Mabon - the myth of progress

Mabon, the autumn equinox, is something of a blank slate. In the Wheel of the Year, the “cross-quarter days” are Celtic fire festivals; the other solar festivals - the solstices and the vernal equinox - are grounded in proto-Germanic cultures. In those Germanic cultures, though, the autumn equinox has no strong history of celebration; it doesn’t even have a distinguishing name. To keep the Wheel of the Year in balance, Gerald Gardner included the autumn equinox, but left most of the details open to interpretation. The name Mabon, drawn from Welsh mythology, came into common use later on, but doesn't do much to specify the nature of the festival.

As a result, different ways of interpreting the multiple harvest festivals have sprung up. Some groups focus on the Celtic roots of Lunasa and leave the harvest symbolism to Mabon; others describe Lunasa as the start of the harvest and the equinox as its end, and may call the festival Harvest Home instead. [1] Still others describe Lunasa as the grain harvest and Mabon as the fruit harvest. It depends on the group, and the bioregion, and the weather. This multiplicity of interpretations is one of the things I love about Paganism: each open space is fertile soil where multiple myths can take root and flourish simultaneously.

Understanding and relating to Pagan myths has taken practice, though. When I first became Pagan, I used to be confused and sometimes downright irritated when I read tales of deities who didn't seem very godlike, coming from a monotheistic perspective. I mean, they get drunk, they have fights, and they cheat on their spouses, not always in that order. They're not exactly the kind of example we'd want to imitate in most cases.

As I grew in my practice and engaged more with the myths and with different kinds of stories, I gradually reached the conclusion that my assumption - that myths are stories about gods whom humans should seek to emulate - was a holdover from my Christian past. In Christianity, religious narratives about Jesus or good Christians are presented as exemplars for followers to emulate. This approach is very god-centered, and when taken to its (il)logical extreme, it can almost erase the adherent by reducing her to a mere reflection of the beatified.

I’ve come to see the older myths as human-centric stories. The gods act like humans - and do they ever! - except that the gods are bigger and stronger, so when they screw up, they royally - or maybe deifically? - screw up. The myths reflect humans back to themselves, but enlarged. The stories don't minimize the bad in favor of the good, or vice versa; they magnify all the parts and possibilities, or they add unique features that weren’t present before.

The myths give both storyteller and audience the chance to engage with human stories in an exaggerated setting so that they're more interesting, more exciting, more dangerous, more tragic and more amazing. Throughout, though, they are fundamentally human stories.

This approach also helps me understand why so many overlapping, contradictory versions of the same myth can co-exist. The myths are no longer central; the teller and audience are, so it is natural for the people to adapt the myths to tell the stories they need to tell. No one is trying to find the single unchanging standard for behavior; the multiplicity of myths encourages us to adapt our responses to the situation, just as the storyteller working on the fly might have to alter the ending to fit the narrative corner she backs herself into. What matters is that the story works, that it's good enough, that it fits its context.

The most encouraging thing about this approach to the myths, though, is that because we're telling them, we can change them. They grow with us over time. And that's important, because my favorite myth is the myth of progress.

Historian Laurence Keeley, in his book on prehistoric warfare, wrote that modern people tend to view prehistory in terms of two competing myths: the myth of the golden age or the myth of progress. [2] The myth of the golden age conceives of the world as continually declining. It leads us to assume that the past was always better than the present - if not in hygiene or life expectancy, then in some in some ineffable but presumably more important characteristics like social structure and morality. The myth of progress supposes the polar opposite: it tells a story of continuous development, usually with technological and social development being used as evidence of the present's superiority.

It is quite accurate to describe both of these worldviews as myths; as the Slacktiverse's motto says, it's usually more complicated than that. Depending on the period and place that a historical narrative tries to describe, and what the narrative's author views as "good," it may seem that these myths take turns driving alternating ages of development and decay, or that one is predominant for all the period under consideration, or both, or neither.

