Journal Entry, September 20-23............Autumn Equinox, Equal Time of Night and Day
Origins:Mabon is named after the Welsh God, the "great son" or "great hunter." Some scholars refer to Mabon as bringing the "harvest home," although others insist "harvest home" occurs at Lammas. Certainly September's "harvest moon," the nearest to earth all year, and the largest-looking full moon has always helped farmers bring in the grain far into the night. Mabon ushers in the dark part of the year which lasts until Yule. The myth of Persephone and Demeter defines this holiday, as does any myth about travel to the underworld and a resulting cold and death upon earth. Mabon reflects themes of balance, thanksgiving and harvest. Native American agricultural peoples honored this very time of harvest variously within North America--celebrations which parallel those of Europe--yet are centered upon corn, the native grain of this continent. A lively, growing expression of earth religion depends on altering it, with reverence, to our circumstances. So here Mabon is re-interpreted from a North American viewpoint.
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There in the garden, in the sweet, steep Autumn light, she was singing to the corn:a dark haired woman with hair tied up like a flowered squash fruit. Dressed all in white buckskin, when she laughed I could see where crows had left their footprints near her eyes. Leaves have already begun to turn, and the breeze is cool where the black and white Koshares, the clowns, spit seeds in the watermelon patch. A sinewy, muscular and fierce looking man in a wheat colored shirt led us to the activity. The entire tribe was preparing for the feast. The woman and I brought the corn to the table, where her friend in the black striped skirt washed it with quick, graceful hands. Jay was hurrying all around, in his blue flannel shirt, bossily organizing everyone. Folks moved aside as a big boned and graceful woman brought her trout and berries to the table. A gentle eyed, slender woman quietly gathered together some skittish, black eyed girls wearing brown striped sweaters to look after the children. A pacing, skinny boned Grandfather in loose jeans and a tan beard shot with gray hung around, eager to get some food. At the table shaped like a turtle’s shell we all sat down together : coyote, deer, chipmunk, bear, bluejay, raccoon and snake...and so many others gathered in the spirit of thanks-giving.
Apple LoreHarvest RecipesElemental HomeschoolingCorn Woman Stories Autumn HandcraftsNative Links
any time to return to the Table of Contents.
A p p l e L o r e
At the center, a dark star
wrapped in white.
When you bite, listen
for the crunch of boots on snow,
snow that has ripened. Over it
stretches the red, starry sky.
Nan Fry
Abas, akaro, Alexander, Antonovka, Ambri, Baldwin, Ballarat, Ben Davis, Black Gilliflower, Bledisloe Cox,Blue Pearmain, Boiken, Boskoop, Bottle Greening, Bramley’s Seedling, Buckingham, Calville Blanche, Cordlandt, Cox’s Orange, Croften, Danziger Kantapfel, Decio, Delicious, Democrat, Dillingham Beauty, Dougherty, Drap d’Or, Duchess of Oldenburg, Early Shanbury, Edelboredorfen, Fallawater, Snow, Fenouillet Gris, Fenouillet Rouse, Fuji, Genniton, Geeveston Fanny, Giant Geniton, Golden Delicious, Golden Reinette, Goldparmain, Granny Smith, Gravenstein, Grimes Golden, Grusnovska Moskowskaya, Haralston, Hawkeye, Hook, Hubbardston, Idagold, Igrid Marie, James Grieve, Johnagold, Jonamac, Jonathon, Jupp’s Russet, Kapai Red, King, King Cole, King of the Pippins, Kittageskee, Kokko, Lady,Laxton’s Suprub, Legana, Lobo, Macfree, Macoun, Margaret, McIntosh, Mutsu, Newtown Pippin, Nonpareil,Northern Spy, Northwest Greening, Nova Easygro, Ohrei, Pippin, Pound Sweet, Prima, Priscilla, Quinte,Ralls Jenet, Reinette de champagne, Reinette de Mans, Reinette de Franche, Reinette de Gris, ReinetteSimirenko, Red Astrachan, Red Thorle, Rhode Isalnd Greening, Rokewood, Rome Beauty, Russet,Savstaholm, Sheep’s Nose, Shinko, Sir Prize, Smokehouse, Spartan, Spigold, Spitzenburg, Splendour,Strakcrimson, Stark’s Delicious, Stark’s Earliest, Sturmer Pippin, Summer Pearmain, Swaar, Sweet Bough,Talman Sweet, Tasman Pride, Telstar, Tetopsky, Tropical Beauty, tydeman’s Early Worcester, Wagener,Wealthy, White Transparent, Widdup, Willy Sharp, Winesap, Winter Banana, Winter Pearmain, WorcesterPearmain, Yellow Bellflower, Yellow newtown, Yellow Transparent, York Imperial
Baked apples she sold, and cranberry pies,
and she's the old woman who never told lies.
