Reflections on Mabon
It's enlightening to go back to my collection of occult books from Way Hell Back When to see them many years later. Say for example, Laurie Cabot's Celebrate the Earth, a book on Pagan sabbats. As today is Mabon in the northern hemisphere (aka the autumn equinox), it seemed appropriate to reread and reflect. I bought and read all my occult reading material - about 55 books - in the 1990s. Back then, if you weren't living in a Real City, you had to deal with Celtic Tradition books on witchcraft - and little else. Oh, sure, in 1997 or so, some books on Stregheria and Druid practises began popping up here and there, but that's about it.
**** DISCLAIMER ****: I am a Laurie Cabot fan. I think she's great. I mean it. This is just an article to point out who her audience clearly is, and clearly isn't.
Laurie Cabot is a resident of Salem, Massachusetts. There are plenty of Salem witches now, but Cabot is pretty much THE Salem witch. If you ask me, Cabot pens her books as textbooks for people training in her tradition. It's obvious now, as her section on Mabon discusses the Mabon ap Modron myth... and launches into a small bit called THE CELTS WERE IN AMERICA!
Once upon a time around a coven's circles many years ago, this guy I once knew - we'll call him Tyler - said to me, "I don't have enough money to be a Salem witch." It's easy to see why he said that when Cabot goes on to suggest a Mabon ritual that requires a large staff and a golden or bronze sickle... in addition to multiple candles, two chalices of spring water, a dish of salt, a ritual blade, a chaff of wheat, fruit, altar cloth, anointing oil, non-combustible incense, self-igniting charcoal, a thurible, a peyton (great big damn altar pentacle), and altar matches (meaning matches with no markings of any kind on the box). The sickle (sometimes called a boline) is actually for harvesting herbs to be used for ritual purposes. I've yet to meet a single witch who actually owns one, including myself.
All this is terrifying to someone totally new to Paganism. To be fair, now that I've been practising since 1995, I can come up with pretty much everything but the staff and sickle. But altar cloths are impractical. They're a fire hazard, and a real bitch to clean considering all the ashes, liquids, salt, wax, potions, etc. you can get on them. And seriously? Altar matches? I used to hang with a coven that used cheap plastic bhutane lighters. In fact, they used transparent ones with adjustable flames that made some younger coven associates call them crack pipe lighters. I wouldn't be surprised if any of them lit cigarettes with flames from altar candles post-ritual. Not to mention they've used anything from chocolate chip cookies or potato chips (I'm serious) for cakes and quite possibly Kool-Aid for ale. I've heard stories of southern witches who have no problem using a Swiss army knife as an athame and do ritual in a t-shirt, khaki shorts, and trainers. Southern witches, are, suffice to say, very laid back. I can't help but think all this would make a Salem witch recoil.
Tyler went on to describe why he couldn't afford to be a Salem witch, starting with describing the trappings of a Salem witch he knew - actually one of Cabot's associates. Ty said she had this great big roll-out jewellery organiser stuffed with semi-precious stone-studded bling organised according to sabbat (and quite possibly esbat). Moving on to the What to Wear section of the Mabon chapter, Cabot mentions having the High Priest and Priestess wearing crowns decorated in appropriate seasonal trappings. Yes, it's normal for them to wear crowns... assuming you have either. Meaning this book isn't exactly geared towards solitary practitioners, either. Come to think of it, in all my coven interactions, I'm not so sure I ever saw anyone acting as high priest/ess wearing one. Unless you count me, when I led ritual and was wearing cheap silver star garland, little more than a length of skinny tinsel. (Which was probably around Beltane.) In summary, what I'm saying is that Pagans down south generally don't have that kind of money. Come to think of it, I think I've only ever met a Rich Witch once. Ironically, he was a real Bulldogs-supporting, khaki-shorts wearing, drawl-equipped kind of guy who just happened to come from money.
But back to Cabot's writings. What really gets me is some wording in the section titled The Ritual, which is as follows:
Autumn in New England is ablaze with orange, pink, yellow, and wine-red leaves against the dark green of balsam and pine trees. The sky is always bright blue, and gentle, crisp breezes often stir and fly the fallen leaves. Orange pumpkins and gourds can be seen on hillsides as farmers harvest and place them to sell on roadside stands and carts...
