Darkness Falls

Today is Mabon 2024, also known, in the northern hemisphere, as Autumn Equinox. Some pagans believe Mabon is the day the Holly King faces off
with the Oak King and it is a day of harvest celebration. Today, as the sun sits center with the equator, we are gifted with an equal number of light and dark hours. Then, as the days march towards December, we enter the darkest time of year and the Oak King reigns.

The dog and I took our daily walk down by the Mohawk River. In nature, one cannot ignore the changing of the seasons as the declining green bursts into moments of red, yellow, orange and brown. The fallen leaves float gently in the quietness of the river and all around the crickets and katydids are singing.

I, too, am celebrating the harvest. The backyard garden is still robust with tomatoes, eggplant, herbs and flowers, and pumpkins. Even the Brussels sprouts I almost gave up on are growing little sprouts in the armpits of the branches. Bees are also worshipping the last of the rays of sunlight as they harvest the nectar from the pumpkin blossoms, the nasturtiums, and the wild golden rod and asters. I've been sharing tomatoes with the chipmunks all summer and now they are allowing me to harvest some too. This is why I am a Pagan. I feel much more at home with a religion that is not just about humans.

I am also preserving the harvest. Today I made pints of German red cabbage, pickled cherry tomatoes, and crabapple infused vodka. More crabapples are slow cooking into butter. I threw nasturtium blossoms into white wine vinegar to make an infused concoctions for winter salads. It turned a gorgeous orange. I started another batch of red cabbage for tomorrow. There is about a bushel of local apples to do something with soon and lots and lots of green tomatoes still on the vines. I am preparing for winter like any good beast should this time of year. 

Born in early October, I have always been an Autumnal witch. Comfortable in the shadows of a late year's waning sun, I love this time of year, her softness, her darkness. This year, however, I am also realizing that I am entering the Mabon of my life, the youth of my senior years. I am officially a crone now. My youngest child is in his last year of high school and will be off to the Marines come summer. Next autumn, for the first time in decades, I will have no dependent humans to directly care for in my home. This feels both interesting and bittersweet at the same time. I feel like I am wrapping up a major project, and soon, I will embark on a new adventure. I feel both ready for the next stage and, significantly unprepared at the same time. I have a lot to do to finish this project and it can feel a bit overwhelming at times. It is why remembering to celebrate a season can be so therapeutic, a necessary semi-colon right before a major life change.

So, today on this beautiful Mabon afternoon I will not worry about completing my projects. Instead, I celebrate autumn in moments of slanted sunlight, the blush of red in the maple's canopy, the yellow leaves of the cotton tree floating in the Mohawk River. I will watch the squirrels play ghost in the graveyard in the cemetery next door and the bees sipping sweetness from the crimson chrysanthemums. I will breathe in the scents of dying flora, the autumn flowers and eat an apple fresh from a nearby tree. I will place the mason jars of preserved harvest on my shelves and fill another basket full of vegetables fresh from the garden.