United States, traditional
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H a r v e s t R e c i p e s
Sage Dressing with Amish Apple Sausage
I make this every year for our Thanksgiving celebration, and it is delicious! This makes enough for a 9 to 11 pound turkey. Look for a fine Amish style sausage at gourmet or natural food groceries.
Cornbread
This is a hearty bread, not too cake-like, and good for use in stuffings or to eat with chili.
Wild Rice with Apples and Walnuts
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E l e m e n t a l
H o m e s c h o o l i n g
However our ancestors came to this country: whether coerced by famine, enticed by opportunity or forcibly abducted, most of the United States' population are immigrants. We have all heard a great deal about the hope and exultation of arriving in a new place, to begin a new life. We have heard, too, of those who made their way to survive, the choice to come and live with autonomy never offered, but forced. Even when our families' wholehearted desire was to move to America, the immigrant experience could be one of sadness and loss, a splitting from all that is known and loved, stable and dependable. The immigrant heritage that fostered openness, optimism and self-sufficiency also left our spirits hungry for tradition, community and a sense of place. We Americans are constantly seeking, searching, wanting, becoming. Hitting the road to find it. Maybe what we're looking for is Here, right under our feet.
A soulful, deep and abiding love and care for this country--the land itself--has been a long time coming, but with plenty of committed pioneers to lead the way. 
To seek an intimate understanding and deep connection to this country--America, Turtle Island--is to seek environmental healing and enlightened consciousness for us all. It may be that we won't be able to find what we're looking for until we learn to love this place. Love it enough to make it a part of us.
To find out what it must have been like to love this place as one would our Mother, a Grandfather, a Brother, a Child...we can only look to the Native American tribal people. Five hundred and fifty different tribes lived on this land, with disparate languages and creation stories. They were complex, genuine societies with their own idiosyncracies blending peace and violence, not to be idealized, not to be looted for the novelty of their dress and dwellings. But to be approached with humility and an open heart to learn how they expressed interconnectedness with all the lands of this continent.
Mabon is a true time of giving thanks, so it is most appropriate to study and honor these original American people. The further we go beyond the cliches and stereotypes the clearer our understanding of America's wilderness will become. Also, to learn the habits, behaviors and relation between all the North American animals, as well as the characteristics and uses of native foods and wild herbs. How does what grows and lives here reflect who we are? 
To balance the past and the relative present, a study of American history is appropriate. Lessons and pride in American achievement from quilting to railroads, from Walden Pond to The Blues to vaudeville relates to expressing gratitude for our blessings, a recognition of the good and positive. Re-discover where your people came from, seeking understanding beyond the myths and masks. As Autumn's element is water, all study of rivers, lakes, ponds and oceans apply, including the science of hydroelectric energy. Emotions are ever near the surface in Autumn. Blend water and emotion and we may easily feel grief at this time of year. For older children, exploring issues of sadness, guilt and regret as they pertain to history and the environment--honestly facing the ambiguities, integrating the shadows and the light--can serve to deepen the learning experience and heal immigrant consciousness. As emotions take us deeper in understanding in Autumn and we begin to ready ourselves for the cold, we watch for the signs and patterns in nature: seeking patterns in stories and lessons, history and crafts (quilting, weaving, journaling, beadwork) at Mabon. Watching for clues about how what has come before shapes us today.
