This past weekend was the Mabon camping trip! My Handsome Assistant and I are part of a local Druidry group, and that group teams up with another Pagan group to go have a fantastic time in the woods.
(If you aren’t sure what Mabon is, here is a brief rundown.)
There’s food (lots of food), singing, stories, rituals, and catching up with friends, all set in a beautiful forest. Last year, things got a bit cold and damp. This year, the weather was better, and my Assistant and I knew what to expect. We were more thoroughly prepared (air mattress, extra blankets and sleeping bags, extra dishes, a solar powered fan), so it made for a much more comfortable trip.
The rain also stayed away just long enough for the weekend’s rituals, which was very important.
Earlier, during the Midsummer goods and gear swap, a couple of us floated the idea of having a masquerade party. It wasn’t a serious plan at the time — mainly a “this would be really cool” kind of thing. Later, during a planning Zoom call, I mentioned that some of us thought a masquerade would be really neat. Maybe for Samhain?
One of the group’s Stewards knew of a ritual that involved masking — the Council of All Beings. Another person found chants that suited the occasion. Another wrote the transitions and spoken parts of the ritual structure. By the end, it was a beautiful, adaptable, and powerfully creative work.
Some people came to the trip prepared, already knowing which being they’d embody, having a mask or costume, and knowing exactly what they wanted to say. Others took time in the woods or labyrinth, waiting to see what reached out to them and asked to be represented. I’d gotten some inspiration a while before Mabon, so I was all set to go.
The ritual itself was wonderful. The masks were gorgeous, and seeing what kind of entities inspired/spoke through people was fascinating. Some represented a specific organism — like the critically endangered regent honeyeater. Others represented a genus or type of being, like moths, small snakes, or coral. Others represented something broader, like smoke or the sun. Some were natural features, like the bedrock or an underground spring. There were representations from a variety of cultures and cosmologies, all brought together to express themselves through us. I loved it.
(I was the necrobiome, aka all of the little guys that dispose of trash and dead things. I had some trouble figuring out how to express “a tiny ecosystem of various bacteria, fungi, insects, and scavengers” through a mask, so I ended up settling on a skeletal deer mask instead. The presence of decomposition bacteria and fungi was somewhat implied.)
We also had an icebreaking and learning exercise called Birds of a Feather, where we wore small tags labeled with subjects we wanted to talk about — either things we found interesting and were well versed in already, or stuff we wanted to learn. It sparked a lot of very interesting conversations!
There was also a chants workshop, where a group of us got together to try various chanting techniques and see how they felt both through our own voices and hearing them in a group. (Some of the non-verbal chants, I thought, felt especially powerful. I love exploring and working with different sonic frequencies, so feeling and participating in chants that ran the gamut from “results in full-body tingles” to “surprisingly like the drone of a titanic beehive” was particularly fascinating.)
One group member also gave a talk about spiritual experiences at various megaliths in Ireland. Both my Assistant and I found it really interesting — enough to where he’s sincerely trying to figure out how to create some form of mobile hyperbaric compression chamber so I can get on a plane without Problems.
And then there was food.
(So much food.)
Every meal was a potluck, and there was something for everyone. Vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, gluten-free, nut-free. There was fresh fruit, Koren barbecue ribs, vegan fennel and garlic sausages, fresh bread, pudding made from foraged pawpaws, homebrewed peach mead, vegetable soup made from home-grown vegetables, curried chickpea salad, and a ton of other things I’m probably forgetting.
I ate like a combination of a Redwall character and some kind of Roman emperor all weekend, and it was delightful.
(My Handsome Assistant jokes that he puts on five pounds over Mabon, then spends the rest of the year losing it.)
I also stayed up way too late every night, mostly sitting around the fire hearing/telling stories, talking about things, and having the occasional smoke. This came back to bite me on Saturday, when I set an alarm to wake up, realized I had a terrible headache, and decided to sleep in. This would have meant that I’d miss the Equinox ritual Saturday morning, fortunately my Assistant and I had accidentally set up our tent right next to the ritual area.
I heard the drums going, bolted upright, wrapped myself in a blanket, and poked my head through the tent flap to watch.
It worked out okay until the calling of the quarters got to the South, which meant that everyone turned to face me, who was currently sitting due south and staring out of my tent like some kind of small cryptid. (I kind of slowly retreated behind my tent flap again until that part was over, Homer-Simpson-backing-into-a-bush style.)
So, while I am glad to be home again, I’m sad Mabon’s over. I’ll see (almost) everyone soon, but man do I miss that vibe.
Marble Crow 