MABON: Honor What Sustained You

I’ve been thinking about what has sustained me these past six weeks, since Lughnasadh.

Beyond coffee, obviously. Because coffee is absolutely one ritual I never miss.

But when I look more closely at this stretch between the first harvest and Mabon, I can see a handful of things that have quietly carried me.

Writing has become a constant companion in my life. Ever since I committed to writing four blogs each week, it has given me a daily ritual and a rhythm to live by. I drafted a children’s story that I’m preparing to submit to publishers. I’ve returned my attention to the book I wrote about walking the Camino de Santiago, still working through the final stages, but getting closer.

Writing has long been a passion. Since retiring, though, it has become something more.

For thirty years, work gave my days a framework. There was somewhere to go, something to accomplish, a structure already waiting for me when I woke up. Retirement removed that structure almost overnight.

Writing is becoming part of what has replaced it.

Not another job. Not another obligation. A rhythm.

I’ve also been paying closer attention to how I feed myself, shifting toward a 40/30/30 way of eating—40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent healthy fats, and 30 percent protein. I have more energy. My lean body mass has increased. Both feel like enormous wins, but perhaps the greater lesson has been simply noticing how much the body gives back when I pay attention to what I give it.

And then there is travel.

Traveling more has been one of the great gifts of retirement. It has also been one of its challenges. I love movement, new places, unfamiliar roads, mountains appearing around a bend. But travel also shows me what I miss when I’m away: my routines, my kitchen, my writing space, familiar trails, the small rituals that make an ordinary day feel like mine.

Sometimes we don’t recognize what sustains us until we leave it behind for a while.

The Harvest Beneath the Harvest

Mabon is a harvest festival, which makes gratitude an obvious theme. But I think there is something deeper here than gratitude.

Gratitude can become decorative if we aren’t careful. We make lists. We say what we’re thankful for. We put pumpkins on the table and speak warmly about abundance.

Recognition asks more of us. Recognition asks: What actually made this harvest possible?

No apple appears without soil, rain, sunlight, insects, roots, weather, and time. No loaf of bread exists without seed, farmer, field, miller, baker, transportation, labor, and fire. And none of us arrives at the harvest alone either.

Our lives are supported by people we love and people whose names we will never know. By food and water. By bodies that keep carrying us even when we haven’t treated them particularly well. By trees producing oxygen and soil growing food. By friendships, communities, animals, books, music, medicine, art, work, rest, and countless invisible systems humming beneath our ordinary days.

Mabon invites us to notice the web. Not simply What am I grateful for? But What sustained me?

And perhaps even more importantly: What have I been treating as ordinary that is actually essential?

Simplicity Living Practice: Build a Harvest Altar

Create a small altar honoring what has actually sustained you since Lughnasadh.

It doesn’t need to be elaborate. In fact, simplicity may make it more meaningful.

My altar is quite small. My partner’s is much larger. Neither is more sacred than the other. We have each filled ours with objects that carry meaning for us.

Choose a few objects representing what carried you through this season.

A pen for creativity. A stone from a favorite trail. A photograph of someone who stood beside you. A small bowl of grain or fruit for nourishment. Something from your garden. A feather. A candle. A cup of coffee, if coffee has been doing some heavy lifting around your house too.

Turquoise is Thursday’s color, and it belongs beautifully here. Traditionally associated with protection, healing, communication, and the meeting of earth and sky, turquoise can be woven into your altar with a stone, ribbon, candle, cloth, or even a small piece of paper.

The First Quarter Moon in Sagittarius adds another layer to the practice. First Quarter energy is about movement and commitment—the moment when intention begins asking something of us. Sagittarius turns our attention toward meaning, truth, exploration, and the larger story we are living.

So before your altar, ask yourself: What sustained me enough to bring me here—and what do I want to carry forward?

Sage Wisdom

Nothing flourishes alone.

Even the strongest tree is held by things we cannot see—roots beneath the soil, fungi exchanging nutrients, rain absorbed months ago, sunlight stored in leaf and wood.

We are no different.

At Mabon, honor the harvest.

But remember the roots.