13 Ideas for a Family Mabon
by Heather Evenstar Osterman
This is a gorgeous season. Nature is a blaze of color
and everything seems to come into balance. Night and day are again equal. There is a bountiful harvest to be thankful for, yet we must plan for the sparse times ahead. This is a time of generosity and conservation. So, how do you share these
values with your children? You can plan Mabon activities for the whole family to enjoy.
Mabon (also Harvest Home, Alban Elfed or Winter
Finding) is celebrated at the Autumnal Equinox. This is the second harvest festival of the year, that of fruits and vegetables. Mabon is the Welsh God of all things wild and free. He is also associated with the Sun God whose power dies on this day.
We also give thanks to the spirit of vegetation for the sacrifice made so that we can live through the winter. The Goddess at
this Sabbat is the grandmotherly crone, warm and wise. Here are some ideas to get your familystarted in celebrating this season:
Have a potluck feast with a group of friends and loved
ones to celebrate the abundance of the season.
Feel the warmth of being part of a community.
Adopt someone in a nursing home. As a family, take
your special person baked goodies and colored pictures. Read them books or tell them stories.
Walk around your neighborhood picking up garbage. Do
what you can to improve your home and prepare for winter.
Pick a subject that interests the whole family. Go to
the library or find other resources and study that subject. Together, share what you've learned.
Look at old family photo albums or scrapbooks. Try to
tell stories about each person in the pictures.
Leave an apple on the grave of an ancestor. Cut an
apple in half to showyour children the star inside. This is a reminder that all life is renewed in some way.
Bake cored apples filled with butter and cinnamon as a
special treat.
Create decorations for your front door out of colored
leaves, pinecones,nuts, acorns and Indian Corn bundles.
Take a walk in a wild place. Gather seedpods and dried
plants.
Sing songs and talk about all the things you've done over the
summer. Make plans for the winter.
Honor the birds and small animals in the wilderness or
by your home by making a birdfeeder or mandala filled with seeds and grain.
Make rattles out of empty gourds and sunflower seeds
or seeds collected from nature walks. Use the rattles to make music or scare away bad dreams.
Look at your family habits and figure out what you can
do to improve your conservation habits. Can you use less water or recycle more of your garbage?
Make a Vine God (stick-type male figure with a hollow
body) filled with foil-wrapped cornbread and sacrifice him on thecampfire (or barbeque!). Give thanks to the god for his sacrifice and enjoy the cornbread!
Heather Osterman is the Family Services Coordinator
for the Aquarian
Tabernacle Church.
