Kitchen Witch: Mabon Recipes

This is a post I did back in 2010. They say to Recycle.. so.. Here it is!

FOR MORE RECIPES FOR MABON, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING RECIPE'S TITLE. :D

All Things Harvested Pot Roast

4-5lb pot roast
1 stick butter
1 large onion sliced
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
¼ tsp. dried thyme
¼ tsp. dried parsley
1 bay leaf
1/8 tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. salt
2-10oz cans French onion soup
4 large potatoes, quartered
1-8oz package raw baby carrots
1-16oz pkg. frozen broccoli/cauliflower mix

In dutch oven or oven safe pot w/lid brown both side of the roast, using half the butter. Set the roast aside. With remaining butter, saute' the onion, garlic, and celery until onions are tender and beginning to brown. Add the the thyme, parsley, bay leaf, and pepper. Mix well and then return the pot roast to the pan. Sprinkle salt over the roast and add the french onion soup. Cook at 325 degrees for 4 hours. Baste meat as needed. Add potatoes and carrots and salt to taste. Cook for another 45 minutes. Add broccoli/cauliflower mix and cook for 20 more minutes. Serve with hot bread.

Makes 8 servings

Mabon Activities and Correspondences

SOURCE

http://cronescottage2002.tripod.com/thecottageaugustmabon2002/id1.html

Symbolism of Mabon: The completion of the Harvest begun. Day and night are equal and the God prepares to leave His physical body and begin the great adventure into the unseen.

Symbols of Mabon: all harvest symbols, corn, autumn flowers, red poppies,nuts, grains, leaves, acorns, pine and cypress cones, oak sprigs, wreaths, vine, grapes, cornucopia, horns of plenty, burial cairns, apples, marigolds, harvested crops. wine, gourds

Colors : Orange, Dark Red, Yellow, Indigo, Maroon and Brown.

Goddesses: Modron(Welsh), Bona Dea, Harvest Dieties, Persephone, Demeter/Ceres, Morgan(Welsh- Cornish), Snake Woman(Aboriginal), Epona (Celtic-Gaulish), Pamona(Roman), the Muses(Greek).

Gods: Mabon, Modron(Welsh), Sky Father, John Barleycorn , the Wicker-Man, the Corn Man, Thoth(Egyptian), Hermes, Hotei(Japanese), Thor, Dionysus(Roman), Bacchus(Greek) and all wine Deities.

Tarot Cards: Judgment and The World

Altar Decorations: acorns, pinecones, autumn leaves, pomegranate, statue of the Triple Goddess in her Mother phase.

Mabon Herbs: Rue, yarrow, rosemary, marigold, sage, walnut leaves and husks, mistletoe, saffron, chamomile, almond leaves, passionflower, frankincense, rose hips, bittersweet, sunflower, wheat, oak leaves, dried apple or apple seeds.

Foods of Mabon: cornbread, wheat products, bread, grains, berries, nuts, grapes, acorns, seeds, dried fruits, corn, beans, squash, roots (ie onions, carrots, potatoes, etc), hops, apples, pomegranates, carrots, onions, potatoes, roast goose or mutton, wine, ale and ciders, breads, apples, pomegranates

Animals: dogs, wolves, stag, blackbird, owl, eagle, birds of prey, salmon & goat, Gnomes, Sphinx, Minotaur, Cyclops, Andamans and Gulons.

Element: water.

Incense : pine, sweetgrass, apple blossom, benzoin, myrrh, frankincense, jasmine, sage wood aloes, black pepper, patchouly, cinnamon, clove, oak moss

Mabon Stones : During Mabon, stones ruled by the Sun will help bring the Sun's energy to you.clear quartz, amber, peridot, diamond, gold, citrine, yellow topaz, cat's-eye, adventurine.

