Mabon Ritual - Anthropology of Religion

I recently witnessed a Wiccan Mabon ritual on September 22nd 2012. This ritual was the celebration of the change from summer to fall. It took place in Colorado Springs, on the outskirts of town. We were outdoors, in a small grove of trees. It was a clear sky with the First Quarter moon beginning to rise over the horizon. The breeze was cool but not cold yet and slowly people started to drift into the clearing. My friend Tiff (name has been changed) was the leader of the ritual. Everyone was wearing dark blue (almost black) robes. This, I was told, is because we were celebrating the surrender of the Earth to the darkness of winter. This ritual was to celebrate the balance of nature, how the light of spring and summer were balanced by the darkness of winter and fall, how we balance our commitments to our families and work, as well as how Earth doesn’t resist the changing of seasons. Rather, change is welcomed, because the change that comes with the seasons are gifts from the God and Goddess, they each have a special beauty that comes from the hand of the divine. Tiff explained that the moon being in its first quarter meant that it was time to put new ideas, goals and intentions into motion. It is also a time to pray or meditate on the removal of obstacles in your life and to receive blessings. We are taught to give, in order to receive. It’s a time to find and restore the balance within ourselves and a time of evaluation.
Tiff told me that in American culture, submission was seen as a bad thing, but in our religious views, we should cherish the idea instead, for the ultimate submission is into death. We can’t control or stop it, same as we cannot stop the changing of the seasons. This was a time to let go of our idea of control, and understand that we must let go and realize that death and limitation are part of our inevitable end. If we never died, we would grow stagnant, never changing and never growing.
There was an altar, draped with the same dark blue cloth.