Three Meanings of Mabon

The Wheel of the Year
In the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, Mabon is the second of three harvest festivals. It occurs on the autumnal equinox (September 22, 2014), sandwiched between Lammas/Lughnasadh and Samhain. The festival name does not appear to have an historical etymology. Rather, Aidan Kelly, a cofounder of the Covenant of the Goddess, named the sabbat after Mabon, the Welsh God, around 1970. Mabon marks the first day of autumn. It is a time to feast, rejoice over the grain harvest, and thank the earth for her bounty. With day and night in complete balance, Mabon is also a time for:

• Reflection. Mabon is perfectly balanced between the past and the future. Is your life in balance? What have you sown? What have you reaped?
• Justice. In the tarot, Mabon is represented by the Justice card. The eleventh major arcana card, Justice marks the halfway point in the Fool’s Journey. In some decks it is called the Web, reminding us that all things are connected. Our actions have repercussions throughout the Web of Life.

• Release. The days shorten after Mabon. In the life cycle of the God and Goddess, Mabon denotes the point when the Sun God weakens and prepares for his death at Samhain. The Goddess is in her second trimester of pregnancy.

The Oak and Holly King

Like the God and Goddess, the Oak King and Holly King experience seasonal cycles of light and darkness, and of life, death, and rebirth. Each king rules for half the year. At Mabon, the Holly King’s strength surpasses the Oak King’s. His power will peak at Midwinter.

Mabon ap Madron

Mabon ap Madron means “divine son of the divine mother.” In 2013 I journeyed through Wales to discover the goddess in the landscape. The Mabinogion, a thirteenth century tome of ancient Welsh tales, was my literary map. The Mabinogion captures a heroic age when King Arthur, giants, and Celtic gods and goddesses populated the land. Like the Wiccan Wheel of the Year and the battle between the Holly King and Oak King, segments of the Mabinogion focus on “the advent or absence of [a] regenerative force. Summer is often personified by a young hero who defeats an older, feebler opponent.”¹

Mabon ap Madron appears in different Divine Son guises throughout the Mabinogion. Born at Beltaine, Mabon later performed impossible feats to prove his manhood, win the hand of the maiden, and attain kingship. In the essay “Mabon ap Modron, the story of the Divine Son” (http://caeraustralis.com.au/mabonapmodron.htm), Caer Australis asserts that the Divine Son “is a theme of the continuation of the Divine lineage, with kingship passing matrilineally through the tripartite Goddess, at the time of rebirth in the Celtic world - the start of Summer. Here we find the true celebration of Mabon - far from the autumn equinox as suggested by some - and with his birth, the power of rebirth provided by the Divine Mother, the Goddess of the Celts.”

Choose your Mabon magic from the themes outlined above. Here are two suggestions:

Mabon Magic

• Mabon Altar

Decorate your altar with fall foliage and colors. Include the Justice card from the tarot, or draw a scale. Add marigolds, sunflowers, and/or roses. For stones, amber, citrine, and/or tiger-eye. Acorns, apples, and Indian corn can be placed on the altar then later left outdoors for the local wildlife. Include a pomegranate in honor of the maiden goddess Persephone. The full moon closest to Mabon is associated with the story of Persephone, a maiden goddess who was kidnapped by Hades and later bound to stay in the underworld for six months out of the year because she ate three pomegranate seeds.

• Candle Magic to promote Harmony and Balance

You will need one white and one black candle of equal size, olive oil, a small bowl or plate for the oil, paper towels, a mortar and pestle, pomegranate seeds or juice, fresh or dried gardenia petals, and/or lavender blossoms.

Add flowers and crushed pomegranate seeds (with juice) to a small amount of oil. Rub the mixture onto the candles working from the ends to the center. As you anoint the candles, envision harmony. Picture whatever you must discard or diminish as you rub the mixture onto the black candle. Imagine what needs to increase as you anoint the white candle. Then burn both candles at the same time, starting when you have enough time for them to completely burn down.

Watch my blog for facts and magic regarding the upcoming Harvest Moon.

Spell For Sophia by Ariella Moon
Book #4, The Teen Wytche Saga
Coming November 2014
From Astraea Press

The Mabinogion can be found at http://www.amazon.com/The-Mabinogion

©2014 Ariella Moon

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¹ Anonymous. The Mabinogion. Trans. Jeffrey Gantz. New York: Dorset Press, 1976.