Mabon and the shapeshifting soul-punch theory
Let this Mabon offer you an invitation to take stock of your personal growth.
“Before its so-called birth, the flower already existed in other forms -- clouds, sunshine, seeds, soil, and many other elements.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
“…and to her we shall return, like a drop of rain, flowing towards the ocean…”
~ lyrics from “we all come from the goddess”
Dear Queer Witches,
Those of us in the northern hemisphere are approaching Mabon, the Fall Equinox. Summer’s potent heat is beginning to surrender to Autumn’s crisp breeze. Mabon is ripe with Seven of Pentacles energy. We are invited to take inventory of what is ready to harvest, honor the progress we’ve made since Spring, and weed-out what hasn’t been working for us. We celebrate the setbacks that turned out to be blessings. It’s an opportunity for gratitude, without the colonial trappings of Thanksgiving. It’s an opportunity to celebrate our personal growth as well as the benefit that growth has given to our communities and ancestors.
This time of year is associated with Persephone’s descent to the underworld to reunite with her husband, Hades. In her absence the bounty of the fields recedes and the grief of her mother, Demeter, brings forth the colder months. Mabon is the gateway to darkness and the precursor for Samhain. The veils between worlds begin to thin and messages from ancestors become clearer, if we know how to listen.
It’s also time to start planning our costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and upgrading our ancestral altars. The time to celebrate our dead and designate time and space for grief will be here soon. Halloween/Samhain is my favorite time of year. I can’t help but get excited about it during Mabon. This is when I begin to prepare myself for ceremonies of death and darkness, along with rituals of whimsical shenanigans.
As a child, the Buddhist grown-ups in my life told me that, after someone dies in this life, their soul is reborn in a different body, moving on to the next life. The actions of their previous life dictate what/who they’re reborn as. It’s a common definition of reincarnation, albeit an overgeneralization of a highly nuanced philosophy.
Wiccans taught me a similar definition of reincarnation, with the addition of the Summerlands (a heaven-esque way station between lives) and the rule of three.
“Mind the Threefold Law you should, three times bad and three times good.”
Broadly (very broadly) meaning that if you do one good thing in this life, you will get three good things back in the next.
Presently, in my 40s, I’ve begun to think of the afterlife as a shapeshifting-soul-punch Which is a term I invented in a moment of levity, but not an original concept from yours truly. I’ll try to explain.
Imagine your body is a jar and your soul is a liquid concoction sloshing around as you go about your days. When you die, an ethereal pair of hands pop off your lid and pour your soul into a giant cosmic punch bowl. You’re no longer just you. You’ve become part of the soul-punch. You’ve returned to Source. This is the realm of the Temperance card, where celestial beings mix and measure the potions of alchemized souls, creating opportunities for fresh life and restored innocence. Eventually there is a ritual of ladling the punch into new vessels, creating new corporeal journeys on this Earth or perhaps somewhere else.
The shape-shifting-soul-punch theory honors what I’ve learned from Wicca and Buddhism in a deeply interconnected way. How and when a soul returns to life isn’t the result of one individual’s actions. We are all the result of collective Karma. It’s the bigger picture of “none of us are free until all of us are free”. We are all a part of each other, all the way down to our souls. As far as I’m concerned, the rule of three is a poetically simple (but technically incomprehensible) way of explaining that one little action on your part will have a ripple-out effect on all beings. And there’s no way to individually control what that effect will be.
Seven of Pentacles and Temperance both represent an opportunity to pause between two phases and two worlds. Temperance stands with one foot on earth and one foot in water. Seven of Pentacles shows us gardening tools, but they are set aside and not in use. Let this Mabon offer you an invitation to take stock of your personal growth. Where in your life did you succeed? Where did you fuck up? What is still useful and what needs to be left behind? What have you learned about how to do it differently next time? And most importantly, (and I really do want to know your answer) what is your Halloween costume going to be?
Blessed be, xoxo,
Jasper Joy