Mrs. Cabot, with all due respect, where I come from, we use air conditioning until at least mid-October... and it's not optional. We're still traipsing about in sandals and shorts. Lately it's more like January before we need anything like central heating. We don't get gentle, crisp breezes in September. We get stagnant, still, disgustingly humid air. And pumpkins are still not in yet, we're still scarfing raspberries and muscadines, pulled from out around quite green vegetation. We're lucky if we see leaves change before Samhain these days. We quite frankly don't have autumn, or, in fact, the same set of seasons you do. You have spring, summer, autumn, and winter. We have Gehenna, Summer, Almost Summer, and I Can't Believe It's Not Summer.
In that spirit, it's difficult to really associate the sabbats with their original intentions of aligning oneself with the earth and its changing seasons. How is that done if you've no idea what the hell either one is up to anymore? And so there's been this paradigm shift of turning to what the seasonal shift is symbolically, of getting back to myths associated with the wheel of the year.
On Mabon, I don't think of Mabon ap Modron, I think of the rape of Persephone by Hades, of Demeter losing her daughter for half a year until Hermes goes to fetch her. I read Greek myths before any others, introduced to Edith Hamilton's Mythology by my own right-wing, Catholic sister at the age of ten. It would probably be best not to tell her she's responsible for introducing me to my gateway drug to witchcraft.
But yes - Persephone. The Queen of the Dead and the Underworld, whose name was once forbidden to speak. The inventor of dreams, made to differentiate sleep from death. Her story is a story of an abrupt end to a lifestyle the protagonist hasn't the foggiest interest in ending. Just a young girl out picking narcissus flowers, who gets hauled off by the Lord of the Dead. Said Lord of the Dead makes her his wife, has her rule the ghosts, and carry out the curses of men. Yeah, think about that when you think you're having a bad day. I'm off to buy pomegranate juice and narcissus flowers, and to watch Godsmack's video for "Voodoo," since it has Laurie Cabot conducting a ritual in it. Which has everything to do with Godsmack's front man Sully Erna being one of her very own initiates. Happy Mabon to ye northern hemisphere heathens, and Ostara to the ones down under.
**** DISCLAIMER ****: I am a Laurie Cabot fan. I think she's great. I mean it. This is just an article to point out who her audience clearly is, and clearly isn't.
Laurie Cabot is a resident of Salem, Massachusetts. There are plenty of Salem witches now, but Cabot is pretty much THE Salem witch. If you ask me, Cabot pens her books as textbooks for people training in her tradition. It's obvious now, as her section on Mabon discusses the Mabon ap Modron myth... and launches into a small bit called THE CELTS WERE IN AMERICA!
Once upon a time around a coven's circles many years ago, this guy I once knew - we'll call him Tyler - said to me, "I don't have enough money to be a Salem witch." It's easy to see why he said that when Cabot goes on to suggest a Mabon ritual that requires a large staff and a golden or bronze sickle... in addition to multiple candles, two chalices of spring water, a dish of salt, a ritual blade, a chaff of wheat, fruit, altar cloth, anointing oil, non-combustible incense, self-igniting charcoal, a thurible, a peyton (great big damn altar pentacle), and altar matches (meaning matches with no markings of any kind on the box). The sickle (sometimes called a boline) is actually for harvesting herbs to be used for ritual purposes. I've yet to meet a single witch who actually owns one, including myself.
All this is terrifying to someone totally new to Paganism. To be fair, now that I've been practising since 1995, I can come up with pretty much everything but the staff and sickle. But altar cloths are impractical. They're a fire hazard, and a real bitch to clean considering all the ashes, liquids, salt, wax, potions, etc. you can get on them. And seriously? Altar matches? I used to hang with a coven that used cheap plastic bhutane lighters. In fact, they used transparent ones with adjustable flames that made some younger coven associates call them crack pipe lighters. I wouldn't be surprised if any of them lit cigarettes with flames from altar candles post-ritual. Not to mention they've used anything from chocolate chip cookies or potato chips (I'm serious) for cakes and quite possibly Kool-Aid for ale. I've heard stories of southern witches who have no problem using a Swiss army knife as an athame and do ritual in a t-shirt, khaki shorts, and trainers. Southern witches, are, suffice to say, very laid back. I can't help but think all this would make a Salem witch recoil.
