Mabon – The Autumn Equinox: Meaning, Dates & Rituals
Justice from the Motherpeace Tarot Deck
Mabon: The Autumn Equinox in Australia
Here in Australia, March brings that particular shift where the heat still shows up most afternoons, but the light starts pulling back earlier each evening. Right on that turning point, we arrive at Mabon — the autumn equinox, the second moment in the year when day and night sit exactly equal, this time tipping toward the dark.
What Mabon Actually Is
Mabon is one of the year's four solar quarter days, sitting opposite Ostara on the Wheel. It's traditionally dated the 21st of September, a Northern Hemisphere autumn. Down here, our real autumn equinox — our Mabon — lands on the 21st of March. It's the second harvest Sabbat, the one where the year genuinely starts turning inward, rather than the first stirrings of it.
The Energy of This Sabbat
Mabon isn't about failure. It's about looking honestly at what didn't work this year, and letting it go without turning that into a verdict on your worth. Some things you plant simply don't grow the way you hoped, and Mabon's whole energy is permission to say so, plainly, and move on.
A Tarot Card for Mabon
Mabon's card is Temperance — the angel with one foot on land and one in the water, pouring between two cups without spilling a drop. It's the card of a balance that isn't rigid, the kind that can hold two seasons, two truths, or two feelings at once without needing to resolve them immediately.
A Simple Mabon Ritual
Write down what you're ready to let go of, and burn it safely, or bury it in the garden if that feels more like you. Then do something ordinary and comforting straight after — tea, a walk, whatever actually grounds you back down. The releasing is the ritual; the ordinary bit afterward is what makes it stick.
A Few Questions to Sit With
What's one thing you're ready to let go of, without needing it to mean something bad about you?
What did you genuinely learn this year from something that didn't work out?
Where do you need to let the year even out again, instead of chasing more?
Bring It Into Practice
If this season's energy is bringing something up for you, a 1:1 Healing or Counselling session is a good next step, and Australian Bush flower essences suit this kind of release particularly well.
I do a full energy reading for Mabon every year on the 21st of March — you'll find it right here once it's live, or you can catch it on the Soulful & Wild YouTube channel.
Mabon's part of the wider Wheel of the Year — you'll find the full overview of all eight Sabbats in The Pagan Sabbats, and a page for every season in the free Wheel of the Year guide.