12, my parents were watching the premiere of the miniseries of Stephen King's Salem's Lot on TV. I had been in bed, and when I got up to pee I wandered over to peer at the screen. The scene, of a frightful-looking Mr. Barlow, haunted me for years. It disturbed me so grievously for the next few days, I'd wet the bed rather than risk an encounter with the dreadful nosferatu on the way to the bathroom. After nearly a week of such, well, childish behavior, it dawned on me that a vampire couldn't bite my neck if I were a werewolf. Why? Because, according to my unerring 12 year old logic, a werewolf's neck ruff is too thick for a vampire's teeth to seek purchase. As this realization dawned on me, I suppose one could say I began channeling my inner werewolf. After that fateful shift in mindset, so to speak, I spiraled into my obsession with werewolves. Werewolf movies, werewolf comic books, werewolf photos and art, werewolf tomes (both fiction and non-fiction.) I was officially bitten by the lycanthropy bug and haven't looked back once. At 16 I injected more philosophical, metaphorical, and spiritual influences into it, thus understanding my obsession in a more sane light. Sanity, being subjective in many ways, stands on shaky ground at best. I recant sanity and cloak myself snugly in harmless eccentricity, then. >;-)

Also at 16, I began a strange dance with horror movies. Werewolf and monster movies weren't horror movies to me--they were almost invigorating. No, to me horror films involved human, or humanoid, killers.They were formulaic, poorly acted, intensely violent, and scared me uncomfortably. Oddly, I dared myself to stomach them--or to see how long I could watch without stumble-running downstairs to my bedroom to hide. At the time, reliant on a wheelchair when not in the house, and going through medical tests galore to figure out the nature of my neuromuscular disease, subjecting myself to gory horror films and subsequently freaking out was a handy distraction on my hind-brain's part.

After the need to be scared/distracted by the horror genre passed, it morphed into a genuine amusement and interest on my part. Now the genre, strangely enough, offers me comfort. Perhaps the films offer me a sense of control. My preference is for witty horror, horror with a sense of humor, and the fancifully macabre. The unintentionally funny or groan-worthy also has it's place. Horror or dark fantasy books offer escape, intensity, and release; at least the ones I voraciously devour.

Werewolves, my obsession. Monsters, my friends. The rest of the horror genre, a mixed bag of fun.

Without any of it? I can't even fathom that.

Next up? Those September 3rd pics!