It’s the 22nd August at the time of writing. I woke up this morning with the feel of the autumn air on my skin. I find it hard to explain but the air just feels different at different times of the year. I also caught the faint smell of autumn, autumn having a fragrance all of its own. Well, the calendar may say that it’s August but my senses tell me it is autumn.

I have always loved the autumn. I don’t do well in too much heat and I love the amazing colours that we see on the trees at this time of year. Autumn is so beautiful in Wales. Into autumn the Mari Lwyd awakens and there are few things in this world that make me happier than a Mari Lwyd. We have the slow and delicious build up to Samhain, we have pumpkin spice (yum) followed by the appearance of pretty lights into the build-up for Yule. The dark half of the year is wonderful.

This is also a very special time for many pagans in the northern hemisphere.  A time where we all gather together on social media to argue, debate, fall out and never speak to one another again, on the issue of whether the Autumn Equinox should be called Mabon. I see that this year those debates have started already. My advice to any new pagans is to stand back, buy some popcorn and watch.

It happens every year; I have given up wishing anyone a Blessed Mabon’s Day unless they say it first, as my words are sometimes met at best under sufferance or at worst outright aggression. There are strong emotions on both sides of the debate that leave me wondering where these emotions are coming from.

So why do some pagans call Mabon, Mabon?  It seems that in 1974 Aiden Kelly was devising a pagan calendar and decided to call the Autumn Equinox Mabon after the god we find in welsh mythology. This was published in a magazine and become enormously popular, so much so that it is seen in most pagan calendars today. Most objections to calling the season Mabon seem to centre around;

1. There is no historical evidence that a festival of Mabon was celebrated before the 1970’s but there is evidence for harvest festivals so it’s preferable to call the season “Harvest” or some similar name.

2. The God Mabon has no links to what we usually do at the Autumn Equinox. At the Autumn Equinox we usually celebrate the harvest and there is no evidence that this god was linked to the harvest in any way in mythology.

I do agree with both these points. Given my agreement why then would I work with Mabon at the Autumn Equinox?

In relation to point one, of course there was no festival called Mabon prior to Aiden Kelly devising one. To a chaos magician however this is not an issue. A chaos magician typically evaluates a magical practice in terms of how well it works for them. This means it does not matter if it’s an ancient practice of yore and yesteryear or whether it was made up yesterday in the pub. If it works for you it has value. This means that while I agree somewhat with point one, for me as a chaos magician, the point is irrelevant to my decision making.

Point two – well weird things tend to happen when one in living in a chaos mandala. Not only do you get strange synchronicities you also get strange incongruences, things that do not seem to go together coming together in one place. I think that if you’re working with the idea that the gods have agency, they exist and can make things happen, then I think Mabon himself has had a hand in this.

Being Welsh means coming from a country that’s had its culture and traditions systemically eroded; so for me it’s a wonderful thing to see that now that the name Mabon is known throughout the western pagan world. Deep in the depths of history Mabon may have played a large role in welsh paganism but was largely forgotten until he took his place on the pagan wheel of the year. I’m sure Aiden Kelly had no idea how much this would catch on when he first published his calendar but through him this God, who does not take up much floor space in the Mabinogi, has pagans all over the world saying his name every September. Not all of them will understand or know his mythology and there may be incorrect pronunciations of his name but it’s being said. The God Mabon has this season now, he rose from relative obscurity to become one of the main deities associated with the wheel of the year and I would not seek to try and take that from him.

Among all of the debates and some of the heated arguments that I see on social media, I also see at this time of year, people discussing Mabon. People are talking about his mythology; people are writing blogs and making videos to educate the world about this God who is closely connected to Wales. People are making videos to illustrate how to pronounce Mabon.  It’s at this season where welsh mythology takes a centre stage and after years of cultural suppression to me this is awesome. This means that there is a real opportunity here, what started out as misappropriation has a chance to become a source of genuine knowledge and discovery. I would prefer to take the win on this one.

Due to Mabon having no associations with the Harvest I tend to celebrate the Harvest and work with Mabon as two separate ritual workings but both are done around mid-September. Harvest celebrations are of course a time for gratitude and the start of the forward planning for next year’s harvest, as I like to be organized and plan in advance.

I work with Mabon as a God of Freedom due to his long imprisonment and eventual liberation. I light a candle for Mabon and contemplate his story; I light a second candle and contemplate people around the world who have had their freedoms taken from them, due to slavery, injustice or abuse. I then light a further candle for myself and contemplate my own freedoms. Finally I light a fourth candle to ask Mabon to send the healing waters upon us so that we may be healed of the injustices that infringe on our freedoms.

So for me the Harvest Festival and Mabon’s Day are two different events that run concurrently along with any work that one wants to do in relation to balance and justice which works well at the equinoxes.

Have a fantastic Autumn.