Mabon 2025

Mabon celebrates the autumn equinox, a time when daylight and darkness will stand in balance, after which our days will grow darker and colder as our half of the Earth moves further from the Sun. The date for equinoxes can be tricky to gauge, since they can occur at different times in different places in the world. The 2025 Autumn Equinox on the East Coast, USA, officially lands on September 22nd. Haven Song will be celebrating on the 20th, the prior Saturday.

For cultures dependent on agriculture, such as the ancient Celts, the lunar cycles guided planting and harvesting seasons. While those of us in Haven Song and our greater community are not personally, directly, affected by the seasons in the same ways as the ancient Celts, we use the Sabbats as a space to remember and connect to our ancestors and the communities that came before us.

As such, Mabon is celebrated as the second harvest on our Wheel and is commonly called "Pagan Thanksgiving," with a practice of centering food and its importance in our lives and communities. It is also a time that we acknowledge the changing of the seasons, pulling our attention from the end of Summer to the beginning of Autumn and promise of Winter. Finally, we have a practice of Calling the Pagans Home, a Work designed to send out energy to call anyone who resonates with this spirituality to come and find their home, whether with a Haven Song teacher or another group.

Haven Song will be asking Hestia and Hermes this year to oversee our celebration. Hestia is the Greek Goddess of hearth and home. She is the Goddess of the Sacrificial Flame, and as such She receives a portion of every sacrifice made in honor of the Gods, and is associated with communal feasts (such as Pagan Thanksgiving!). We look to Her for inspiration in looking after our own homes and hearths in preparation for the colder months to come.

Hermes is the winged herald and messenger of the Greek Gods, the only Olympian capable of crossing the border between the living and the dead as a psychopomp (literally, "guide of souls"). We look to Him for aid in Calling the Pagans Home.

The next article will talk about Mabon the God and how He became associated with this modern Sabbat!

Blessed Be!

By Acorn, 1°