For example, the history of Europe in the centuries after the end of the Roman Empire is usually told in accord with the myth of the golden age, while the history of the time around the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is usually presented as progress. Neither of these is entirely true or entirely false, especially depending on who and what the person telling the story considers important. Each framing, though, highlights some aspects and supports some conclusions, while pushing other matters into the background.

For the present moment, I try to make narratives that loosely fit with the myth of progress. I think that trying to tell our own stories as a part of the myth of the golden age is fundamentally discouraging, but trying to tell them as part of the myth of progress is a fundamentally optimistic position which can not only make us feel good but inspire us to do good.

To me, starting from a position that assumes the past was better seems like an invitation to despair; we can't get back there, after all, and if you think, as I do, that a certain amount of change is inevitable, then we may not even be able to hold on to the fragments of it we retain. The ability to learn and the ability to change are tied up together. An attitude of suspicion about all change seems to me to be inherently resistant to learning, and hence to growth.

The myth of progress, by contrast, is an invitation to hope. We can't change the past; we have to acknowledge it in all its beauty and grandeur, its cruelty and despair. But with that acknowledgement, we free ourselves to work on what we can change: the present, with an eye towards the future. As Terry Pratchett wrote, if we do a good job of changing our own present, when we get to the future, the present will "turn out to be a past worth having." [3]

In this way the myth of progress is more than an invitation to hopeful feelings: it is an invitation to hopeful action, to hope and love enacted. The myth of progress, and the mindset that comes with it, help me tell my stories in ways that guide my actions. Because I continue to have hope, I continue to put forth effort to make the world - and its stories - continue to improve.

And although some of the stories we tell are ones we really don't want to live through, sometimes we tell ourselves stories that we do want to live up to, stories that inspire us to be better than we thought we were. I think America's founders did that, for example, telling themselves a story about how things might work out much better in a society where religious liberty was guaranteed to all. The ones who found hope in that story were able to convince the ones who wanted to preserve an imaginary golden age of state-sponsored Christianity, and so there are clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution which prohibit government establishment of a religion and guarantee free exercise to all.

But even at the time the Constitution was written, the story of free exercise for all religions was not the literal truth; it was in some ways a myth. Native Americans and slaves were not granted the rights the founders proposed, at least in part because they were seen as not really citizens and not fully human. State-sponsored Christian prayer continued in schools until the mid-20th century. Today, the US still lives up to that lofty ideal only imperfectly, but it has made tremendous strides towards making what was once a myth into a reality for more and more people. That gives me hope.

This is what I love about Mabon; more, perhaps, than any other Sabbat, it is a festival about which Pagans are actively making their own myths, in all their many forms. Mabon is an opportunity for us to look at our myths, and the stories we tell ourselves about our world, our past, and our potential futures. And since Mabon is so open to reinterpretation, it reminds us that if we don't like those stories, or where they're going, then maybe we can start telling the story differently, trying many versions, until we find the ones that we can live with and live in.

So, what's your myth? How do you use a myth - of progress, or something else - to tell your own stories?

--Literata

---

[1] Here I use the modernized Irish spelling for this holiday rather than the "Lughnasadh" spelling most Pagans are used to seeing. ↩

[2] Keeley, Lawrence H. War Before Civilization. Oxford University Press, 1996, p 4-5. ↩

[3] Pratchett, Terry. I Shall Wear Midnight. Harper Collins, 2010, p 336. ↩

---

 

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Comments

[Lonespark]

Wow, this is an awesome post.

Also, I always thought Halloween was my favorite holiday, but it turns out to be Mabon, even though I've never really celebrated it with other Pagans. Fall Foliage! Back to school! Apples! and cider! and APPLE CIDER DONUTS OMG NOMNOMNOM! And that special, sharp, something in the air that lets your soul know it's Autumn...