Customs: offerings to land, preparing for cold weather by bringing in harvest, cutting willow wands( Druidic), leaving apples upon burial cairns & graves as a token of honor, walks in forests, gather seed pods & dried plants, fermenting grapes to make wine,picking ripe produce, stalk bundling

Spellworkings of Mabon: Protection, prosperity, security, and self- confidence. Also those of harmony and balance. Taboos:It was considered unlucky to cut down the very last of the Harvest, and so was also left to stand in the field by some traditions.

Activities of Mabon: 

1. Select the best of each vegetable, herb, fruit, nut, and other food you have harvested or purchased and give it back to Mother Earth with prayers of thanksgiving.

2. Hang dried ears of corn around your home in appreciation of the harvest season. 

3. Do meditations and chanting as you store away food for the Winter.

4. Do a thanksgiving circle, offering thanks as you face each direction - - for home, finances, and physical health (North); for gifts of knowledge (East); for accomplishments in career and hobbies (South); for relationships (West); and for spiritual insights and messages (Center). 

5. Decorate the table with colorful autumn leaves in a basket. 

6. Display the fruits of the harvest - corn, gourds, nuts, grapes, apples - preferably in a cornucopia. Or decorate with wildflowers, acorns, nuts, berries, cocoons, anything that represents the harvest to you. 

7. Like its sister equinox, halfway across the Wheel of the Year, the Autumn Equinox is a good occasion for a ritual feast. 

8. Plan a meal that uses seasonal and symbolic fruits and vegetables. You can serve bread, squash, corn, apples, cider and wine. 

9. Make some homemade wine or cordial gather and dry herbs, plants, seeds and seed pods. Make grapevine wreaths using dried bitter-sweet herb for protection. Use ribbons of gold and yellow to bring in the energy of the Sun, and decorate with sprigs of dried yarrowor cinnamon sticks. 

10. Make a protection charm of hazelnuts (filberts) strung on red thread. Make a witch's broom. 

11. Tie dried corn husks or herbs (broom, cedar, fennel, lavender, peppermint, rosemary) around a strong, relatively straight branch of your choice. 

12. Make magic Apple Dolls Gifts of the Harvest can be used to make tools and emblems that will remind us of their bounty all year round. 

13. Look for colored leaves. Collect fallen leaves and make a centerpiece or bouquet for your home. Save the leaves to burn in your Yule fire. Vist an apple orchard and, if possible, pick your own apples. 

14. Hang apples on a tree near your home. Watch the birds and other small animals who will enjoy your gift. This is also the time for replacing your old broom with a new one. As the broom corn is ripe now, besom making is traditional and magickal this time of year. 

15. Begin the festival with a vineyard or orchard harvest. You might check the farm lands in your area to see if there's an orchard or pumpkin patch that allows customers to harvest produce for themselves. 

16. Traditionally Sabbat festivals begin at sun set on the eve of the Holiday. You can use the daytime hours of this holiday eve to prepare baskets for harvesting the next day. Baking a pumpkin pie (from scratch if possible) is a wonderful way to bring in the fragrance of the holiday season.

Mabon..Balance and Reflection

Author: Morbek
Posted: September 26th. 2010


Close your eyes and picture this: You are sitting outside on a late summer evening. The very warm air is suddenly heavy with humidity and it’s not moving at all. The leaves on the trees don’t move, not a blade of grass stirs and there is no break in the quiet of the evening. The birds are still, the crickets and frogs suddenly have become quiet and you realize the thick, impenetrable lack of sound. Looking to the sky, you see that the sun has just set but it is still daylight enough to read by. This is twilight, the balance between day and night. It is the world in a perfect, relaxed state of being. And so it is with Mabon.

Mabon is the balance between summer and winter. The harsh heat of the latest season is gone and the bitter cold of winter hasn’t arrived. The earth is stopping her hectic cycles to take a deep breath and relax. Our ancestors celebrated this Sabbat as the second harvest. It was a time of apples, grapes, grain, wine and merriment. The God is preparing to die and the Goddess is moving from mother to crone…more on that later as it plays significantly in our perception of this Sabbat. Mabon is the autumnal equinox when day and night are equal spans of time. We tend to notice it more acutely than we do the vernal equinox because light and warmth are going away, not moving toward us.

