Today is the equinox, an astronomical event that occurs twice per year at which the sun sits directly over the equator. In more commonly understood terms, the equinoxes are the two days of the year when the daylight and nighttime hours are roughly equal to each other everywhere on the planet (the name "equinox" comes from the Latin for "equal night").
This may not seem particularly important, but it is one of humanity's longest-held understandings of astronomy. We knew how to recognize the annual variations in the time and position of the sunrise and sunset before we even invented writing. Knowing how to read the calendar in the heavens - learning the relationship between the position of the sun and the procession of seasons - is what enabled us to discover agriculture, which was (and remains) the very foundation of human civilization.
In the northern hemisphere, today's event (technically tomorrow's, if you're in Europe; the sun crosses the equator shortly after midnight tonight by Greenwich time) is the autumnal equinox, which marks the astronomical transition between the seasons of summer and autumn (if you are reading this from the southern hemisphere, it is the vernal equinox: the transition between winter and spring). The tracking of the sun's movements has played a key role in human survival and society since pre-literate antiquity, so it is perhaps not surprising that the equinox has also played an important part in human spirituality since time immemorial, often celebrated as a time of balance and rebirth.
In Ancient Egypt, the equinox usually (though not always) coincided closely with the beginning of the annual Nile floods, which were marked by the three-day Festival of Opet, a celebration of balance in which the Pharaoh was ceremonially married to the sun god Ra and "reborn" as the ruler with the gods' blessings. In Scandinavia, the Vikings celebrated the equinox as Haustblót, a time of both thanksgiving for the second harvest and of preparation for the long winter months ahead. In Celtic traditions, it was an unnamed holiday that venerated the Child God, whose name in Welsh Arthurian legends is usually given as Mabon ap Modron, from which Wiccans and most other modern pagan and druidic practitioners derive the common name of the holiday on the Wheel of the Year: Mabon.
All eight sabbats on the Wheel of the Year are important to me, but Mabon is particularly special for a number of reasons. On a human level, it was the very first sabbat I celebrated when I first began to walk the druid's path in late summer last year, and so it has a special place in my heart as a celebration of personal rebirth marking the start of this journey. On a spiritual level, it is significant to me as an appropriate day of dedication to Anubis, one of the patrons I venerate, who represents the aspect of my spiritual practice by which I strive for balance. Although the Lord of Shadows was an artistic muse for many years before I became a druid, Mabon was the first time I performed an actual devotion ritual. In that sense, the traditions of Opet - the celebration of balance between the human and the divine - are also a part of this season for me.
This year, the energy of the universe at Mabon feels tangible in ways that I'm not sure I've really ever experienced before. Let me start with one of the more obvious (and universal) things: the weather. This has been one of the hottest summers I can remember, not necessarily in the "hottest temperature" sense, but in the sheer relentlessness of the heat. We've had temperatures in the upper 80s and even into the 90s for basically months on end, and very little rain to speak of. One of the reservoirs out to the east is down by nearly twelve feet, and even though our local ones are faring slightly better, I've still been terrified that our well is going to go dry. The rose bush in the garden is still putting out new blossoms even in late September. Then last night, a strong cold front moved through with thunder and rain, and now the weather forecast for the next week is for cooler temperatures and rainy days and just generally the autumn-like weather that I wasn't sure would ever arrive. The transition was sudden, not gradual.
On a more personal level, my tarot reading for yesterday (which you can read here, if you didn't catch it yesterday) included the Strength archetype, a card that has not appeared in my divinations since May, before the summer began. This has been a difficult summer, and I've had to weather a lot of different crises - dwindling business (and, by proxy, increased financial strain) as the economy forces the art market into a slump, some unexpected changes to living arrangements (nothing that puts me in danger, but stressful nonetheless), and a series of expensive mechanical problems with my partner's car have all left me feeling like everything is going wrong at once. After going all summer without seeing Strength, I then saw it on the eve of Mabon, when I was thinking about balance and transitions. Paired with the Four of Swords, it signals something very important: the nature of the strength required of me is changing with the weather, and the kind of strength I need now is the kind that allows me to take off my armor and rest.
During the summer, I've been relying on raw survival and sheer momentum to try and navigate all of the hardship, and there's strength of a kind in that, but it can't last forever. I have to attune myself to the work that is gentler but possibly more difficult: resting, restoring my energy, and piecing things back together. I'm a druid, which means I embrace a certain degree of animism in my spiritual focus. I don't have to be superstitious to believe that nature is showing me clear signs that an alignment shift is due. The rose blooming this late even in the midst of a drought is a stark sign of a world that is being driven beyond its natural limits. I'm not separate from the environment; I'm part of it. The exhaustion of the land and the exhaustion of my spirit are the same kind of exhaustion. But Thor's voice in the storm last night reminds me that that exhaustion is not the final word.
When we think of balance, we tend to think of a scale slowly dipping back and forth as it searches for some kind of equilibrium, a simple matter of gravity until the objects on the scale have settled into their respective places. However, balance isn't always just a passive state; severe imbalances sometimes require radical adjustments. Balance is an active process that sometimes demands forceful, dramatic corrections. If you're reading this and feeling exhausted from a difficult summer like I am, be gentle with yourself and heed the warnings you're getting: nature demands rest, and you are also a part of nature. If you don't schedule time for self-care, your body will schedule it for you.
We're entering the darker half of the year, and that's one reason I particularly like the Norse tradition of Haustblót. In Scandinavia, where the growing season was short and the harvest had to last through the long months of winter, the ideas of balance were stark: celebrating the harvest was not just a passive matter of thanksgiving, but a functional, intentional act of preparation. They weren't looking back at the harvest and patting themselves on the back for a job well done while stuffing themselves with turkey and pumpkin pie; their feast was an intentional sacrifice of some of their fruits to honor the gods and the earth, but the day was also marked by taking stock of the harvest and committing it to storage so it could be used through the winter months. Tools were mended. Thatch and shingles were checked to ensure the roofs could withstand the icy winter winds and heavy snows that were coming. Fields were readied for lying fallow through the winter so the soil could be good for planting in the spring. Animals were cared for and brought in. The autumnal equinox for them was not just a celebration of an astronomical event; it was a celebration of survival, and a recognition of what needed to be done - both for the home and for the land itself - to ensure that survival.
Our world is much different now. We live by the rhythms of the work week and machinery and clocks instead of the stars and the seasons and the growth of crops. Even most of what we think of in pagan circles as ancient, esoteric knowledge is actually mostly modern invention. In a way, that syncretism only makes those practices more valuable. In a world order that constantly tries to force us to dwell on our differences and be always productive of fruits we will never be allowed to share, consciously making a choice to ritualize setting aside time and emotional energy for resting and celebrating our shared roots and shared survival is a radical act of righteous rebellion.
The traditions that you celebrate today are not merely quaint amusements - they are intentional choices that you use to wrest back some sense of personal (and, alongside others who walk this path, collective) sovereignty from a society that leaves you otherwise feeling powerless. You actively choose to give back to the land and honor the balance of nature in a civilization that exploits the earth through unbridled greed. That may sound a little more militant than you've come to expect from the usual pastoral themes of Mabon, but the stark warnings the earth is providing this year are unmistakably clear: nature will have her way, with or without us. We can only push so far before she will push back. We can only greedily feast so much on her bounty before we are no longer welcome at her table. By choosing to rest, to restore ourselves, and to restore the land, we are also choosing to honor what nature is demanding of us: strength through temperance, and celebration through survival.
Blessed Mabon - may your harvest be bountiful, and may you survive the winter ahead.
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