We picked a lot of apples from the trees around my grandmother's house in Vermont, and my mom made a bunch of applesauce. On the Troth list there had been discussion about Idunna as a goddess of autumn, because of the apples, and I've been thinking about Her a lot, while I pick and eat apples and drink cider and watch leaves fall. And Sif, too. Golden apples, golden grain, golden leaves, soft gold sunlight...

And Eastern Mass. Pagan Pride, too. This year I brought my kids, and they ran away from the main festival and rolled down hills and had fights with dried grass...Last year I got to be in the Mabon ritual, and learn a chant, about wisdom and beauty and darkness. This year I left early with the kids, thinking about warrior queens and funeral pyres and cauldrons of wisdom (Kelliana concert, yay)...

[Literata]

Thanks, Lonespark. Isn't Kellianna cool? Some of her chants make great ritual music too.

I'd like to take a minute to thank the editors who helped make this piece what it is. My friend Ann the Mad originally encouraged me to visit the Slacktiverse and is an editor gifted by the gods. She's read and helped me improve quite a few pieces, especially this one, and I thank her for it from the bottom of my heart.

TBAT also did some really excellent editing. Good editors are a lot like sound engineers on a recording: they're absolutely essential and have a tremendous impact on the final product but are usually (especially when they do their jobs well) mostly invisible. I have always found TBAT's edits to be the kind of suggestion that makes the me look and sound better than I would on my own. Thank you all.

[MercuryBlue]

Food for thought.

[Amaryllis]

This multiplicity of interpretations is one of the things I love about Paganism: each open space is fertile soil where multiple myths can take root and flourish simultaneously.
Hurriedly, that's one of the things I love about hearing you and the other Pagans around here talk about Paganism; it's very mind-expanding.

[Sixwing]

This is fascinating, Literata. Thanks for writing and sharing!

One of my myths - my driving forces, and one of the ways by which I understand the universe and my place in it - is that of the cycle. Call it the Wheel of Fortune if you will - that sums it up as well as any single symbol. I call it the Rule of Oscillation, which phrase I think I stole from C. S. Lewis (no matter what else I think of him).

I do not understand everything to be the linear rise of Progress (though there are rises, some of them linear) or the precipitous fall of the Golden Age (though there are falls, some of them quite steep). Rather, the Wheel treads its own track; ever rises the falcon in her gyre, until she folds her wings and falls.

I start from the position that the world was a lot like ours, however long ago. People were a lot like our people, and the people of the future, too, will be a lot like us. This is neither to handwave the differences of our times nor to exaggerate them; I try to claim neither that the past was a land of paragons, nor that it was a land of savages. Claims that the ancient whoevers "couldn't have built that, because they didn't know x" when we can't replicate half of what they did irritate me vastly. Claims that "the ancient whoevers were obviously so much better than us" do likewise.

They were, says oscillation, much like us. They laughed like us, puzzled like us, were cruel and cried like us. Here was a golden age (small letters intentional) - if you were on top. It was followed by darkness, followed by clawing back into the track of progress again, and the dizzy heights begin to turn. On the scale of history, I look for cycles. That doesn't mean that the cycles will be even, two hundred years here, six hundred there, a mere fifteen here... Oscillation is not destiny, merely the tendency of things to swing back and forth, and I don't think it's impossible to slow, or even stop, the swing.

On the more personal scale, oscillation says that no matter how bad it is, there's probably an upswing. No matter how good it is, there's probably a downswing. If I am working on a problem and can't seem to avoid falling back into it, it's the faith to continue, because there will be improvement, even if it comes after a downfall. The reverse of that is the knowledge that no matter how peachy things are, I should have an eye to the future, because there will be a return to less lofty heights.

The wheel is not immovable; it can be shifted forward and backward, maybe even jolted right out of its track, regardless of the scale of the situation.

The hard part is figuring out how to do it.

[Laiima]

@Sixwing, I think of things similarly, but instead of oscillations, I would name them spirals. Same kind of nonlinear dynamics though. So it's not quite a 'pattern' (in a textile sense), because that implies exact repeats, but it *is* a pattern in a meta sense because you keep seeing similar themes or problems to be faced.