So, what does yet another harvest festival have to do with our daily lives in the twenty first century? LOTS! Mabon is also known as harvest home and is celebrated in an “all out” fashion. The largest feasts, the most wine and beer, the best clothes on our backs and the best entertainment available are all facets of this holiday. Does that sound familiar? It does if you are at all familiar with October-fest in any of its incarnations. Once again, remnants of the old religions have survived into modern times and, I believe, that is wonderful.

The stags of the forests are bearing their crowns of antlers telling us that, with dignity, there will be another generation of wild animals willing to help us survive. If you look at a majestic stag, you can see the balance of male and female symbols as, more often than not, his antlers form a crescent moon shape. Although, it is only in the rutting season that this is obvious. You have the juxtaposition of the virile male who is ready to mate with anything against the sweet softness of the moon that shines forth her beauty freely. These symbols are in balance and that is one of the major themes of Mabon.

Balance is so important because the earth is about to make an abrupt change in the seasons. Just as summer can arrive quickly (though we appreciate that change) , it seems winter arrives with a sudden crash. Our lives change in response to the waning days, children return to school, which gives us a whole new schedule, the times we leave for work may change because of weather conditions and even our wardrobe changes in response to the lessening light. Mabon is a moment in which we can allow ourselves to become ready for the changes by becoming spiritually balanced. Just as the leaves on the trees change from green to reds and gold, our day-to-day lives will drastically change. If we achieve balance before the changes then we will allow them to flow around us with ease.

Just as the darkness begins to overtake the light, the goddess moves to the final stage of her life, that of the Crone. She is no longer responsible for her offspring and is achieving a momentary freedom from that responsibility. This freedom only lasts a moment, however, because she realizes that she is now among ‘the wise women” and her responsibility is to the community as a whole. She is also entering into the final days of her life. Just as the light is leaving, so is she.

Mabon is a time of mysteries. The Goddess has stopped her fertility cycle. Look at the fact that, to the ancients, this whole thing was very confusing in most cultures. How can women appear to bleed that often and not die? How does she bring forth life? Why does she stop bearing children when sexual activity doesn’t stop? I do not assume that pre-agrarian cultures were not intelligent enough to recognize these cycles as normal but imagine contemplating these mysteries without our benefit of extensive knowledge of biology! It must have blown minds. The mystery aspects of Mabon are ancient and probably have been passed down from peoples that weren’t even breeding animals yet so they were dealing with a zero knowledge base! No wonder that the first deities were Goddesses!

The earth moves from very fertile to totally barren…so does the Goddess. We can be thankful though, that she is the loving Crone that watches over her children and grandchildren with tenderness and patience as she waits to become fertile once again so she can bear fruit. We must realize that there are times in our lives that are barren and learn from her to be patient, kind, understanding and loving while we wait for fruitfulness to arrive again so that we can go forth and be the agents of change instead of letting those changes just happen to us! There are many times in our lives that we must wait. The time of Mabon is a point at which we can meditate on the mysteries of life and come to understand ourselves so when it is time for us to wait, we understand it as normal and natural.

At this balance point in the year, one of the mysteries we can focus on is the equilibrium and the pause it can give us. We have much left to harvest in our lives. There is still a lot of work to be done. We are granted a time in the year to celebrate our hard work and what it has given us as well as to recognize that we need to stop and get ready for the coming changes…after life without change is, well, boring!


