From the age of four until sixteen I was sent to the United Free Church on a Sunday – a branch of the Presbyterian Church that no-one else in my family attended. That, as they say, is another story for a different day. I didn’t mind Church too much, particularly when I was younger, as I loved to sing and the older ladies who loved to ‘grandmother’ me, always had a wee humbug – or “sooky sweetie” for me in their handbag. There always seemed to be some celebration or other and I remember vividly the excitement of the Harvest Festival when the Church was adorned with fruits, vegetables, turnips (yes, you read that right, turnips of all things), corn and every hue of russet, copper and golden foliage you could imagine. We would give thanks for the bountiful harvest that was the result of the farmer’s hard toil in the soil. A harvest that would sustain us through the long, cold, dark winter months when the earth was hard with frost and nothing would grow.
Meanwhile, back at home, my mum was preparing for Mabon with a new flower arrangement she had created, nestled amongst candles and pine cones. I always remember the pine cones appeared everywhere you looked. Their appearance or disappearance seemed to signal a change of season in our 2-roomed flat (otherwise referred to as a studio these days).
As a child, I didn’t realise the low square, red and black wooden table was my mother’s make-shift altar as well as our dinner table. The table was so low that we didn’t have chairs, but a cushion, and we would sit to eat Japanese style. My mother loved that table until one day its sharp corner made contact with my face, and nearly took my eye out – quite literally. I boast a Harry Potter-style scar just a millimetre or two above my eye in memory of the table. She got rid of it not long after – probably because it held bad energy and spilt blood.
I didn’t realise at that time, all the ways my mother celebrated the Sabbats – all while I was singing my little heart out, sitting on deliberately torturous wooden pews in Scotland’s United Free Church.
My mother had a complicated relationship with the Church. Mainly she despised anything that remotely aligned itself to organised religion. She and her brother had been in an orphanage run by sadistic nuns, and latterly the Church took away all her father’s belongings after he died. I always wondered why I was sent to Church. I have surmised it was to keep me on the straight and narrow given who my father was, or perhaps to give her some much-needed alone time. Or perhaps I was sent as an offering to a God she didn’t believe in. Who knows! She did have a dry sense of humour, my mother.
I found her Grimoire when I was about 9 or 10. It’s the one thing of hers I would have loved to have reclaimed after she died, aside from her beautiful Pāua ring, but it has since disappeared as these things do. Though her spellbook has yet to find its way to me, I do have memories of marking the turning of the wheel of the year through gifts from the earth. My mother would gather Gaia’s bounty and create something beautiful, or bake something delicious and comforting.
I realise there were many ways my mother marked moments in life, even the seemingly ordinary change in the seasons – she made them special just by noticing them. She noticed them, acknowledged them and celebrated them.
The Sacred Spiral to Mabon
As I sit here in my home in Tasmania, I reflect on these memories of my mother from a new vantage point. Things were tough back then. She had so many gifts and creative talents – she managed to make everything seem extraordinary, and yet I longed for her to notice me in the same way. What I wouldn’t have given for her gaze to fall upon me and bestow me with a sense of magic and extraordinaryness.
I look all around at the bounties of nature all around and I can see her walking around through the paddocks, talking to the birds and the frogs. I can see her planning where the wildflowers should be planted and whether she could build a greenhouse with the bits and pieces propped up in the garage. She’d love it here.
I’ve just made a few batches of red grape juice from wine grapes, and Mr P is getting on with the next batch. The apple trees are heavy with fruit and the leaves are turning from green to yellow, red and orange – though paradoxically, we are experiencing the warmth of an Indian Summer today. We are now at the midpoint between the light and dark halves of the year.
In Scotland, Ostara – the Vernal (Spring Equinox) will be warming the soil and seeds will stir, journeying up through the Earth. Ostara is a time of awakening, renewal and a time of new beginnings. Even though I’ve lived in the Southern Hemisphere for 23 years now, I will always think of March as Spring – a time to celebrate making it out of the darkness and into the light.
Much as I love that bright, joyous time of year, I honour the Turning of the Wheel according to my environment and the seasons I find myself in. Here at the end of the world, where the air is pure, the seasons are distinct and the weather is varied. I am learning to embrace a real Autumn and Winter once more. We must give thanks for all the Spring and Summer months gave us. It’s a time to reflect on the people and things in our lives we are thankful for – for these will sustain us as we slow down and begin to spiral inward. The spiral within allows us to rest – and allows us to heal.
Now is the time to make sure the windows are sealed, summer’s fruits are preserved and the seasoned firewood is stacked. The winter reads are piling by the bed and I’m busy looking out the warmer clothes and my Nordic socks as well as Angus’s fluffy coat. We are ready, prepared and thankful.
I will be making an Apple Crumble from last year’s apples to celebrate Mabon this year. Hopefully, my first attempts at canning were a success. It’s not easy being a domestic Goddess you know … it certainly doesn’t come naturally. However, I do attempt to honour The Great Mother and all the gifts, and traditions that she bestowed upon me. I carry them with me and connect to Her, through the Turning of the Wheel of the Year.
May Mabon’s Blessings Be Bestowed upon You and Yours. With love and light beautiful souls. Until next time.