@Literata: Excellent post, and on target for things I was thinking about this morning.

[MercuryBlue]

Fractals?

[Laiima]

@MB, yes, fractals are always a good answer, but perhaps more relevant here is strange attractors? Also quasiperiodicity.

Nonlinear dynamics/chaos is one of my favorite topics, and seems to apply in way more situations than you might expect.

[Sixwing]

@Laiima, yes, that's it!
Not a pattern in that it repeats exactly in nice blocks, or even in plaids, but the repetition of a theme, for which I have no better word.

Strange attractors make a good metaphor.

[LIterata]

Along the lines of oscillation/spirals/patterns, I like an apocryphal quote attributed to Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes."

[Laiima]

@Literata: I think I ran across that recently, not sure where. But that's a very useful way of putting it!

[histrogeek]

I don't know exactly when myths and legends became about perfect beings. Some Roman and Greek authors seemed to want to clean up their mythology. The Romans definitely toned down the Hellenistic "crazies" as much as possible.
The ancient Hebrews had their own human-centered mythos around their ancestral legends. It's one of the great frustrations of many Bible readers that the Torah has so many undesirable people including the allegedly great patriarchs, Abram and Jacob in particular. Really that trend continued well into the Christian cannon. Jesus is supposed to be perfect (though even he has questionable moments), but the Apostles are a bunch of bumbling fools. Acts is the only narrative in the Christian canon that does not show the main non-divine characters in a frequently unfavorable light.

[histrogeek]

@Literata, Laiima, and Sixwing
There's always Marx's comment that historical events always happen twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce (that's actually a paraphrase should anyone wish to be pedantic).

[histrogeek]

I wonder if the lack of an autumnal equinox festival is because it's so clearly overshadowed by harvest festivals, which don't correspond nearly as well to the astronomical calendar. Besides everyone was too busy with the harvest to take time over the equinox, especially when there would be a much bigger fest at the ingathering.

[Literata]

histrogeek, that's definitely a possibility, or that each area had its own harvest fest that moved from year to year depending on the weather and so on, so nobody had a name for it per se. It was just, "Oh thank goodness we're done for now. Let's eat." If that was the case, perhaps the Celtic Samhain (Halloween) was a sort of communal recognition that no matter where you were, harvest season was now over, time to hunker down for the winter.

Jeopardy geek moment: Samhain was the response to a Jeopardy clue recently. Hee!

And as for the idea of myths, Marx was a great myth-maker. I don't mean that he was a liar, I mean that he not only interpreted historical and current events, he incorporated them into a narrative that extrapolated into the future and was capable of inspiring action in both those who adhered to it and those who opposed it.

[Mary Kaye]

We always struggled with Mabon--it never developed a relatively fixed ritual the way that Beltaine or Samhain did. My favorite of the various Mabons I wrote was the Goblin's Ball, when we would make masks and attend the ritual masked, as various creatures or spirits or archetypes. We would mock our leadership and do bragging dances and tell stories. I would tell the story of Hungry Skeleton, making the old woman who defeats the skeleton a Goblin woman.

So Mabon for me has an ornery quality--perhaps because we struggled with it so much--which fits with what Literata says about the imperfection of gods in the myths. Mabon is about letting your imperfect, worldly, goblin-ish side come out and dance, before the serious work of Samhain and the coming winter.

I learned the hard way that Mabon is *not* the Nut Festival here, no matter what historical sources might suggest, because you cannot find nuts in the shell for sale at Mabon in Seattle for love nor money. It's the same kind of practical experience that says that Litha is not Midsummer, no matter what it may be in Europe.

(I have a walnut tree due to the time we finally did the Nut ritual at Samhain and brought home the extra nuts to feed our local squirrel. Apparently he or she missed one. It took me years to figure out what it was!)

