The Falling of the Year

Mabon and the season of leave-taking

Photo by Inna Gurina on Unsplash

Geese woke me for the second day in a row, crying their farewell to the yellowing land passing below them. The first real color is showing in the trees, and the meadow spaces between trees is flush with asters, goldenrod, ironweed and many types of grass in full bloom. It is the Sunset Season, our earth as glorious in her decline as is the sun each day. This is Mabon.

We planned to celebrate it last Friday because Saturday, the day of the autumn equinox, was too busy. It was a beautiful day, clear-skied and sunny and not too hot. The girls and I each chose a gift for Mother Earth, a way to say “thank you” for the good harvest that won’t be entirely finished until the first hard frost kills my herbs. Lee chose popcorn, a big buttery bowl full we could share as we circled the yard. Rena chose birdseed, and I steeped a mug of special tea I had formulated, a green apple chai made with dried apples from our early-bearing tree and lemonbalm from my herb bed. Together we made our circuit, from herb and vegetable garden to the orchard, meadow, and all our favorite trees. Here and there we also stopped to gather what we needed to decorate our family “talking stick,” the making of which was to be our activity for the day. Goldenrod and brown-eyed susans, basil and marigold, lavender and white pine needles, and a slender, new pinecone Lee found; with each gift received we left a gift behind: a splash of tea, a sprinkling of birdseed or popcorn. And our gratitude.

It is always when harvesting with my children that I find it easiest to maintain an attitude of open wonder and gratitude. My girls love the ceremony of it all, Rena especially. As we went along I talked about the plants we were harvesting, how to identify the wild ones and why we were picking them, which patches to choose from and which to let grow, and always, of course, to ask permission and wait until it is given. In the grove of white pines I told the story of the Tree of Peace and let them count the five needles in each bundle, one for each of the five tribes that signed the treaty called the “Five Nations Confederacy (Kayanerenh-kowa, or ‘Great Peace’) between the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes¹.” After, Rena plucked a sprig of pine needles for our family treaty-maker (what is a talking stick if not a way of keeping the peace?). And then she did something astonishing. She stepped from the branch from which she had just taken the bunch of needles to the trunk of its tree, and brushed the needles down the bark in a movement so tender I felt almost overflowing with the emotional response I experienced. My sweet girl was giving the tree and the needles a chance to say “goodbye” before the needles became a part of our talking stick. And just like that she hit upon the bittersweetness of this joyous holiday: winter is coming. Most of the growing things around us will soon be dead. Mabon heralds the season of dying.