Tyler went on to describe why he couldn't afford to be a Salem witch, starting with describing the trappings of a Salem witch he knew - actually one of Cabot's associates. Ty said she had this great big roll-out jewellery organiser stuffed with semi-precious stone-studded bling organised according to sabbat (and quite possibly esbat). Moving on to the What to Wear section of the Mabon chapter, Cabot mentions having the High Priest and Priestess wearing crowns decorated in appropriate seasonal trappings. Yes, it's normal for them to wear crowns... assuming you have either. Meaning this book isn't exactly geared towards solitary practitioners, either. Come to think of it, in all my coven interactions, I'm not so sure I ever saw anyone acting as high priest/ess wearing one. Unless you count me, when I led ritual and was wearing cheap silver star garland, little more than a length of skinny tinsel. (Which was probably around Beltane.) In summary, what I'm saying is that Pagans down south generally don't have that kind of money. Come to think of it, I think I've only ever met a Rich Witch once. Ironically, he was a real Bulldogs-supporting, khaki-shorts wearing, drawl-equipped kind of guy who just happened to come from money.
But back to Cabot's writings. What really gets me is some wording in the section titled The Ritual, which is as follows:
Autumn in New England is ablaze with orange, pink, yellow, and wine-red leaves against the dark green of balsam and pine trees. The sky is always bright blue, and gentle, crisp breezes often stir and fly the fallen leaves. Orange pumpkins and gourds can be seen on hillsides as farmers harvest and place them to sell on roadside stands and carts...
Mrs. Cabot, with all due respect, where I come from, we use air conditioning until at least mid-October... and it's not optional. We're still traipsing about in sandals and shorts. Lately it's more like January before we need anything like central heating. We don't get gentle, crisp breezes in September. We get stagnant, still, disgustingly humid air. And pumpkins are still not in yet, we're still scarfing raspberries and muscadines, pulled from out around quite green vegetation. We're lucky if we see leaves change before Samhain these days. We quite frankly don't have autumn, or, in fact, the same set of seasons you do. You have spring, summer, autumn, and winter. We have Gehenna, Summer, Almost Summer, and I Can't Believe It's Not Summer.
In that spirit, it's difficult to really associate the sabbats with their original intentions of aligning oneself with the earth and its changing seasons. How is that done if you've no idea what the hell either one is up to anymore? And so there's been this paradigm shift of turning to what the seasonal shift is symbolically, of getting back to myths associated with the wheel of the year.
On Mabon, I don't think of Mabon ap Modron, I think of the rape of Persephone by Hades, of Demeter losing her daughter for half a year until Hermes goes to fetch her. I read Greek myths before any others, introduced to Edith Hamilton's Mythology by my own right-wing, Catholic sister at the age of ten. It would probably be best not to tell her she's responsible for introducing me to my gateway drug to witchcraft.
But yes - Persephone. The Queen of the Dead and the Underworld, whose name was once forbidden to speak. The inventor of dreams, made to differentiate sleep from death. Her story is a story of an abrupt end to a lifestyle the protagonist hasn't the foggiest interest in ending. Just a young girl out picking narcissus flowers, who gets hauled off by the Lord of the Dead. Said Lord of the Dead makes her his wife, has her rule the ghosts, and carry out the curses of men. Yeah, think about that when you think you're having a bad day. I'm off to buy pomegranate juice and narcissus flowers, and to watch Godsmack's video for "Voodoo," since it has Laurie Cabot conducting a ritual in it. Which has everything to do with Godsmack's front man Sully Erna being one of her very own initiates. Happy Mabon to ye northern hemisphere heathens, and Ostara to the ones down under.