My Mabon

Blessed be everyone, 

The past week has been spent getting the garden autum ready, picking the last black berries, trimming the outer hedge and clearing the summer flowers from my garden pots. 

Also my DH (dear hubby), is undergoing an operation tomorrow. He's having his deviated septum put right and having his tonsils out due to sleep apnea.  He's always snored terribly, but the last couple of years it has gotten worse (due to his quitting smoking and putting on 15 pounds or so), so our doctor recommended these operations. Sadly it means 14 days off work, pain meds and only cold food for the next 7 days,
so the meals I usually make for Mabon, have to be changed, as he can't have any heated foods.....

I still plan on making my chili-pumpkin soup tho - and freeze some for when he's better.

Picture taken from: wonderfullywyckked

This is my favorite time of year. This the season, where the Goddess descends into the underworld, nature declining as she goes, and winters frosty grip emerging. 

One of the most known Harvest tales is "the abduction of Persephone": 

Demeter was the Goddess of the harvest in the ancient greek mythology, and her daughter was Persephone (also known as Kore - the maiden). Persephone was abducted by Hades (the God of the underworld) and carried off to the underworld to be his bride. Demeter, so dispaired by her daughters dissappearence, caused the earths crops to die and go dormant. Zeus stepped in to help Demeter get her daughter back, but because Persephone had tasted the fruit of the underworld (a pomegranate), she was forced to spend half the year with Hades in the underworld, and could only return to earth in the spring, her return marked by the growth and renewal of nature. 

The abduction of Persephone

The talented Sandra on Deviantart's take on Persephone & Hades

Mabon is also the time of the year where the light and darkness is equal, meaning there are as many light houres of the day as there are dark. The warm days of the earth are behind us and the cold days are ahead. Mother nature is retreating and getting ready for her long winter-slumber.

Mabon is the time of the autum equinox, the 2nd. harvest. All the crops have been harvested and are stored for the coming winter. I spend Mabon honoring the changing season, enjoying the last of the summer berries (making preserves for the coming winter or baking pies), baking breads and enjoying deep red wines and dark beers. 

At the moment my absolute favorite dark beer is:

Wonderful ad, don't ya think??

Translated it is a "Beech beer", wonderfully dark and delicious. We have a lot of great microbreweries in Denmark, and this is among one of my favorites - Skovlyst - (which translated means forrestlust hehe great name!) - and at the moment it's actually on sale in Netto (national-grocery shop in Denmark) for 10 crowns (around $2 for a bottle), which is alright for an "occasion"-beer in my eyes, but too expensive to drink too often!

It is also around this time of year i most love to bake and spend time in the kitchen - all those wonderful berries and fruits from the garden, made into scrumptious pies and jams. This year i've got my eye set on some lovely cinnamon-apple pies for work and some "drottinge sylt" - a jam made of half blueberries and half raspberries - DELICIOUS!!

What do you like to make/do to celebrate Mabon and the autum equinox?