Alban Elfed the Autumn Equinox

The Return of Balance, the Descent into Mystery

As the wheel turns, the days and nights come once more to stand as equals. This is Alban Elfed, the Light of Autumn, when the sun pauses at the threshold before yielding to the long descent of winter. For a brief moment, balance reigns. The world breathes in perfect measure, day and night, light and shadow, life and death held in harmony.
It is the time of the second harvest. The orchards are heavy with fruit, vines drip with their sweetness, and the last of the grains are gathered into store. The people feast, giving thanks for the plenty that will carry them through the barren months ahead. Yet beneath the abundance lies a quiet knowing: that the light is fading, and we are being called inward, into the darker mysteries of the year.

The Celts knew that thresholds are doorways to the Otherworld. The equinox is such a door, a liminal hinge where the veil grows thin and the ancestors stir in the shadows. This season belongs to the Sea Realm, It is also the time when the goddess begins her descent, following the sun’s path into the depths, carrying the wisdom of the roots and the seeds. Here Brigid hands over, transforming into the Cailleach, who beckons the darkness and calls forth the winter.

At Alban Elfed, we are invited to stand in that same balance. To honour both what we have gained and what must now be released. To hold gratitude in one hand, and grief in the other, knowing they are bound together like day and night. To step across the threshold with trust, for the darkness is not an ending, but a gestation, the rich soil where new life waits unseen.
This is the teaching of Alban Elfed: that in the stillness of balance we find courage for the descent, and in the descent itself, we find the seeds of return.

Within the modern Celtic-inspired seasonal spirituality, the Autumn Equinox was named Mabon in the 1970s by Aidan Kelly, an American Wiccan. He sought a mythic figure to embody the equinox and drew from Welsh tradition, connecting the “Divine Youth” archetype with the balance of light and dark, harvest and decline. The honouring of the mythic Welsh child-god whose story echoes the journey of light into darkness. This is a time when day and night stand in equal measure, a sacred threshold on the Wheel of the Year, marking the final harvest and the slow turning inward toward winter.
Though Mabon is not historically attested as a festival in ancient Celtic calendars, his name and story hold archetypal power. Mabon ap Modron,“Divine Son of the Mother”, appears in the Mabinogion, is taken from his mother just three nights after birth, hidden in a mysterious, watery prison. His absence is felt across the land, until Arthur’s men seek him out, speaking to the oldest animals of the world, until at last, he is found and freed.
This myth speaks to the loss and return of light, the descent of the soul into darkness, and the promise of rebirth. Just as the earth prepares to sleep, and the leaves begin to fall, we are invited to descend into the sacred womb of the dark, the place where seeds dream, where the inner child waits to be reclaimed.

Though Mabon belongs to the Welsh and Brythonic traditions rather than the Irish, echoes of his story ripple across the wider Celtic world. He does not walk among the Tuatha Dé Danann, nor is he named in the Irish cycles, yet the resonance is unmistakable. His mother, Modron, is linked with the Gaulish river goddess Matrona, a figure whose essence mirrors that of Danu or Anu, the great mother of the Tuatha.
In this way, Mabon and Modron embody archetypes woven through Celtic cosmology: the Divine Child of the Great Mother, the mystery of abduction and return, the cycle of loss and renewal. While the names shift from land to land, the pattern remains,  the eternal story of descent and re-emergence, the promise that from darkness and captivity, light and youth shall be reborn.

Mabon’s association with the Autumn Equinox reminds us that this is not an end, but a return, a return to the self, to the roots, to what is essential. It is a moment of harvest and gratitude, but also one of release. We are asked: what will you carry with you into the winter? What must be let go to honour your becoming?

As the child of the Great Mother (Modron), Mabon also reflects the deep maternal cycles of birth, loss, and return, and thus, at this time of balance, we are called to honour both light and shadow, joy and grief, life and death, as necessary parts of the great spiral.