[Lonespark]

Your thing about Goblins reminds me a bit of the Horribles parades around here. Which I mostly only heard of because of some "think of the children!" crap in the free parenting paper. It's free cuz it sucks, apparently. I think the one in Salem is on July 4th, so double win, lady, complaining about free speech and thinking of the children at something that obviously isn't geared to those of delicate sensibilities.

[Omorka]

Heh. I tend towards the Mesopotamian pantheons, and there the two equinoxes are the two most important festivals - the other two solar festivals are much less well attested, and the cross-quarters are (understandably, since they're so very European) absent.

[biology guy]

thank you. I always enjoy your writing and I always learn a lot.

[Rowen]

One minor quibble.

"For example, the history of Europe in the centuries after the end of the Roman Empire is usually told in accord with the myth of the golden age, while the history of the time around the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is usually presented as progress."

That's a much more modern idea. The thinkers during the "Middle Ages" often viewed themselves as the successors of the Roman Empire, and felt they were improving on many of the things left to them. And, for a lot of things, they were. Buildings became larger and airier, with the ability to put in windows (something the Roman villa never really had). The upright, overshot waterwheel came into use, where the Romans ignored the technology, as well as improvements to the furnace.

That being said, yes, a lot of stuff was lost (which, I recently read something that talked about how the Romans didn't bother to translate a lot of the more philosophical works, even in the sciences, into Latin, which is one of the many reasons why they were lost to us when Rome fell, thus helping out the "Dark Ages."), but it wasn't this modern idea that Humankind fell dramatically into a dark period where everyone cried out and gnashed their teeth at the remenants of former glory strewn about the countryside, mocking the peasants that they once lived in a glorious world that was now horrible, awful and plague ridden, while the monarchs feasted on the flesh of low born babies and laughed at the dung and mud covered poor, fearful that one day, they'd all learn how to read.

I did like this though. I recently read something about how the modern Wheel of the Seasons wasn't really what was used, and like to learn more about what was celebrated vs what gets celebrated today.

[Literata]

Rowen, that's why I said "is usually" as in "is usually now" told that way.

I'm glad you liked the rest. It's absolutely correct that no historical group celebrated all eight of the modern Sabbats, but they do work reasonably well for most of us these days, plus with eight, you get a party roughly every six weeks (rather than every three months with just four festivals). Yay!

[Rowen]

Oh. . . hehehe. I missed that part, or read it the wrong way. I'm sorry!

I think this is also why I feel a little weird with blanket condemnations of cultural appropriation, since, without some form of that, the Pagan community wouldn't exist. Or wouldn't exist in the form that it does today, and would probably be a lot small/insular.

[hapax]

I love the idea that the autumnal equinox is a time of making our own myths, to prepare us for the coming dark and the return of the light.

It's no secret that I consider the making and sharing of stories to be a sacred activity, perhaps THE sacred activity.

But I've been thinking that storytelling / myth-making also requires a balance, between the myth and the actual.

You mention the contrast between the historical and the mythical in the USA's founding myths. I think this is true of most national stories -- indeed, the more powerful the myth, the greater the contrast.

Take one important story: the foundation of (ancient) Israel centers on "remember that you were slaves in Egypt" until God "led you out with a mighty hand." That is, the arena for God's decisive interactions with humanity -- meant to serve as an exemplar to the world -- is fundamentally the story of liberation, that God rejects slavery and will act on the side of the powerless.

Did that actually, historically happen? Well, the archeological evidence says NO, not even close; although the proto-Israel may well have been settled by a Semitic people from Egypt, it is extremely unlikely that they were a race of slaves, or that there was ever a single Exodus-event.

So, which one matters more? On the one hand, the myth (at its best) inspires a sense of national identity, centered around the idea that a people thrives by adherence to ethical obligations, the duty to be "a kingdom of priests" and "a light unto the nations", with tolerance towards the alien and the oppressed.

