Welcome to Mabon kindreds, or just the Autumn Equinox. I am still feeling the friction of the neopagan wheel of the year names, as I explained in the last forecast. (And Mabon is the one that gives me the ick the most). 

Looking back over Lammas season, the thing that stood out this year was fire.

In South Wales, where I live, we had the hottest summer on record, plus there were multiple fires burning across the countryside here. Some days the air was thick with smoke. Even on clearer days you could still smell the burning.

Fire is generally very good at making itself known.

You cannot look at a hillside on fire - or smoking - and think everything is fine. It is visible. Immediate. Demanding. A very obvious issue. And, to me at least, that feels on point for the character of 2026 so far.

Since the stellium of planets in Aries this spring, things have been moving quickly. New cycles have begun, old structures have been disrupted or fallen away, and things that may have been simmering beneath the surface for years (especially since 2018 - more on that later) have become impossible to continue to ignore.

Spring was ignition. Summer, and eclipse season, was revelation.

And now, as we cross the threshold of Mabon and begin our descent toward Samhain, I think we are entering a season of digestion.

The fire continues to smoulder.

Mars and Jupiter are travelling through Leo. Saturn and Neptune remain in Aries. Chiron has returned to Aries after its brief passage into Taurus. There is still plenty of heat, courage, desire and action in the astrology.

But it's time to turn our attention away from the hillside and go deeper beneath the mountain. We are looking for the root causes, and so we must go underground.

This is a season of digestion. An internal journey. An underworld journey.

A note about the transits:

You'll notice I don't include a full list of transits here. I used to in the monthly forecasts, but I feel like a list of dates and aspects is a bit too granular and not that helpful in this more thematic forecast.

I am focusing on the energetics of what the sky is showing us, and that's what you'll find here.

If you want the granular weekly detail - I get it, I like that too - I offer that in Moonday Magic Mail. A weekly email which includes the transits for the week, with interpretation and suggestions for using the energy. You can find out more and sign up here.

 

Mabon is usually associated with the second harvest. But what does harvest mean in a world where most of us are no longer living directly by agricultural rhythms?

When we can buy strawberries in December, and pineapples in Wales? When the food on our plates tells us very little about the seasonal shifts we are experiencing alongside the land we live on?

Our bodies still crave alignment with the rhythms of the earth. But how do we find that while living modern lives? I feel that this season can lead us to some answers. And they will likely be very personalised for each of us. We just need to burrow deeper to find what we need.

Because harvest isn't just the produce - the outward celebratory parts - it's also about the seeds and sorting and discernment.

What will we store?

What will we compost?

And what will we carefully preserve because we want it to thrive again?

Seeds have been coming up for me repeatedly this year. Seed saving. Heritage varieties. The preservation of seemingly small insignificant things that might otherwise disappear. The deep wisdom of keeping seeds that do particularly well in a specific place and climate.

When we save a seed, we are selecting and saving a specific potential or promise. We are saying: this is worth keeping. This is something that I want.

This Mabon season will provide opportunities to figure out the metaphorical seeds we want to keep, to overwinter, to plant again in the Spring. But we need to give ourselves the time and space to make good decisions.

Going underground

There is a strong Scorpio signature to this season.

Venus enters Scorpio and turns retrograde there. Mercury enters Scorpio, enters its retrograde shadow and later turns retrograde too. Pluto, Scorpio's modern ruler, stations direct in Aquarius.

The astrology seems to be tracing an inward path now. We are moving from the visible into the hidden.

Scorpio (and Pluto) asks us to look at what lies beneath the surface: our attachments, our desires, our power, our resources, our fears of loss, our entanglements with other people, the things that most people prefer to sweep under the rug.

And Venus retrograde in Scorpio can make some of those questions particularly intimate and relational.

What do I actually value?

What do I desire for myself, versus performing desire for someone else?

What am I holding onto because I love it, and what am I holding onto because I am afraid to lose it - to not have it (or for someone else to have it)?

These are not questions to answer really. We are deep into a year of rapid movement. There has been plenty to respond to, plenty to understand, plenty to act upon.

But digestion takes time.

We cannot swallow an experience and immediately know what it has become inside us (especially true if you are neurodivergent and/or need more processing time).

Sometimes we have to sit with it.

Sometimes we have to let it move through us.

Sometimes we have to stop trying to make meaning long enough for the meaning to take its own shape and find us.

This is a season for slowing down our thinking and doing this digestive work.

The things we thought we had finished with

Chiron's return to Aries adds another layer to this.

After briefly entering Taurus earlier this year, Chiron returns to Aries, where it will remain into 2027.

Chiron in Aries has been with us since 2018, asking questions about selfhood and agency. About the right to exist as ourselves. About desire, anger, courage and the ability to take up space without needing permission. It's also coincided with the world at large becoming a very different place from pre-2018.

There is something poignant about this return. We thought we were moving on. But now it becomes clear that there is something we need to return to first. There is more to uncover and unpack in that Aries realm of self. There is probably something that still hurts.

