Short Stuff: Mabon

0:04Speaker 1:Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry here, too, sitting in for Dave. And we're here to celebrate the pagan Thanksgiving that you never knew you needed.

0:17Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember if we mentioned this, because we covered some stuff on Wiccans and other sort of pagan religions years ago, I feel like. But the pagan Thanksgiving is Mabon, M-A-B-O-N. And it is one of many kind of fall harvest celebrations that have happened throughout history that celebrate the autumnal equinox.

0:40Speaker 1:Wow. Way to go. Say it again.

0:42Speaker 2:The autumnal equinox.

0:44Speaker 1:Very nice.

0:45Speaker 2:Yeah.

0:46Speaker 1:But it's actually kind of new. Mabon is. Because ironically, the original pagans, like the Celts, for example, did not celebrate the autumnal equinox. which is evidenced by, um, if you go to Stonehenge on the autumnal equinox, nothing happens, nothing special. It's just like any other day. Um, but like you said, cultures around the world have, and today, neo-pagans, Druids, Wiccans, et cetera, um, definitely celebrated as one of eight Sabbaths, Sabbaths, Sabbaths, I think, right? Like Sabbaths. Um, And there are eight of them on the wheel of the year. And in fact, Mabon is one of three harvest festivals that occur from August through October. Yeah.

1:32Speaker 2:I mean, you probably heard us talk about Yule before in one of our Christmas episodes, probably. That is a Sabbat. And we've also talked about Samhain, for sure, spelled Samhain.

1:43Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:44Speaker 2:Because that's the one associated with Halloween. So those are definitely much more well-known. But Mabon... We got to talk about Mabon a little bit. All right.

1:52Speaker 1:Well, first, let's talk about the first harvest festival, Lunasa. That takes place in early August, where I guess I don't know what you're picking then. Mabon is like the money harvest festival. Late September, that's when everything's ready to be picked, basically. And then Samhain is the third, the one in October. And the autumnal equinox, and this is a big part of Mabon in particular, is The reason why there's a focus on balance is because the day and night are basically evenly split between 12 hours apiece on the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, the spring equinox.

2:35Speaker 1:So that's a big theme in Mabon.

2:37Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that if you practice any kind of paganism and you want to celebrate Mabon, you want to maybe meditate on that balance in your own life might be a thing to do.

2:47Speaker 1:For sure.

2:48Speaker 2:Another thing you mentioned earlier is that it's a newer thing. This term is only about 55 years old. The Mabon actually comes from a Welsh god, son of the Earth Mother Goddess. And there was a Welsh text, an old Welsh text called the Mabinagion.

3:09Speaker 1:Your guess is as good as mine.

3:11Speaker 2:Yeah, that looks about right. that has, it tells about like, you know, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and stuff like that. And one of the heroes of those stories is a god named Mabon, son of mother, who was held hostage as a baby.

3:28Speaker 1:Yeah. And as we'll see, the reason that Mabon was chosen to mark the autumnal equinox, despite the fact that the ancient Druids and Celts like did not there was no recognition of Mabon or association with them. That's a modern thing, like we said, is that the guy who kind of helped write or put together the wheel of the year for modern paganisms, Aidan Kelly, back in the 60s and 70s, he did his research and he found out that in Greek lore and mythology, the goddess Demeter is celebrated as on the autumnal equinox. And Demeter shares in common with Mabon that this idea that she was young and was rescued from the underworld, just like Mabon was.

4:19Speaker 1:So he's like, I think this is enough of an association to call this Mabon.

4:24Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of funny. Apparently he was looking for something Gaelic or Germanic. name-wise, on the pagan calendar, based on the solstices, and he couldn't find anything. So he was like, eh, maybe a stretch, but I'm just going to go with this one.

4:38Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not to say that, so Mabon seems to be the only one that they put into the wheel of the year. There are some really ancient Celtic festivals, including Samhain and Lunasa, and one called Beltane, and one called Imolc, which is spelled I-M-B-O-L-C. And I'm just so pleased as punch that I pronounced it correctly.

4:59Speaker 2:Nice work.

5:00Speaker 1:But Mabon, they said, we're going to add this in because we feel like it's a big deal. And again, there's other cultures that celebrate this, like the Maltese, the Mayans. And then, Chuck, get this. The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza in Mexico. Did you look a picture of this up?

5:19Speaker 2:Yeah. Amazing.

5:20Speaker 1:It is amazing. So the shadows fall on the pyramids. Um, the steps of the pyramid, technically it's a ziggurat and it looks like a serpent coming down the steps on the side on the autumnal equinox. It's nuts. Cause it definitely looks like that. Yeah. It's cool.

5:40Speaker 2:It reminded me of when I lived in Los Angeles, when Emily and I moved in together, we lived in the neighborhood of Eagle Rock and Eagle Rock is so named because there's a big rock by the highway that has, uh, It's not like hand carved. It's just a piece kind of nature carved out. And when the sun hits that at a certain time of the day, it looks like an eagle flying.

6:01Speaker 1:Oh, neat. Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't named after the band. What?

6:06Speaker 2:Eagles?

6:07Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.

6:08Speaker 2:No, probably not.

6:08Speaker 1:Because they do not rock.

