All you need to know about Mabon.

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.

Wheel of the Year print and accompanying booklet by Moon Phase Studios.

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?

The Feminine Spiral of Balance

The Equinox is a moment of balance; equal day and night, light and dark.
But balance isn’t static, and I’ve found that living in tune with the feminine teaches us that it’s more like a spiral than a straight line.

This balance isn’t about perfection. We’re never meant to live only in the light, or only in the shadow. Both are necessary, both are sacred. At Mabon, we are invited to honour the
threshold between the two.

For me, this is deeply embodied. I feel it in my womb space, in the softening of my body’s
rhythms, in the way my energy naturally begins to draw inward as autumn arrives. The trees show us how to let go without fear, to release what is no longer needed. And in that release, there is beauty.

This season whispers: you don’t have to grip so tightly.

The Element of Air: Breath, Release, Transformation

Mabon is a festival rich with elemental associations, but I always feel the presence of Air
most strongly at this time. The breezes that rattle the branches, the shifting weather, the
breath of change moving through the land. Air is the element of release and clarity.

Our ancestors worked with feathers, smoke, and incense to cleanse away stagnant energies.

When I burn herbs like mugwort or sage, I imagine the smoke carrying my prayers into the sky, just as those before us did. When the wind rushes through the trees, I pause to liste; because Air carries messages, subtle but true.

At Mabon, working with Air can feel like a sacred exhale. It’s about giving ourselves
permission to breathe out the old stories, the heaviness, the attachments that keep us
gripping to the past.

Ways to work with Air at Mabon:

*Practice breathwork or a simple deep-breathing meditation outdoors.

*Use smoke cleansing (with herbs or incense) to release stagnant energy.

*Stand in the wind and consciously let it carry away what no longer serves you.

Myths of Descent: Persephone, Modron & the Dark Mother

One of the reasons I love autumn so deeply is that it carries these stories of descent.
The myth of Persephone, taken into the Underworld as the Earth grows cold, mirrors the
descent we feel in our own lives, the invitation into the shadows, the womb, the mystery.
In Celtic traditions, Modron, the Great Mother, embodies this descent through the loss of
her son Mabon, who is later reborn. These myths remind us that the dark is not empty. 

It’s full of gestation, transformation, and hidden seeds.
As women, these stories hold even more potency. The descent is a sacred cycle. It is the
Crone’s wisdom, the womb’s knowing, the spiral of death and rebirth. Every autumn, I feel
this call inward, an invitation to honour my shadows and trust that the light will return.

Ways to Celebrate Mabon 

The beauty of Mabon is that it invites us to notice, to reflect, and to celebrate in ways that feel natural. I love to mark this time with both quiet reflection and simple seasonal
pleasures.

Here are some practices you might weave into your own Equinox:
For me, ritual at Mabon is about grounding in the season. I love bringing apples, nuts, and
bread to the table, lighting candles as the evenings grow darker, and making time to write in my journal.
Even a walk in the woods, gathering fallen leaves or simply breathing in the autumn air,
becomes ceremony.
Ways to celebrate:

*Gratitude Ritual: Write down your personal harvests from the year and place them
on your altar with autumn offerings; apples, seeds, berries, bread.
*Release Ceremony: Collect fallen leaves and write on them the things you are ready
to let go of. Cast them into the wind, or float them on water.
*Balance Meditation: Light two candles - one white, one black - to symbolise light and
dark. Meditate on where you find balance (or imbalance) in your life.
*Seasonal Feast: Cook with autumn produce - pumpkins, squashes, apples, root
vegetables. Invite loved ones to share the meal, celebrating the abundance together.

Autumn Equinox guided visualisation from the 2025 13 Moon Journal by Moon Phase Studios

The Feminine Gift of Mabon

Mabon is one of those thresholds where I feel the presence of the feminine most strongly. It
isn’t about doing or striving - it’s about receiving, softening, and trusting the spiral.
Patriarchy tells us to push forward endlessly, to ignore the cycles of rest and release. But
Mabon reminds us that endings are sacred too. That the letting go is just as necessary as the gathering in.
Every autumn, as I watch the trees blaze with colour and slowly surrender their leaves, I am reminded of my own need to let go gracefully. To trust the descent into shadow. To believe in the rebirth waiting on the other side.

This is the gift of Mabon: the reminder that balance is fleeting, but sacred. That both harvest and release, light and dark, joy and grief, are needed.

And that by walking this spiral, season after season, we come closer to the wisdom of the
Earth and the wisdom of our own bodies.

Trudi