Here we are! As promised, some altar photos from my Mabon ritual. Unfortunately I was having a really hard time with the lighting in my temple room and wasn’t able to get pictures as nice as I would have liked. And because of that many of the pictures I took were a bit blurry, so these are the ones that were best to use it seemed. 🙂

This is a picture of the full altar before the ritual. You will notice that I have fake autumn leaves on the altar around the central ritual candle. This is because fallen leaves are not so common here in southern California; at least not where I am. Although, I am happy to report I have two trees outside here that are turning fall colors, so that is a wonderful comfort of home!

For this ritual I used a wonderful apple shaped candle that is scented like cinnamon dusted apples. It’s like having fresh, juicy apples with a hint of spice around you all day. After the ritual I put the candle in a small cauldron and brought it to my desk (at my house here with 3 cats running around you really can’t leave things burning on the altar unattended). The wand on the altar is made of applewood. It was made for me by my Aunt and Uncle, which was wicked nice of them! I had told my Aunt that I had wanted an applewood wand but wasn’t able to find any applewood. They had a few apple trees on their property that needed to be cut down so she was going to have me come over and get a piece before hand but instead she made me a wand herself! She went online and read about wand making and magickal symbols and everything so she’d make it right…lol. She do the wood burning and all! They made me a cherry one and an apple one and my Uncle made an amazing wooden box to keep them in. Not too shabby for two non-Pagan and non-magickally inclined relatives! 🙂

Here are pictures from after my ritual.

My ritual was done in honor of Modron and Mabon with a meditation to Avalon with Modron and a ritual offering of thanksgiving (that’s what the half eaten apple was from). The apple will be left until tonight on my altar and then will be brought outside. The cut half is an offering to Modron and will be placed in among some shrubs near my front door and the other part will be buried outside. That piece is part of a the working for going inward during the dark half of the year so it will be returned to the darkened womb of the Goddess with the energy it holds.

And that’s it! It was a wonderful ritual and, as always, I most enjoyed decorating the altar…lol.

So for today I don’t know that I’ll get a Goddess post up so I’ll just direct you all to think on Modron, Mabon’s mother and one of the Great Mother Goddesses. She can help with guiding you through this darkened half of the year and can help you unlock the keys to understanding the connection between mother and child, both in the physical world sense and in the spiritual sense between you and her.

Blessings to you all for a wonderful harvest! May the germination in the dark half of the year help you to bloom big when the light returns!