The harvest moon has come, Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
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Native American Foods
sunflower seeds. banana. sweet potato. corn, hominy.
beans. squash. chocolate. hazelnuts. tomatoes. mesquite.
42 kinds of berries. peanuts. sweet and hot peppers.
amaranth and quinoa, grains. mint. wild rice.
maple syrup. pumpkin. potatoes. avocado. prickly pear.
"When the Europeans first arrived, the agriculturists of Mesoamerica were cultivating some 67 species of plants, and those of the Inca region about 70. This does not include plants first domesticated by the farmers of the Amazon and Orinoco basins. Native American crops account for about one-fifth the world's crops."
(Alfred W. Crosby, Civilization Magazine)
Crops that have been preserved by tribes in the Andes may yet provide food worldwide in the future, according to the book Lost Crops of the Incas, quoted by Crosby in Civilization Magazine, January 1995.
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Corn Woman's
S t o r i e s
As the preeminent native grain of the Americas, the importance of corn to the cosmology of Native Americans is inestimable. In most instances, corn alone initiated the evolution from nomadic life to sustained farming life; changed only by the Northward rumbling of wild horses in the 16th Century.Just as the nursing mother and hungry baby need each other, corn needed the people to replicate it: its seeds are too closely packed to self germinate. Likewise, the people needed the corn as a dependable food source, and so experience settled village life.
To the Maya, the cosmic world family tree is a corn plant in the shape of a cross: at each stalk grows an ear of corn, on each cob grows a human head. The Maya Maize God is akin to the European Green Man in that he is a foliate deity, whose thoughts germinate the corn, whose blood nourishes it. His hair is made of corn silk and it sprouts cobs and leaves, his hands are made of waving leaves, and his eyes are always closed as he dreams to life the grains. Maya heiroglyphs of "growth," "finding" and "beginning" are all interrelated with symbols for maize. Even now, Mayan descendants save their best grains of maize to pass on to relatives when they are near death. They especially save the red pearls for, as Betty Fussell writes in her comprehensive The Story of Corn(1992), in it the "Maya see not only the cosmic globe but a drop of blood that condenses all human history into a single germ of life."
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For Zuni people, their legendary seven maidens of the corn actually define Earth's elements. Oldest yellow corn daughter comes from the North and cold. Blue corn maiden hails from the rainy and wet fertile West. Red sister comes from the hot South. From Eastern daybreak of light, comes White corn maiden. Speckled corn maiden comes from the clouds above, the spirit world. Black corn sister grows in the womb cave of the Earth Mother. Littlest baby sister is sweet corn. After they perform their "Beautiful Corn Wands" Dance, the mischevious and fertile flute players, whose humpbacks contain seeds for all that grows--the Kokopelli, make love with them. Instantly they disappear to the Summerland, but are brought back by the God of Dew. Like Persephone of Greece, they may only return to the world for part of the year, and so took care to tell the people to love their bodies in the Spring, then bury their flesh in the dying time of Autumn.
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The Hopi creation myth revolves around an Earth Mother who gives birth to a corn plant baby who is presented to its Sky Father at dawn, and is then sown into the sky. Hopi real life birth rituals are intimately intertwined with corn. A grandmother presents mama and baby-sized corn dolls to the newborn, whose face is rubbed with white cornmeal, the symbol of new beginnings. Babies' first taste of maize comes from a tiny blessing of this gift from the Earth Mother placed in its' mouth with the whisper that it will be so nourished lifelong. Before marriage, the young woman offers cornmeal and bread to the groom; then she spends four days in meditative grinding of meal within his house, as his womenfolk daily bring gifts of corn in a rainbow of colors. Village women prepare cornmeal for the feast, while men weave the bride's dress from pure white cotton. The ceremonial wedding cake is made of blue corn. Likewise, at death, one enters the spirit world with a face dusted with cornmeal.
