Welcome to Mabon

There is a hush that comes with this season, a softening of the world into gold and ember. As Mabon arrives, the trees offer up their sweetness; ripe berries, fat fruit, the last sun-warmed vegetables of the year. The air carries a new clarity: the scent of leaf-litter, the cool bite at the throat, the promise of rest. The landscape turns its face toward a beautiful, whispered dying and in that letting go, the earth reveals her richest colours.

Autumn teaches us the gentle art of release. In the thinning light, trees loosen their hold and drop what no longer serves them. Seeds find themselves cradled into the dark ground, tucked away to dream until spring. Everything in Nature is preparing: animals nesting, people gathering and preserving, communities sharing the harvest and giving thanks for what sustained them through the months of light.

In this season we remember what our foremothers knew, Mabon is a time of balance. Day and night stand in even measure. We hold gratitude and grief together: praise for what we have brought to fruition, and soft mourning for what remains unfinished or must be surrendered. To be human is to carry both. To honour the harvest is to honour both the fullness of our accomplishment and the tender ache of letting go.

Standing Stones

There is power in standing in that balance. When we witness our own harvest; the projects we completed, the love we tended, the small daily acts of courage, we can bow to ourselves in gratitude. When we name our regrets or unmet desires, we do not shame them away; we place them into the soil and trust that their wisdom will feed what comes next. This is resilience: the courage to hold joy and sorrow on the same palm.

A Gentle Practice for Mabon

• Find a quiet place with a small bowl, a piece of paper and a pen.

• On one side of the paper write what you are grateful for this season.

• On the other side write what you are ready to release.

• Fold the paper and offer it to the earth (bury it in a pot or tuck it beneath a tree), or keep it on your altar as a promise to return.

  
  

Let this be your counsel for the coming weeks: move gently, celebrate what was gathered, and give your sorrows the honour of being seen. The wheel turns, and in giving thanks and releasing with intention, you plant the seeds for next year’s blossoming.

Blessed Mabon, sister. May your hands be full of warmth and your heart held in Grandmother Wisdom’s steady embrace.

With love and seasoned faith,

Wren

Art by Dasha Bobkova

Grandmother Wisdom:

Sweet daughter, what you have achieved! I weep tears of gratitude at your efforts and your sacrifice. I hold your wise activity tenderly and with great love. Take time, dear one, to feel the gratitude for your bounty, brought through by your own efforts. You have done so well. Please know child, that any pangs of regret, sadness of having to let go, can be given to me. They are sacred treasures within this cycle, the water of your tears like the waters of my body, filled with nourishment and sustenance for life, also necessary in the weave and the flow. Stand in your power as you establish both joy for the gifts and sorrow for the losses. You are a whole and powerful woman, my daughter. I am with you each step on this sacred journey.