Short Stuff: Mabon

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1:01Terms at Lowe's.com slash shipping terms. Hey and welcome to the short stuff on Josh Lerschuk. There's Jerry here, two sitting in for Dave. And we're here to celebrate the pagan Thanksgiving that you never knew you needed. Yeah, I don't remember if we mentioned this. We covered some stuff on Wicens and other sort of pagan religions years ago. I feel like. But the pagan Thanksgiving is Maybon and maybe Owen. And it is one of many kind of fall harvest celebrations that have happened throughout history that celebrate the autumnal equinox. Wow, we're going to go and say it again. The autumnal equinox. Very nice. So Maybon is because ironically the original pagans, like the Celts, for example, did not celebrate the autumnal equinox, which is evidenced by if you go to Stonehenge on the autumnal equinox, nothing happens.

2:07Nothing special. It's just like any other day. But like you said, cultures around the world have. And today, Neopagans, Druids, Wicens, etc. definitely celebrated as one of eight sabbats, sabbats, I think, right? Like Sabbaths. And they're eight of them on the wheel of the year. And in fact, Maybon is one of three harvest festivals that occur from August through October. Yeah, I mean, you probably heard us talk about you all before in one of our Christmas episodes. Probably that is a sabbat. And we've also talked about Saewen for sure spelled Sam Hain. Yeah. Because that's the one associated with Halloween. So those are definitely much more well known. But Maybon, we got to talk about Maybon a little bit. All right. Well, first let's talk about the first harvest festival, Lunasa. That takes place in early August, where I guess I don't know what you're picking then. Maybon is like the money harvest festival late September.

3:10That's when everything's ready to be picked basically. And then Saewen is the third, the one in October. And the autumnal equinox. And this is a big part of Maybon in particular is balance. The reason why there's a focus on balance is because the day and night are basically evenly split between 12 hours a piece on the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, the spring equinox. So that's a big theme in Maybon. Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that if you practice any kind of paganism and you want to celebrate Maybon, you want to maybe meditate on that balance in your own life might be a thing to do. For sure. Another thing you mentioned earlier is that it's a newer thing. This term is only about 55 years old. The Maybon actually comes from a Welsh god son of the earth mother goddess. And there was a Welsh text, an old Welsh text called the Mabanagian.

4:12Your guess is as good as mine. Yeah, that looks about right. And it tells about like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and stuff like that. And one of the heroes of those stories is a god named Maybon son of mother who was held hostage as a baby. Yeah. And as we'll see, the reason that Maybon was chosen to mark the autumnal equinox despite the fact that the ancient druids and Celts like did not, there was no recognition of Maybon or association with them. That's a modern thing like we said is that the guy who kind of helped right or put together the wheel of the year for modern paganism's Aiden Kelly back in the 60s and 70s, he does research and he found out that in Greek lore and mythology, the goddess Demeter is celebrated on the autumnal equinox. And Demeter shares in common with Maybon this idea that she was young and was rescued from the underworld just like Maybon was.

5:22So he's like, I think this is enough of an association to call this Maybon. Yeah, it was kind of funny. Apparently he was looking for something Galic or Germanic, name wise on the pagan calendar based on the solstice and he couldn't find anything. So he was like, yeah, maybe a stretch, but I'm just going to go with this one. Yeah, that's not to say that so Maybon seems to be the only one that that they put into the wheel of the year. There are some really ancient Celtic festivals, including saw when in Lunisa and one called Beltane and one called Imalc, which is spelled I am BOLC. And I'm just so pleased as punch that I pronounced it correctly. Nice work. But Maybon they said we're going to add this in because we feel like it's a big deal. And again, there's other cultures that celebrate this, like the Maltese, the Mayans. And then Chuck get this, the pyramid of Cucalcon at Cheats and Eats in Mexico. Uh huh. Did you look a picture of this up?

6:23Yeah, amazing. It is amazing. So the shadows fall on the pyramid, the steps of the pyramid technically it's a Ziggurat. And it looks like a serpent coming down the steps on the side on the autumnal equinox. It's nuts because it definitely looks like that. Yeah, it's cool. It reminded me of when I lived in Los Angeles when Emily and I moved in together. We lived in the neighborhood of Egorock. And Egorock is so named because there's a big rock by the highway that has a, it's not like hand carved, it's just a piece cut of nature carved out. And when the sun hits that at a certain time of a day, it looks like an eagle flying. Oh, neat. Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't named after the band. What, eagles? No, probably not. Because they do not rock. Should we take a break? Alright, we'll be right back.