On the other, there is a sense of national identity forged by a resentment of past that probably never happened and a conviction of a special destiny by projecting past triumphs (which may or may not have happened) into an inevitable future.

Not to pick on just countries -- people forge personal myths as well.

I have one -- it deals with my struggles with childhood depression, and my awful experiences with medication and therapy.

I created a personal myth about how I learned to cope and eventually triumphed over "darkness" through a combination of mental disciplines and religious practices which were anathema to my family.

Is this *factual*? Hard to say --I have (perhaps fortunately) only the faintest scraps of memories of my years between about age five and twelve. But judging from conversations with family members and diary entries from the later period, maybe kinda sorta. Childhood mental illnesses weren't well understood then, and treatment was pretty much rough-and-ready trial and error. My family *was* very ... not hostile to religion exactly, but a-religious; and I had shelves of books on world religious beliefs and practices, well above my reading level. And I *did* start to learn to cope with my problems at about the same time I accepted certain beliefs and began to practice certain disciplines in earnest. On the other hand, this was *also* the time I hit adolescence, moved to a new state, and began taking the medication I still take today.

So. This is a still my personal foundation story, as it were, and is a POWERFUL one. In it resides most of my sense of self; my understanding of the nature of the mind; my conviction that just as the flesh can shape the mind, so can conscious re-shaping of the mind restore the flesh; and indeed, my appreciation of the power of myth itself.

And that's all been good and healthy for me.

But -- also from this same myth comes a certain arrogance that "I know best"; an unwillingness to share with family the things that matter most to me; and an abiding unreasonable distrust and even fear of medications (even painkillers!) and professional therapy -- all of which depend upon the evidence of things that probably never happened.

Holy cow, that was a wall-o-text! And now I'm not even sure what the original point was.

[Kirala]

Holy cow, that was a wall-o-text! And now I'm not even sure what the original point was. -hapax

Perhaps "Stories have great power. Power can be two-edged. Fact must always be on guard against the (sometimes oversimplifying) dark side of myth." Something to remember for those of us who love stories as a guard against the obfuscational power of disorganized facts. Does that sound vaguely right?

I'm not even sure how to name my most important myths, because I'm not sure how to define "myth". Connection to the Greek "mythos", of course, truth-through-story... but what sort of truth? Psychological? Spiritual? Theological? Philosophical? Sociological? Some undefinable mix of the above? Any of the above? And are the stories I love more or less important than the stories I live, when I notice a discrepancy? Never sure whether I'm overthinking things or being irreverent!

[Sixwing]

@hapax, maybe the point was the sharing of a story?
And thank you for sharing it; I love to read your writing, as it always makes me think.

@Kirala, I'd be inclined to think "all of the above, or any, or none." Because I am contrary like that. *s*

And are the stories I love more or less important than the stories I live, when I notice a discrepancy?

That's a truly excellent question.

To get into overused-metaphor-land, if the map doesn't match the territory, there's options.
Maybe the user is misreading the map. Maybe the map is for a different place. Maybe that flat thing, with lines on it, is not a map.

But in any of the above cases, the user of the map is somewhere, having to deal with a mismatch. The user can improve the map, or try to backtrack, or maybe turn around and see if that helps things, or chuck the map and make a new one, or go without.

And now I've lost track of my metaphor. *lol*

[Lonespark]

And are the stories I love more or less important than the stories I live, when I notice a discrepancy?

Elizabeth Loftus went into this a bit in...The Myth of Repressed Memory, I think? We need our stories. Memories aren't events; they're narratives, and when we can't integrate certain memories into our narratives, or when things happen to disrupt them, that's difficult for our minds and souls. But the stories we weave around ourselves and sometimes others aren't as trustworthy as we'd often like, and trusting them against evidence leads down bad roads.

[Literata]

Sixwing, that's actually a good elaboration of the metaphor!

hapax...just wow, and thank you. Yes, the process of evolving our own personal stories fascinates me too, especially how my my own stories have sometimes changed dramatically in relatively short periods of time.