Ceridwen and the Autumn Equinox
At Alban Elfed, the balance of light and dark, Ceridwen’s presence is felt most keenly. She is the keeper of the cauldron, the dark womb where seeds, stories, and souls are transformed. Just as the fields pour forth their last abundance, her great vessel brims with the harvest of the year, grain, fruit, root, and also the unseen harvest of lessons, trials, and growth.
In her myth, Ceridwen stirs her potion for a year and a day, awaiting the moment when wisdom ripens in the depths. So too does the Autumn Equinox ask us to gather what has matured and surrender it to the alchemy of the darkening year. What is poured into her cauldron now will simmer through the long nights, becoming food for vision and inspiration.
This turning of the wheel is not only about endings, but about the hidden beginnings they contain. In Ceridwen’s brew, death and life mingle, shadow and light dissolve into each other, until what emerges is neither one nor the other but something new, the spark of Awen, the soul’s renewal.
At this balance point, we walk with her along the threshold, between what has been and what is yet to be. She reminds us that wisdom is not taken lightly, but earned in the stirring, waiting, and trusting of the unseen. Alban Elfed is her season: the cauldron full, the year turning, and the promise of inspiration waiting within the dark.

Alban Elfed Ritual - “Offering of Balance”

1. Create a sacred space: Place a candle at the center (light), and a bowl of water or autumn leaves (dark).
2. Balance your altar: On one side, place what you are grateful for (a stone, a written word, a fruit). On the other, place what you are ready to release (a leaf, a small stick, or a written note).
3. Invocation: Speak aloud:
   “Light and dark, growth and decay, I stand at the turning of the year. May I honour both the fullness and the falling away.”
4. Action:
   • Hold what you are grateful for against your heart.
   • Place what you are ready to release into the bowl of water, letting it soften, dissolve, or sink.

1. Close: Sit in stillness, feeling the balance in your breath.

Ritual for Alban Elfed: Stirring Ceridwen’s Cauldron
What you will need:

• A small cauldron, pot, or bowl (dark if possible, to symbolise the womb of mystery)
• A wooden spoon or wand for stirring
• Seeds, grain, or fruit (representing the year’s harvest)
• A candle (to call in the balance of light and dark)
• Paper and pen

Steps:

1. Prepare the Space
   Sit in a quiet space, ideally near your altar or outside under the equinox sky. Place your bowl/cauldron before you, with the seeds or fruit beside it. Light the candle, saying:
   “At this balance of light and dark, I call in Ceridwen, Keeper of the Cauldron, Weaver of Awen.”
2. Offer the Harvest
   Hold the seeds or fruit in your hands. Speak aloud the gifts, lessons, and experiences you have harvested this year - both the sweet and the difficult. Place them gently into the bowl.
3. The Stirring
   Take your spoon or wand, and begin to stir slowly, clockwise. As you stir, imagine you are blending light and dark, joy and sorrow, endings and beginnings. Say:
   “Ceridwen, I surrender these harvests into your cauldron. May they be transformed in the dark, to rise again as wisdom and inspiration.”
4. The Writing
   On your paper, write one thing you wish to release into the cauldron, and one seed you wish to carry forward into the coming cycle. Fold the paper and place it beneath the bowl.
5. Sit in Balance
   Spend a few moments in stillness, gazing into the candle. Breathe in the balance of light and dark. Trust the unseen work already beginning within the cauldron.
6. Close the Ritual
   Blow out the candle with gratitude. If possible, return the seeds or fruit to the earth, as an offering back to the cycle of life.

Somatic Practice - Breath of Balance

• Sit comfortably.
• Inhale through your nose for a count of 4.
• Pause gently.
• Exhale through your mouth for a count of 4.
• Place one hand on your chest (light, spirit) and one on your belly (dark, body).
• With each breath, sense both being held, neither greater, both needed.
• Continue for 7 cycles, noticing the evenness between rising and falling.

Journal Prompts

1. What am I harvesting in my life right now, what fruits of effort and love can I gather?
2. What is asking to be released into the dark, to rest in the soil of winter?
3. Where do I feel out of balance, and what small act could restore equilibrium?
4. What wisdom do I carry from my ancestors at this turning point?

“I honour both light and shadow within me. I receive the harvest of my becoming,
​and I trust the descent that leads to renewal.”

Merry Maidens Penzance