SOURCE
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=ustx&c=holidays&id=14176

Autumn: The Croning Time

Author: Lady Abigail
Posted: October 12th. 2008


Spirited away, my energy gently glides above the treetops like a down feather blown within the circling wind. Below, I see the quilted workings of Mother Earth in the patches of green grass, freshly plowed ground and fields of grain ready now for the harvest. The air is sweet and cool as it moves round my body and delights me like loving whispers of voices unknown. Faeries dance on wing; their joyous laughter calling my spirit ever on. Reaching down, I try to grasp a bright purple leaf from atop the sugar maple. As my energy moves within the magickal moment, I feel the sun warming me as it moves through the essences of my being, giving glimmers of what possibilities lie just beyond. . .

And then, in a sound, a spark of light, the cracking of a twig, I find myself laying atop the freshly cut hay ready for baling. Yet looking down I find within my hand the big and beautiful purple leaf from the top of the old sugar maple. Did I pick it up in my dreams or from under the tree? In my heart I shall always believe it came within that veil of magick just between dreams and what others call reality.

I always looked forward to sharing my adventures with my Great Grandmother. She, in her wisdom, would listen to each of my quests with attentive wonder and delight. It didn’t matter if they were ones of my chasing a frog down the creek bank for a few short and muddy hours, or those that carried me above the tree tops and into the veils of magick and possibility. She was there for me, smiling and teaching; teaching me many lessons I still remember even today.

Now that Autumn is here and Samhain is quickly approaching, I cannot help but remember the magick I felt and still feel today in this time of changing. The energy seems to rise within my spirit, as it sparks and dances across the essence of my soul. It touches me in memories and stories shared as my Great Grandmother would teach the old ways and the understanding of the Seasons of Life. In this, I again feel I can soar above the treetops in the arms of Autumn.

Fall is more than a season or that time of transition from summer to winter. Fall is what my Great Grandmother called the “Croning Time;” that time where the giving of life moves to the teaching of life within wisdom, no longer giving birth to new life, but nurturing all that is life and all that life brings.

Autumn is the “Spirit Goddess of the Changing.” She is guardian of the Croning Time.” Autumn in Her feminine form, is welcoming us unto Her as She, in wisdom, changes to the Crone. Autumn is a Grandmother Goddess and a keeper of the Cauldron of Life. She is wise with great knowledge and the understanding, which has grown within and of her experiences. Proud and strong, She dresses in the glorious colors of all that She is and shall be again.

As the Great Crone, Autumn, welcomes us with understanding of our own personal changes within the seasons that are life. She teaches us that Fall, as the Croning Time, is a time of celebration and joy. As we celebrate the seasons and ourselves, we find the wisdom within to see the beauty held in all the colors that make life the magick that it truly is.

Today in the eternal goal of everlasting youth, we find disgrace in and hide the changes of our personal seasons of life. Wrinkles are no longer seen as the lines of knowledge and understanding from the roads in life we have traveled and conquered. Now they are marks of shame for what nature brings us. We fight and pull and dug until sometimes, we cannot even recognize the reflection looking back at us in the mirror.

Graying hair is no longer a crown of wisdom, but a symbol of old age to be hidden. Age is no longer held as a destination of honor but is approached with the fear that we will be cast away, unimportant and forgotten. For our society finds it easer to lock away the wisdom of the aged behind closed doors than to seek the secrets held within. Perhaps age causes us dread because it uncovers within what our emotions fear. For when we are faced with those aged by life it reminds us each of the approach of inevitable death. Death no longer being a new beginning but the end of what was.

Autumn, as the Great Crone reminds us, that time life and death are but a thought, a moment flashing past eternity. Not to be feared but each to be relished and enjoyed. For as with the seasons, each holds it on gifts. Spring, Her excitement of the possibilities of the magick life holds anew. Summer, Her knowledge growing as She gives birth to new beginnings and eternal hope. Autumn, in Her wisdom and beauty reminds us of all that we have and all we have to give. Winter, wraps us in Her soft blanket of white that we might rest within the arms of Mother Earth to be reborn again in Spring. For this time shall come again as time circles forward in the Great Wheel of Life.