6:10Speaker 2:Should we take a break?

6:11Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. All right.

6:12Speaker 2:We'll be right back.

6:17Speaker 1:All right. Okay, Chuck, I feel like it's high time that we explain to people what they can do to celebrate Mabon, even if you're not a pagan or a Wicca or a witch or have never owned a crystal. It doesn't matter. You can still observe Mabon. I should say also we based this short stuff on an article from How Stuff Works written by our own Dave Rooves. Dave. Dave Rooves is one of the most religiously tolerant people you will ever meet.

7:06Speaker 2:Yeah.

7:08Speaker 1:And he definitely applied that to this. And I feel like we also we need to shout out Dave's podcast, Biblical Time Machine, which is also very tolerant, too.

7:17Speaker 2:Yeah, Dave's great. So is the podcast. I mentioned earlier in Act One that one thing you can do is reflect on the past year and talk about like balance. Also, obviously, things that you're thankful for, because, again, this is around Thanksgiving and something you can do in your house. if you want, is to have a cornucopia, like a little horn of plenty. That has roots in ancient Greece. But if you have a centerpiece of a cornucopia in your home to celebrate fall or the autumnal equinox or Mabon, there are certainly worse ways to go about it than that.

7:53Speaker 2:So it's a lovely thing to do.

7:55Speaker 1:And it is. It is like an iconic fall look, essentially.

8:00Speaker 2:Yeah.

8:01Speaker 1:And it's just yet another thing that people do today and don't realize that it's an ancient pagan custom. You know, I love that kind of stuff. Another thing you can do is reflect. There's a lot of time for reflecting over the course of a 12 hour day.

8:17Speaker 2:Sure.

8:18Speaker 1:And so because the energy is in balance between night and day on Mabon, you it's the same on the vernal equinox to Ostara, but with Ostara it's, you're thinking about like renewal and growth and awakening basically from the winter slumber in autumn, you're kind of going the opposite way. You're talking about releasing stuff, you know, like is that toupee really working for you? Um, that kind of stuff, like you've harvested the year already and now you're, um, You're basically getting ready to go to sleep for months.

8:55Speaker 2:Yeah. If I size up a shirt, will that hide my beer belly a little more?

9:00Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely will.

9:02Speaker 2:Sometimes that's not the way to go, though.

9:04Speaker 1:Oh, no, definitely not. Especially if it's a tight shirt. Yeah. Did you ever see, I think you should leave.

9:11Speaker 2:The TV show?

9:14Speaker 1:Yeah.

9:14Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.

9:15Speaker 1:Remember that one skit where he's got like the handle on his shirt to pull it away from his gut more efficiently?

9:22Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought you were going to talk about the episode where he was obsessed with that particular shirt brand.

9:27Speaker 1:I don't remember that one.

9:29Speaker 2:That he kept buying. Yeah. He has lots of funny clothing things because also in the movie he did with Paul Rudd, Friendship?

9:38Speaker 1:Was that what it was called? I think so, yeah.

9:40Speaker 2:It was a very funny clothing company. He made up for that. What was the name of it?

9:44Speaker 1:I don't remember.

9:44Speaker 2:Oh, it was called. God, he's so funny to me. Ocean View Dining.

9:54Speaker 1:That rings a bell, but I don't remember the whole joke.

9:56Speaker 2:Yeah, he just loved it. It was just a Tim Robinson thing.

9:59Speaker 1:Yeah.

10:00Speaker 2:Just loved Ocean View Dining clothes and talked about them a lot.

10:05Speaker 1:Are you a Detroiter fan too?

10:07Speaker 2:No, that's still the one I haven't seen. It's on the list though.

10:09Speaker 1:Oh, you're going to love it.

10:10Speaker 2:Yeah.

10:11Speaker 1:You will absolutely love it.

10:12Speaker 2:God, he's so great. If you're weird enough to not last long on Saturday Night Live, then you're probably headed in the right direction.

10:18Speaker 1:For sure. For sure. So, yeah, that's another thing you can do in Mabon is have a Tim Robinson marathon. You could definitely do a lot worse than that. Yeah.

10:29Speaker 2:Or you could just bring some fall color in there. And if you don't have the cornucopia, just, you know, maybe bring in a few things that are in harvest. Maybe some dried flowers. Maybe take a walk.

10:40Speaker 1:That's a big one.

10:41Speaker 2:Go to a corn maze.

10:42Speaker 1:Yeah. Why not? Support your local economy.

10:46Speaker 2:Yeah.

10:47Speaker 1:Although there is big corn maze now.

10:49Speaker 2:Right. You don't want to go there.

10:52Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do. And essentially, it's just feel good about fall is the key for non-pagans. If you're a pagan, you got a lot more to do. Sorry.

11:03Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed.

11:04Speaker 1:So the Autumnal Equinox is Tuesday, September 22nd this year. Hopefully we're releasing this before then. Although it'd be classic stuff you should know to release it the day after.

11:15Speaker 2:Totally.

11:16Speaker 1:Either way. Just get out there in the nice fall weather. That's the point here. Agreed.

11:21Speaker 2:I cannot wait. It is still so hot. So bring it on.

11:24Speaker 1:Bring it on. Short Stuff is out.

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