Mabon or the Autumn Equinox

Yesterday was the Equinox, called Mabon amongst the Wiccan & some pagans. It is a day of balance, the second of the three harvest festivals & often called the Witches Thanksgiving. The leaves dropping their leaves & going into their long winter sleep is a sign to start drawing inward ourselves, to change our focus from the wide world to the world of our home or to our own inner world. Now would be a good time to start that study course you have been putting off. As the light begins diminishing until Yule, now is the time to work on diminishing the things in your life that are not working for you. I'm working on diminishing my hair trigger annoyance & my shouting. I am also working on lessening my spending. Once I have those under control, I will work on increasing my patience & my income come Imbolc (Feb 2)

Little boys don't really get the personal working part of the holiday just yet. We instead just focus on nature. It's been warm here & the trees are still very green. They are having a hard time settling down for their winter sleep. We decided to read them bedtime stories for Mabon and Havoc suggested they needed warm blankets, so we mulched around them as well. We divided the yard into 4 areas and I sat and read in each area while Havoc went from tree to tree to make sure they could all hear me. Then we sprinkled mulch around them and told them good night. (for the spring equinox we go around with drums and things waking them up). Mayhem went inside to watch Cyberchase but Havoc and I went an gathered some black walnuts. I explained to him hold the walnut and make a wish for something he wanted to change about himself. We talked about things that could be changed and ways to phrase it and how to ask the Divine to help you make the change. Once we had our wished thought out we sat holding the nuts and asking Her/Him's aid & blessing. Then we buried the nuts. While they are changing underground waiting for spring to come to life, the changes we asked for are slowly changing us inside.

I would have liked to have a more Mabon-ish meal - Chicken & Parsnips braised in apple cider, but the little boys howled about that. They'd had odd or unfamiliar meals 2 nights in a row and wanted pizza. So we had chicken topped pesto pizza and apple juice for dinner.

I think I may make apple walnut bread today just to get it out of my system.