For thousands of years, women of wisdom and age were honored, valued and revered as the Elder Women. Autumn, as the Spirit Goddess of the Changing, is also the guardian of the Croning Time. Dressed in Her radiant colors, She reminds us of the respect held by those who are entering The Croning Time. Autumn allows us to reclaim our identity and status of the ancients, as Crones and Elders. We are coming of age, accessing our wisdom and acting upon it. Croning is the process of becoming active wise women.

Croning can begin at any age and is particularly relevant for women 45 and older. Yet, even men can become Crones within their on understandings of this passage. Personal experiences of aging provide the understanding of your path within this Time of Changing. It is up to us to decide how the circumstances of life transform us and move us forward.

We can no more hold back time and aging than we can stop the Great Wheel as it moves forward in its seasons. Perhaps the reason we all find such a joyous renewal in the energy of fall is the power that Autumn gives us over the fear of change, in both life and death. Change should not be feared but celebrated, for life has given us another year of wonder, magick and beauty.

My Great Grandmother opened my eyes to the magick of the seasons. She walked with me as I found the Goddess all around me, dressed in Her bright and fiery colors of reds, oranges, purples, and gold’s. When I became tired, she encouraged me to walk forward on the hillsides and watch the morning rise as the glistening dew gave a kaleidoscope of color on the leaves. When I became weak, she would carry me until I could once more hear the sweet mystical voice flowing in the breeze that would renew my spirit.

Autumn is the Croning Time, a time of magick, a time for renewal of spirit. As you experience the mysterious energy of this mystical season, allow the child within you to replenish your soul . . . and again look to the treetops in their beauty and touch the veils beyond.

Now I am the Crone, proud to teach those within my life in honor to my Great Grandmother. Let the magick of the Season truly touch your spirit as you walk forward in the colors of life.

By; Lady Abigail
High Priestess Ravensgrove Coven
Greenfield, IN area
Copyright © 01102009
SOURCE
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usin&c=holidays&id=12888

Modron - Mabon: The Autumal Equinox

 A time of renewal. Modron is the harvest of fruits of the Earth Mother, who in her aspect of eternal Goddess enters the 3rd trimester of her pregnancy. This is the time when the dying Sun God begins his journey across the western ocean to sojourn with the eldest aspect of the Goddess, in the land of the dead at Samhain.

We slice apples to reveal the mystery within our rituals -- the mystery, a five pointed str symbolizing all elements of life. We eat them to remind us that, as witches, we walk between the worlds; that of consensual reality and that of the magical Otherworld. At this festival we stand between the pillars of ligt and darkness, ready to descend, with all those goddesses whose myths are associated with the Underworld, into the long night of the year. Modron is the year's sunset and in this dusk we carry what we can of the Sun's noonday strength at Litha with us into the dark. After Modron we continue toward Samhain, and having travelled the sacred wheel of the year, continue the cycle around.

To understand sacrifice better, let’s look at the dance the Wiccan God and Goddess perform throughout the Wheel of the Year and see where They are at Mabon. The God is represented as the life of the Sun. At Yule, when the Sun’s strength begins to wax, the Goddess gives birth to the God. By Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, He is at His peak. By Lughnasadh he wanes. Since by Samhain He is journeying to the land of the dead, with the Autumnal Equinox, when day and light are equal and night begins to wax, it makes sense that Mabon would be the day of His death. His sacrificing Himself so that the land can rest and be reborn anew in Spring, for the good of the Earth and His people, is like the king in Snorri’s saga.

This story teaches us that sacrifices on Mabon are not just for personal gain, but also to help the world be a better place. What can we sacrifice from our lives to make the Earth a better place? We can give time by recycling items instead of throwing things away. We can sacrifice the aesthetics of our lawns by using a mulcher on lawnmowers rather than bagging and throwing away the clippings. We can give up a little comfort by setting the heat and cool of our homes to more moderate temperatures. We can offer up eating meat as often as we do because of the harm the meat industry does to the environment.