7:29Mornings at my house would be impossible without airtasker. Mom! Two kids can't find their shoes and the sink decides it's leaking. So I posed on airtasker to get help with the to-do list. Next thing I know, the sink's fixed and a tasker installs a robot litter box. My cat hates. Which means I'm spending less time juggling chores and back to juggling my kids. Go to airtasker.com or download the app. Airtasker. Get anything done. Hey everybody, we have a very important question for you. Is there anything that reflects who you are more than your home? We don't think so. That's the answer. Everything in there says something about you. What's your home? Well, Wayfair gets that. That's right, they got stuff for every style and budget. So it's easy to find exactly what you're looking for to fit into your home and to fit you. You can trust what you're buying too. Because Wayfair verified products undergo a 10 point quality inspection everybody. Yeah, you don't get 20 million verified five star reviews unless you're doing something right.

8:31Plus Wayfair makes it easy to find what you're looking for, whether it's a new sofa or Halloween decor. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to Wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's w-a-y-f-a-r.com. Wayfair every style every home. Okay, Chuck, I feel like it's high time that we explain to people what they can do to celebrate Maybon. Even if you're not a pagan or a wick or a witch or have never owned a crystal. It doesn't matter. You can still observe Maybon. I should say also we base this short stuff on an article from How Stuff Works written by our own Dave Roos.

9:32Dave Roos is one of the most religiously tolerant people you will ever meet. And he definitely applied that to this. And I feel like we also need to shout out Dave's podcast Biblical Time Machine, which is also very tolerant too. Yeah, Dave's great. He's a podcast. I mentioned earlier in Act One that one thing you can do is reflect on the past year and talk about like balance. Also obviously things that you're thankful for because again, this is around Thanksgiving. And something you can do in your house if you want is to have a cornucopia, like a little horn of plenty. That has roots in ancient Greece. Yeah. But if you have a centerpiece of a cornucopia in your home to celebrate fall or the all-time ill equinox or Maybon, there's certainly worse ways to go about it than that. So it's a lovely thing to do. And it is. It is like an iconic fall look essentially. And it's just yet another thing that people do today and don't realize that it's an ancient pagan custom.

10:37I love that kind of stuff. Another thing you can do is reflect. There's a lot of time for reflecting over the course of a 12-hour day. Sure. And so because the energy is in balance between night and day on Maybon, it's the same on the Vernal Equinox too, Ostarra. But with Ostarra, you're thinking about renewal and growth and awakening basically from the winter slumber. In autumn, you're kind of going the opposite way. You're talking about releasing stuff. You know, like, is that to pay really working for you? That kind of stuff. Like you've harvested the year already and now you're basically getting ready to go to sleep for months. Yeah. If I size up a shirt, well, that hide my beer belly a little more. Yeah. It definitely will. Sometimes that's not the way to go though. Oh, no, definitely not. Especially if it's a tight shirt.

11:38Yeah. Did you ever see, I think you should leave the TV show? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do remember that one skit where he's got like the handle on his shirt to pull it away from his gut more efficiently. Yeah, I thought you were going to talk about the episode where he was obsessed with that particular shirt brand. I don't remember that one. Did he keep buying? Yeah. He does. He has lots of funny clothing things because also in the movie he did with Paul Rudd. Friendship. Was that what it was called? I think so, yeah. It was a very funny clothing company. He made up for that. What was the name of it? I don't remember. Oh, it was called, uh, God, he's so funny to me. Ocean View Dining. That brings a bell, but I don't remember the whole joke. He just loved it. It was just a Tim Robinson thing. He just loved Ocean View Dining clothes and talked about him a lot. Are you a destroyer fan too? No, that's still the one I haven't seen.

12:39Oh, you're going to love it. Yeah. You will absolutely love it. Yeah, he's so great. It's weird enough to not last long and Saturday and I live and that's you probably headed in the right direction. For sure. Yeah. So yeah, that's another thing you can do on May Bond is have a Tim Robinson marathon. You could definitely do a lot worse than that. Yeah. Or you could just bring some fall color in there and if you don't have the cornucopia just, you know, maybe bring in a few things that are in harvest. Maybe some dried flowers. Maybe take a walk. That's a big one. Go to a corn maze. Yeah. Why not support your local economy? Yeah. Well, though there is big corn maze now. Right. You don't want to go there. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do and essentially it's just feel good about fall is a is the key for non-pagans. If you're a pagan, you got a lot more to do. Sorry. Yeah, agreed. So the autumnal equinox is Tuesday, September 22nd this year.

13:39Hopefully we're releasing this before then, although it would be classic stuff you should know to release of the day after. Totally. Either way, just get out there in the nice fall weather. That's the point here. Agreed. I cannot wait. It is still so hot. So bring it on. Bring it on. Short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.