The example of being willing to limit/revise one's myths to avoid using them to justify unethical action is an excellent one. I think a lot of problems stem from treating stories as more important than evidence, or worse, more important than people. I think sometimes friction comes from one person being upset that others (or the world) aren't submitting to hir authorial control, as if hir autobiography were the only story being told and everyone else was just a character.

[Kirala]

Literata - One of my favorite author biography-blurbs is by Christopher Stasheff, who says that he "tends to pre-script his life but doesn't understand why other people can't get their lines right". I take it as valuable social advice. Hadn't considered before how important it would also be to revisit the script after it's played out...

[Summer]

Wonderful post, especially the discussion on progressive vs. Golden Age myths. I tend to think of history as circular, running in both directions at the same time. So even as we are devolving from the 'Golden Age,' we are also progressing toward it.

For me, Mabon is the gateway to Samhain. Mabon sets abuzz all of that intoxicating energy that climaxes at Samhain. Samhain is the death; Mabon is the dying.

[Literata]

Describing it as a gateway makes me think of the image of the chalk giant that was at the Wild Hunt today. That's an interesting way to approach it, too!

[Kit Whitfield]

This is an ignorant question, but how to you pronounce Mabon?

[Mmy]

Echoing Kit -- not sure how to pronounce it either

[Literata]

Another great Pagan pronunciation debate! I say MAY-bon (bon as in bon-bon, or less emphasized as sort of like bun). Some people say MAY-bone, others MAH-bon. Theoretically it's originally Welsh, so I suppose a speaker of that noble tongue could tell me if there's a "right" way to say it, but in the contemporary adaptation and use, it varies widely.

[Lonespark]

I think I go with Literata's way, except it comes out more like "MAY-ben" or even "MAY-bin." Or course, Heathens generally avoid the isuue because we call the holiday Winter Finding.

[Literata]

Yeah, what I really need there is a schwa to indicate a non-stressed vowel that just sounds flat - MAY-buhn might be better, but it still looks weird.

I finally gave up and started calling my ritual knife "my ritual knife" in part because there are too many pronunciations of athame. :)

[Lonespark]

I finally gave up and started calling my ritual knife "my ritual knife" in part because there are too many pronunciations of athame. :)

Hee.
Chalice/blade. Works for me. Not that I need to use it, but sometimes it helps you figure out the sexual innuendoes in Pagan songs.

[MaryKaye]

We have a set of songs that collectively require Hecate's, Demeter's, and Diana's names to be pronounced *at least* two different ways each, or they don't sound right....

[Steve Morrison]

Coincidentally I just came across this guide to pronouncing Welsh. (I've been reading a book called Tolkien and Wales, and wanted to know how to pronounce the Cymraeg names and other words in it.)

[Amaryllis]

So it looks like it's MAY-bon, then?

At least if you're talking about the guy-- god? -- from The Mabinogion. Note to self: brush up on Welsh stories. Also, bookmark pronunciation guide, before you meet up again with Culhwych and Blodeuwydd and Ysbaddaden and all the rest of them.

Speaking of The Wild Hunt, I see that this post has been front-paged for their equinoctial celebration. Cool.

I can accept the oscillating or circular, or preferably spiral, models to discuss our collective experience. But there's no denying that for each individual adult, the overall pattern is one of decline. Sure, summer will come 'round again, but once you get past a certain point, each summer is a little less than the one before. And eventually, there won't be another.

The autumn equinox is my time to think about that. I think I need a new myth, to get me through the equinoctial tears.

Since I can't let a seasonal post get by without a poem, here's Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking:

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

[Kit Whitfield]

I just consulted my father-in-law, who's a native Welsh speaker. He says it's MA-bon, with a short A and a short O, and it's the name of various Welsh folk heroes.

[Literata]

Thanks, Amaryllis and Kit. Very cool on both counts.