All you need to know about Mabon.
Mabon: A Gentle Shift into Autumn As summer fades, a quiet change stirs as the air softens, berries ripen and golden light filters through loosening leaves. Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, feels like both a harvest and a pause and prepare for the darker season ahead.
Mabon: Myths, Balance & the Feminine Meaning of Autumn Equinox
As summer ripens into its final fruits and the evenings draw in, there's a shift in the air that I always feel deep in my bones.
Autumn is arriving, not in one dramatic sweep, but in a slow, golden unfurling. The
hedgerows brim with berries, the trees begin to loosen their leaves, and the light takes on
that softer, honeyed glow.
For me, Mabon, or the Autumn Equinox, is one of the most precious festivals of the Wheel of the Year. It feels like both a culmination and a pause.
A moment to gather the gifts of the harvest, but also to drop into a quieter rhythm, to
breathe more deeply and to prepare for the descent into the darker half.
The Ancient Roots of Mabon
Although the name Mabon is relatively modern, this equinox threshold has been revered for millennia. Ancient monuments - Stonehenge, Callanish, Newgrange - show us that our ancestors were tracking the balance points of the year with astonishing precision.
The name Mabon comes from Mabon ap Modron, the "Divine Son of the Mother," drawn from the Welsh Mabinogion. His story is one of abduction and return, of being lost to darkness only to be reborn anew.
It resonates with the themes of the season: descent, gestation, the promise of return. I love that even though the myth may not have been originally tied to the Equinox, it carries the same symbolic resonance.
It's as if the story and the season call to one another across time. When I watch the trees shedding their leaves, or feel the nights drawing closer, I can sense that same rhythm: the going in, the letting go, the promise of something that will rise again in spring.
Harvest, Gratitude & the Turning Inward
The Autumn Equinox is often called the second harvest; the orchards heavy with apples, fields offering grains, the hedgerows rich with berries. It's a time of abundance, but also of noticing what's complete.
Every year at this time, I find myself reflecting not just on what I've grown in my garden, but on what I've grown in my life.
The harvest isn't just food; it's creative projects, relationships, self-discoveries, even the lessons I didn't expect. There's a real power in naming those things, in saying: this is what I have created, this is what I have gathered in.
But harvest also asks us to make choices. We can't take everything forward. Just like farmers choosing which crops to store and which fields to let rest, we too are invited to discern what will sustain us into the darker months and what needs to be composted.
Questions to reflect on at Mabon:
*What am I harvesting this year, in my work, relationships, or personal growth?
*What feels ripe and ready to celebrate?
*What needs to be left behind, offered back to the earth, or transformed?
About Trudi
Trudi is our resident womb priestess and a sacred cycle ceremonialist. As a shamanic practitioner, womb healer and wisdom keeper of the old ways, she guides us back to our natural cyclical connections.
Trudi contributes to Moon Phase Studios Pagan wheel email series with insights and rituals to connect us to each of the pagan festivals. You can sign up to receive these emails by entering your email in the box below.
You can contact Trudi via her website Wild Samsara or by following her accounts on
