Mabon

It is Mabon, the autumn equinox, the time of harvests. Apples, marigolds, grapes, squash, mushrooms and new honey are in abundance in the local markets. It is still early for the acorns to fall or the annual chestnut bonkings on the head when walking under the trees. What we have sown we now reap to sustain us through the winter.

In the South of France there is less of a weather shift, although sleeves are replacing tank tops and people are digging out sweaters. There are none of the fall colours that I will find when I return to Geneva, which although beautiful, lack the New England brightness.

And although Mabon marks the beginning of the end of the year, I always see this time of year as new, a start of new projects, new ideas, a buckling down to work to write better. It is a time of seeing friends who have been away on holiday. In a way that too is a harvest of relationships long cultivated. My calendar is filling after the ninth of October with Geneva activities. In my mind I am thinking of mundane chores, like buying a new train pass to go to Bern and maybe Glarus, buying a bus pass, looking for the roast chestnut stands, walking by the vineyards bare after the vendage, see the changing moods of the lake in the late afternoon sun.

And although I mad not run out to buy new school clothes, a pencil case and notebooks I still think of the rituals of covering my books to protect them in the plastic covers that I could never get folded exactly right. My mind instead is flowing over with writing ideas, along with the reminder of the clean up of old projects that I have promised myself I would do before I start anything new.

Today as I look out on the tiled roof across the street, I am content. Later I will eat lunch at Franck’s, cover my friend in the store for a couple of hours, watch the Sunday shows and when the dark descends, so early now, I will turn on my computer and write. And when I snuggle under the duvet dressed in my flannel pjs, I will think of the way the seasons ebb and flow through my life as they have for everyone for as long as man walked the earth. I am grateful I have been given so many seasons to be part of the universe that is vast beyond my understanding, and I remind myself to take pleasure in each little part of it.

This is Mabon for me. A reminder of all I hold dear, all that enriches me from what I have sown.