I don't think we're being asked to excavate every dark corner of ourselves and turn it into a project - do the shadow work (though there likely will be some shadow work this season). I think we are being invited to become more intimate with what is already there. Our selves.

Perhaps you know what this is already, or perhaps it will reveal itself slowly as you cross through the underworld.

This transit is going to run beyond this season and into the start of next year, so we have time and can be as gentle as possible with ourselves as we move through this last bit of Chiron in Aries.

Libra / Aries / Scorpio tension and resolution

I've talked about the strong Scorpio energy of this season, but there is also a Libra / Aries story.

The Sun begins this season in Libra, and Venus eventually retreats back into Libra during her retrograde journey. Both will (or have) oppose Saturn, Neptune, and Chiron in Aries.

This season is not just about digesting questions about our own desires and needs, we are also being called to look at questions of relationship, reciprocity, balance and ethics.

Plus, the ruler of Libra - Venus - is moving between Libra and Scorpio, surfacing Libra questions and Scorpio questions in a strange counterpoint.

Libra asks what is fair. Scorpio asks what is true.

Libra asks what we choose. Scorpio asks what we are bound to.

I feel like this is part of the deeper work of the season: becoming more honest about what we value, so that our choices and our relationships can begin to reflect it.

Because we cannot prioritise - or choose - everything.

Some things are nourishment. Some things are compost.

Some things have completed their purpose. And some things are seeds.

We are asked to discern which is which.

The Full Moon in Taurus

At the end of this season, just a few days before Samhain, we have the Full Moon in Taurus (you can get the guide here). I love this as the culmination of the seasonal journey.

After all that Scorpio depth, Taurus brings us back to the surface of the earth. The ruler of this Full Moon - Venus - doesn't station direct until November 14th, so if you need more internal digestion time there is no need to rush, there is plenty of time.

I feel like this moon is promising the triumphant return of Inanna after her journey in the underworld. Though the goddess has not quite emerged yet (Venus is still obscured by the sun and will not emerge as a morning star until the following month).

Plus we have a dynamic tension between Sun / Venus opposite Moon / Chiron, all squaring Pluto in Aquarius (a T-square), so it probably won't feel like a typical Taurus (delicious, sensual) Full Moon.

It is more like the culmination, or the aha moment, of this season where we feel the truth that not all the seeds are equally important, that it is ok to prefer, to have our personal wants and needs, to make our own choices based on that.

If we have been flowing with the energy of this season then we will reach this point ready to open to that deeper knowing.

We can see what is waste, and what is for keeps.

 

If you want journal printables inspired by the astrology of this Lammas season you can find that here. 

 

 

THIS SEASON'S MICROPRACTICE: Rest and Digest

You can do this after every meal, or choose one meal a day if that feels like enough. After you eat, pause. Put your hands on your belly if that feels good. Take a breath. And for 30 seconds or so, simply notice that you have eaten.

You don't need to analyse the meal, or think about whether it was "good" or "bad". Just feel the beginning of digestion.

Our bodies know what to do with food. They take what can nourish us. Sort. Absorb. Transform. Let go of what is not needed. And we don't have to consciously make any of this happen. We just need to create the (ideally peaceful) environment. 

As you sit there, you might say (out loud or in your head): I trust my capacity to digest.

And yes, we are meaning more than just food.

We are living through a year in which there has been a lot to take in. We need to let ourselves rest and digest. And our bodies already carry the knowledge of how to do this. 

THIS SEASON'S RITUAL: The underground journey 

This season is an underworld journey.

So rather than asking you to sit down and write about what you want to release and what you want to carry forward, I want to invite you to actually take a journey.

You can make it a physical journey, or an imaginal one.

For a physical version, find somewhere that gives you the feeling of going underground or moving through a threshold. A tunnel is perfect. A wooded path, a passageway, a cave, a labyrinth, or a staircase that leads somewhere below ground can work too.

You may want to pause at the entrance and think about a question or what you feel you are struggling to digest, or just take the journey and see what arises. 

Notice what you see and what you feel. 

Notice anything your attention is drawn towards.

If something comes to mind, notice that too. 

When you reach the other end, or the centre of your labyrinth, or wherever feels like the destination, stop for however long feels good (sometimes longer than we usually would, or feels "normal").

This is the part where we practise not knowing. You might place your hands on your belly, remembering the micropractice. Feel your breath. Feel your body. Let yourself be in the inbetween.

Then, when you are ready, begin the journey back.

You don't have to come back with a revelation (you might though, which is always fun).

You might come back with a question. Or an image, a feeling, a memory, a desire.

You might come back with nothing specific. That's okay.

This is about the journey, about being willing to go underground, to spend some time in that weird liminal space, and to trust that something is happening when we cannot see it happening.

If you want to make this an imaginal journey instead, put on a piece of drumming or another repetitive, wordless track and make yourself comfortable somewhere you won't be disturbed. Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing at the entrance to the underworld.

Then let the journey unfold.

Now we begin the slow work of digestion.