Mystical Mabon, Selicha Of Witches

Luminary Of The Autumn Night Sky

כ' אלול התשס"ח
Belz 22

Mabon is the time of the year when day and night are equal, the forces of masculine expansion and feminine restriction are in balance, and the god and the goddess dance in harmonic hishtavut.

My friend Eluned Bridhe writes of Mabon from the Norse tradition of witchcraft:

Mabon was a time when the old Norse people believed one's fate for the coming year was sealed. The Norse often spent the day and night before Mabon fasting and praying for forgiveness for transgressions. Divinations and vision quests were done to ascertain whether one's life in the last year had been pleasing to the deities.

This aspect of Mabon has correspondence to the period of Selichot in Judaism:

Selichot (Hebrew: סליחות) are Jewish penitential poems and prayers, especially those said in the period leading up to the High Holidays. Selicha (סליחה) is Hebrew for "forgiveness." Selicha is the category of selichot which comprises the vast majority of the Selichot service of the High Holy Days.

This year (2008/5768), Mabon falls on Monday September 22nd, a day which in the Celtic calendar begins Sunday at sundown, September 21st of the civil calendar.

This year (2008/5768), "Selichot (according to Ashkenazi custom) will begin after midnight of Sunday morning, September 21st."

In both traditions, the time of forgiveness begins in the dark of the day (one early Sunday morning and the other late Sunday night - at both ends of the day, together embracing one day), with the Divine Feminine power. She is the gatekeeper to forgiveness.

Mabon marks a day when the Divine Name is One ... when it shall come to pass, that at evening time there shall be light.

So mote it be, אמן.