Happy Mabon Greetings to you!
I shared last week with you about the Autumnal Equinox celebration held at Enchantments with our beautiful lit labyrinth. The students, known as the Witches of Enchantments, did an excellent job building the labyrinth and this is what it looked like this year:
As much fun as we have celebrating Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox, what is the celebration all about? Why is this day so special? Well, from my research we can credit the ancient Druids, who were the Priests of the ancient Celtic peoples in Western Europe. The Druids, a very learned people, studied Nature and looked to discover all of her mysteries.
The Druids taught the Celts that there was much magick to be found in Nature. It was everywhere, surrounding us always. And they found that the most magickal, were the 'things in-between'. For instance, ice. Ice is water, but water is a liquid, but ice is solid like rock, but it isn't rock. It is in -between. Fog or mist, is water vapors, but it isn't water, it hangs in the air, but it isn't air, again something in-between. Midnight, the stroke of midnight isn't yesterday, but it isn't quite today. In-between. Many, many things fell into this category for the Druids, even the seasons.
We believe, and much of what we suppose of the Druids is just that supposition, because they didn't write anything down, and if they did it was wiped out by the Roman occupation of Great Britain for over 400 years. We do have diary accounts of scholars and Roman generals that observed the Druids and wrote down what they thought they were seeing. But we believe the ancient Celts observed two halves of the year. Winter and Summer. Winter started on November 1 and Summer started on May 1st. But, having said that, they did observe the Spring and Autumn, because they had three celebrations each, in Spring and Autumn. But only one celebration each in Winter and Summer. I believe the reason for this was because the Spring and Autumn fell in-between the two major seasons.
And for the Autumnal Equinox, as well as the Spring or Vernal Equinox, these are two days of the year that the length of daylight and darkness are of equal length. Right smack dab, in-between the days lengthening in the Spring and growing shorter in the fall. Very special and to the Druid's, very magickal, indeed.
This concept of being in-between also occurs at Beltaine May 1st and Samhain, November 1st when the veil between the worlds of the living and the spirit world is said to become thin, and we are able to communicate more easily with those who have gone before.
The world of the Druid is to me, very much like the world of the Witch. In the sense that everything is tinged with magick, if you but look for it. The days each have their own magick, the nights, the plants in the garden, even the pebbles on your foot path. Magick can be found everywhere. I find Autumn to be a very magickal time of the year, and many people say it's their favorite time of the year. But do they know why? I think, even if a person does not consider themselves a magickal being, they still sense the magick as it surrounds us all.
Have a Blessed Magickal Autumn!
Peace and Happiness
© 2010-2015 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited.
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