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Just as the Inuit of the Arctic have hundreds of different words for snow, so too have the Central and Southwestern American tribes hundreds of ways to prepare corn. The Hopi make a thin, wafer like bread called piki made from powder-fine, silkily fine cornmeal. Betty Fussell claims that some kinds taste salty from fermented lime, some rich and milky as bisquits, some red, sweet and delicate; and that this labor-intensive piki-making skill is undergoing a revival among young Hopi women. Powdered corn can become an instant drink called pinole or atole lately flavored with maple, cinnamon and sugar or cocoa when mixed with milk or water. Fussell describes a Peruvian/Spanish hybrid sweet soup recipe of dried purple corn revived with water, cooked with dried fruit and sweet potato flour and spices. Mexicans in the time of Montezuma used cornmeal to make all manner and shape of tamales: some sweet, some savory, with meat, turkey eggs, honey or beeswax, and fruit.
Eastern and Midwestern tribes dried, grilled, roasted corn, and scraped the kernels and sweet milk for stews. Hidatsa tribal life (formerly located in North Dakota) centered on rhythms of corn farming. Before Autumn frost they usually ate corn roasted with the husks on, later storing their corn and squash underground in uterus-shaped cellars winter long. Most tribes parched corn: popping it dry in sand then grinding it fine to make light "journeying corn" to be taken on travels and reconstituted with water to make a paste. For the Seneca tribe, corn was so central to life that their vocabulary contains nearly thirty words defining various stages of corn growth and harvest.
It is raining up there under the mountain.
In the time before time, the people lived high above in the blue sky. An enormous tree grew in the middle of their village, a tree whose blossoms gave off light. One woman dreamt that a man told her to uproot the tree. He said to dig a circle around it, so a better light would shine brighter. The people cut around their tree, and it sank under the ground and disappeared. Their world became dark, and the chief, enraged, pushed the dreaming woman down into the hole. Down, down, down she fell.
Still she fell. The world below was made of water, where waterbirds and animals lived and played. They looked up and saw her fall, and began to make a place. Diver-to-Darkness brought mud up from below. Loon told everyone to get some more, and heap it onto turtle's back. Beaver flattened it with his tail. Then kingfisher gently brought falling woman down, and they worked together to make the world. The earth grew, trees grew, bushes and flowers appeared. The woman gave birth to a baby girl.
The girl grew up very fast. When she was a young woman, she went out walking, talking to the animals and birds, gathering flowers. She met a fine young man. When they made love, day and night came. At the morning star, she went to meet him, and the earth shone with light. At twillight, she returned home, and darkness fell. One night as she left him, she turned to say goodbye, and she saw only a huge turtle where he had been. She knew the turtle had tricked her. Young woman went home to her mother. She had gained the turtle's wisdom, and knew she would soon die, and her body would become changed and beautiful. She told her mother this would happen.
Young woman give birth to two babies and then she died. Her mother buried her and covered her body well. From her breasts grew two stalks, and on those stalks ears ripened. When the cornsilk was dry, and the leaves bright green, the Grandmother fed those children the new grown corn. That is how Corn came to be, nourishing the people ever after.
Bury a small bag of corn. When the corn decays, the warts will disappear.Rub the warts with a kernel of corn and feed the corn to a rooster. Be sure the rooster eats it and your warts will disappear.
Cut a corn cob crosswise and take out the white pulp center. Put this on the wart. Then fill the inside of the cob with soda and add a drop of vinegar to boil the soda away. Hold this over the warts. Repeat every day until cured.
Touch seventeen different kernels of corn to each wart, then feed the corn to chickens. If they eat it, your warts will disappear.
Dance of the Sprouting Corn
He partakes in the springing of the corn, in the rising and budding and earing of the corn. And when at last he eats his bread, at last, he recovers all he once sent forth, and partakes again of the energies he called to the corn, from out of the wide universe.
D.H. Lawrence from Mornings in Mexico, 1927
When the corn wears a heavy coat, so must you.
(If corn husks are thicker than usual, a cold winter is ahead)
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A u t u m n H a n d c r a f t s
Table of Contents
N a t i v e L i n k s
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Halloween.
