Short Stuff: Mabon

This is an "I Heart" podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff on Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry here too sitting him for Dave, and we're here to celebrate the pagan Thanksgiving that you never knew you needed. Yeah, I don't remember if we mentioned this because we covered some stuff on wikens and others sort of pagan religions years ago, I feel like. But the pagan Thanksgiving is Maybon, it may be Owen, and it is one of many kind of fall harvest celebrations that have happened throughout history that celebrate the autumnal equinox. Wow, we're going to go and say it again. The autumnal equinox. Very nice. Yeah, but it's actually kind of new. Maybon is because ironically, the original pagans, like the Celts, for example, did not celebrate the autumnal equinox, which is evidenced by if you go to Stonehenge on the autumnal equinox, nothing happens, nothing special, it's just like any other day. But like you said, cultures around the world have, and today, neo-pagans, Druids, wikens, etc., definitely celebrated as one of eight sabbats, sabbats, I think, right, like sabbats. They're eight of them on the wheel of the year, and in fact, Maybon is one of three harvest festivals that occur from August through October. Yeah, I mean, you probably heard us talk about you all before in one of our Christmas episodes, probably. But that is a sabbat, and we've also talked about sawin, for sure, spelled Sam Hain, because that's the one associated with Halloween, so those are definitely much more well-known, but Maybon, we got to talk about Maybon a little bit. All right. Well, first let's talk about the first harvest festival, Lunasa. That takes place in early August, where I guess, I don't know what you're picking then. Maybon is like the money harvest festival, late September, that's when everything's ready to be picked, basically. And then sawin is the third, the one in October. And the autumnal equinox, and this is a big part of Maybon in particular, is balance. The reason why there's a focus on balance is because the day and night are basically evenly split between 12 hours a piece on the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, the spring equinox. So that's a big theme in Maybon. Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that, if you practice any kind of paganism and you want to celebrate Maybon, you want to maybe meditate on that balance in your own life, might be a thing to do. For sure. Another thing you mentioned earlier is that it's a newer thing. This term is only about 55 years old. The Maybon actually comes from a Welsh god, son of the earth, mother goddess. And there was a Welsh text, an old Welsh text called the Mabanagian, your guess is as good as mine. Yeah. That looks about right. It tells about like, you know, King Arthur and the nights at the round table and stuff like that. And one of the heroes of those stories is a god named Maybon, son of mother, who was held hostage as a baby. Yeah. And as we'll see, the reason that Maybon was chosen to mark the autumnal equinox, despite the fact that the ancient Druids and Celts like did not, there was no recognition of Maybon or association with them. That's a modern thing, like we said, is that the guy who kind of helped write or put together the wheel of the year for modern paganisms, Aiden Kelly, back in the 60s and 70s, he did his research and he found out that in Greek lore and mythology, the goddess Demeter is celebrated on the autumnal equinox. And Demeter shares in common with Maybon, this idea that she was young and was rescued from the underworld just like Maybon was. So he's like, I think this is enough of an association to call this Maybon. Yeah, it was kind of funny, apparently he was looking for something gaelic or Germanic, name wise on the pagan calendar, based on the solstice and he couldn't find anything, so he was like, yeah, maybe a stretch, but I'm just going to go with this one. Yeah, that's not to say that, so Maybon seems to be the only one that they put into the wheel of the year. There are some really ancient Celtic festivals, including Sawan and Lunisa and one called Beltane and one called Imalc, which is spelled IMBOLC, and I'm just so pleased as punch that I pronounced it correctly. Nice work. But Maybon they said, we're going to add this in because we feel like it's a big deal. And again, there's other cultures that celebrate this, like the Maltese, the Mayans. And then Chuck get this, the pyramid of Kukul Khan at Cheats & Eats in Mexico. Did you look a picture of this up? Yeah, amazing. It is amazing. So the shadows fall on the pyramid, the steps of the pyramid, technically it's a Ziggurat. And it looks like a serpent coming down the steps on the side, on the autumnal equinox. It's nuts because it definitely looks like that. Yeah, it's cool. It reminded me of when I lived in Los Angeles, when Imalene and I moved in together, we lived in the neighborhood of Eagle Rock, and Eagle Rock is so named because there's a big rock by the highway that has, it's not like hand carved, it's just a piece cut of nature carved out. And when the sun hits that, at a certain time of a day, it looks like an eagle flying. Oh, neat. Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't named after the band. What? Eagles? No, probably not. Because they do not rock. Should we take a break? All right. We'll be right back. Okay, Chuck, I feel like it's high time that we explain to people what they can do to celebrate Maybond, even if you're not a pagan or a wick or a witch or have never owned a crystal. Doesn't matter. You can still observe Maybond. I should say also, we base this short stuff on an article from How Stuff Works Written by Our Own Dave Roos. Dave Roos is one of the most religiously tolerant people you will ever meet. And he definitely applied that to this. And I feel like we also need to shout out Dave's podcast Biblical Time Machine, which is also very tolerant too. Yeah. Dave's great. So, it was a podcast. I mentioned earlier in Act One that one thing you can do is reflect on the past year and talk about balance. Also, obviously things that you're thankful for because again, this is around Thanksgiving. And something you can do in your house, if you want, is to have a cornucopia, like a little horn of plenty, that has roots in ancient Greece. Yeah. But if you have a centerpiece of a cornucopia in your home to celebrate fall or the autumnal equinox or Maybond, there are certainly worse ways to go about it than that. It's a lovely thing to do. And it is. It is like an iconic fall look essentially. And it's just yet another thing that people do today and don't realize that it's an ancient pagan custom, I love that kind of stuff. Another thing you can do is reflect. There's a lot of time for reflecting over the course of a 12 hour day. Sure. And so because the energy is in balance between night and day on Maybond, it's the same on the Vernal Equinox too, Ostarra. But with Ostarra, you're thinking about renewal and growth and awakening, basically from the winter slumber. In autumn, you're kind of going the opposite way. You're talking about releasing stuff. Yeah. You know, like, is that to pay really working for you? That kind of stuff. You've harvested the year already and now you're basically getting ready to go to sleep for months. Yeah. If I size up a shirt, we'll let hide my beer belly a little more. Yeah. They definitely will. Sometimes that's not the way to go though. Oh, no. Definitely not. Especially if it's a tight shirt. Yeah. Did you ever see, um, I think you should leave the TV show? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Remember that one skit where he's got like the handle on his shirt to pull it away from his gut more efficiently. Yeah. I thought you were going to talk about the episode where he, he was obsessed with that particular shirt brand. I don't remember that. That he kept buying. Yeah. Yeah. He has lots of funny clothing things because also in the movie he did with Paul Rudd, uh, friendship. Was that what it's called? I think so, yeah. Uh, it was a very funny clothing company. He made up for that. What was the name of it? I don't remember. Oh, it was called, uh, God, he's so funny to me, ocean view dining. That brings a bell, but I don't remember. I remember the whole joke. - Yeah, he just loved it. It was just a Tim Robinson thing. He just loved Ocean View dining clothes and talked about him a lot. - Are you a destroyer fan too? - No, that's still the one I haven't seen. It's on the way. - Oh, you're gonna love it. - Yeah. - You will absolutely love it. - God, he's so great. It's weird enough to not last long and Saturday at life and that's, you're probably headed in the right direction. - For sure, yeah. - So yeah, that's another thing you can do and Meibon is have a Tim Robinson marathon. You could definitely do a lot worse than that. - Yeah, or you could just bring some fall color in there. And if you don't have the cornucopia, just maybe bring in a few things that are in harvest, maybe some dried flowers, maybe take a walk. - That's a big one. - Go to a corn maze. - Yeah, why not support your local economy? - Yeah. - Well, though there is big corn maze now. - Right. - You don't wanna go there. - Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do. And essentially, it's just feel good about fall. There's the key for non-pagans. If you're a pagan, you got a lot more to do, sorry. - Yeah, agreed. - So the autumnal equinox is Tuesday, September 22nd this year. Hopefully we're releasing this before then, although it would be classic stuff you should know to release at the day after. - Totally. - Either way, just get out there in the nice fall weather. - That's the point here. - Agreed, I cannot wait. It is still so hot, so bring it on. - Bring it on. Short stuff is out. - Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.