                                                      Josie

SOURCES
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usla&c=holidays&id=13515
THE WICCA BIBLE by Ann-Marie Gallagher

The Definition of Love By Ryan O'Connell

You can stop taking quizzes in Cosmo. Here’s what love really is.

Love is still wanting to hold someone after you climax. After the initial euphoria from the orgasm wears off, you’re replaced with a sense of calm rather than a panic. You don’t want to search for your clothes, scramble to find your keys and figure out the best way to tell them, “See ya later forever!” You’re fine with chilling out in bed with the person and maybe ordering pad thai later.

Love is unattractive. It can expose our worst traits: Jealousy, irrational fears, heated anger; the gang’s all here! While it can bring out compassion and tenderness, it can also make you behave like the ugliest version of yourself. That can be okay for a little while, but love with real longevity should be like a xanax rather than an adderall.

Love is not afraid to be schmaltzy. There’s a reason why the most popular love songs are so lyrically simple. You can drown it in metaphors all you want but love usually boils down to, “You make me so happy. I want to hold your hand. I just want u 2 be mine 4ever!” You can be a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Columbia University and still find something to relate to in a Mariah Carey ballad if you’re in love because the feelings are so universal. It’s humbling, isn’t it? No matter who you are or what your background is, love can reduce you to Mariah Carey mush.

Love is an all-consuming drug. It gives us these natural highs we’ve only read about in books or heard in songs. It’s addictive. It’s what keeps us going to bars, drinking glasses of wine, going to that stupid house party in Bushwick; it’s all for the possibility of finding love. In the wrong hands, love can be dangerous and scary. If someone lacks a healthy foundation, love can kill. All of these crimes you read about in the newspapers are usually linked to passionate love. “I did it because I loved them just…too much.”

Love is not what our parents had. In high school, you never wanted to think about your mother and father having once slept with people in the backseat of cars and feeling warm and happy. That would make it feel less special and young. It would make love have less to do with you when, EXCUSE ME, it has EVERYTHING to do with you.

Love is getting drunk with your significant other at a party and taking a cab home with your bodies intertwined. You feel safest in these moments, the most secure. Entering a social gathering with someone who loves you is the biggest security blanket. People leave the party as a parade of droopy expressions and sad cocktail dresses. But not you. “Sorry guys, I’m in love! I’m taking a car!”

Love is fucking stupid. Love is fucking smart. Love is about betraying yourself, of compromising your ideals for someone else’s approval. That’s actually the bad kind of love, but I guess it all blurs together when you’re young or when you’re old or when you don’t love yourself.

Love is your significant other telling you about their favorite album and then making a point to fall in love with it on your own. Love is wondering why your better half loves certain things. You think you can find remnants of them in their favorite films, books and songs, but you usually can’t.

Love is finding yourself feeling protective over someone else’s well-being Love is being incensed with rage when someone or something has done your lover wrong.

Love is wanting your partner to cum. And if they can’t, just say, “That’s okay. I’m enjoying this.” It might be bullshit, but they’ll be orgasming in the next five minutes. Trust me.

Love isn’t always marriage. Marriage is spending $60,000 so everyone can know that someone loves you. You know what’s certainly not love? Debt. In some cases, love can be divorce.

Love is a back massage, a mindfuck, a hard cock, a pair of perfect breasts, of feeling unashamed about the cellulite on your body. Love is someone giving a shit about you enough to argue. Love is not passive. Love is “Don’t fucking touch me right now.” Love is “Who the FUCK were you talking to?” Love is sometimes hating yourself for a second. Love is hate. Period. Indifference is the real killer of love and the true antithesis.

When love leaves you, you should be lying on your bathroom floor with no resolve. You’re smoking cigarettes in the bathtub and crying about everything bad that’s ever happened.

Love is someone seeing the beauty in you and wanting to bask in it every day all day. Love is not guaranteed. We are not owed love. That’s why when we get it, we know how lucky we are and hold on to it for dear life.

So, yeah. That’s what love is. Anyone know where to get some?