A Time of Balance
“Leaves fall,
the days grow cold.
The Goddess pulls her mantle of Earth around Her
as You, O Great Sun God, sail toward the West
to the land of eternal enchantment,
wrapped in the coolness of night.
Fruits ripen,
seeds drip,
the hours of day and night are balanced.”
- Mabon Sabbat and Lore
The Autumnal Equinox (Mabon, Harvest Home) Celebration: Bibliography, Links, Resources, Lore, Quotes, Poems
In Red Bluff, California, enjoying a Mediterranean climate, all our crops are irrigated. The reservoirs, the lakes, the rivers, the streams, the dams, the ponds, the aqueducts, the wells, the pipes, and the irrigation ditches all directly help in some way to keep all the plants, crops, animals, and mankind alive. In our home sacred circle, Mabon is associated with due West, facing the great Pacific Ocean, symbolized by the blue pole/stile and the blue cauldron and well pot. Water is precious to us, to All. Without the wells we could not survive.
We now know that the end of the long period of summer sunshine and heat, with little or no rain, is coming to an end. The cooler days ahead will bring rain again soon. The old dry half of the year is nearly done, and the wet half will begin soon. We have two seasons: the cool wet season of November through April, and the hot dry season from May through October. The end of the Dry Year is celebrated on the Autumnal Equinox, Mabon (late September); and, the beginning of the Wet Year is Samhain (Halloween), on October 31st. Samhain is both the end and beginning, at the edge of the many worlds, past and present, a borderline time, a doorway into the Other Realms. In our home sacred circle, the opening to the inner grove is between the West pole (Mabon, Alban Elfed) and the North-West pole (Sahmain, Halloween).