The Scales of the Harvest
A Mabon Lecture & Ritual of Reckoning, Gratitude, and Release
Live, Free Mini-Ritual Lecture
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
5:00 pm PST
At the autumn equinox, light and darkness meet in near-equal measure. The harvest is gathered, the fields begin to empty, and we arrive at one of the oldest human questions: What has come from what I have tended?
In many contemporary Pagan and Wiccan traditions, the autumn equinox is celebrated as Mabon, one of the eight seasonal festivals that make up the modern Wheel of the Year. Named in the twentieth century after Mabon ap Modron, a figure from Welsh mythology, Mabon has become associated with the second harvest, thanksgiving, balance, and preparation for the darker half of the year. While the name itself is a modern addition to Pagan practice, autumn harvest observances are far older, reflecting humanity’s enduring relationship with the cycles of cultivation, abundance, scarcity, death, and renewal.
In this seasonal mini-lecture and ritual, mythologist and archetypal educator Selena Madden, PhD explores Mabon and the autumn equinox through the symbolism of harvest, balance, sacrifice, and discernment. Rather than treating harvest only as a celebration of abundance, we will consider its more complicated wisdom: some seeds flourish, some fail, some fruits must be gathered before they spoil, and some things must be cut away so that life can continue.
Drawing from mythology, seasonal traditions, and the symbolic language of the harvest, we will explore the equinox as a moment of reckoning—not judgment, but honest accounting. What has ripened in our lives? What are we still trying to cultivate beyond its season? What deserves gratitude? And what are we willing to return to the earth?
The lecture will culminate in a simple Ritual of the Scales, in which participants symbolically weigh what they are carrying into the darker half of the year. Through candlelight, seasonal offerings, reflection, and release, we will honor both the harvest we hoped for and the harvest we actually received.
Because wisdom is not only knowing what to plant.
It is knowing what to gather—and what to leave behind.
PLEASE NOTE: Ritual will be recorded and archived for students unable to attend live.
The Wild Threshold
Women, Myth, and the Living World
A six-week live online journey through myth, landscape, imagination, and the places where the human and more-than-human worlds meet.
Wednesdays, October 7 - November 11, 2026
4:00–5:30 PM Pacific Time | 7:00 - 8:30 PM Eastern Time
$150
There are places where the boundaries grow thin.
The edge of the forest.
The mouth of a cave.
A path disappearing around the mountain.
A garden at dusk.
The shoreline between land and sea.
The crossroads where one road becomes many.
Across cultures, these landscapes have long been places of encounter. Gods appear there. Women wander into them. Animals speak. The dead draw near. Old identities loosen, and something unexpected becomes possible.
The Wild Threshold is a six-week exploration of these places—not only as settings within mythology, but as ways of encountering our own lives and the living world around us.
Together, we will enter myths of women who cross beyond the boundaries of the familiar and meet what waits there: wilderness, danger, revelation, sovereignty, grief, beauty, instinct, and transformation.
But this is not simply a course about interpreting old stories.
It is an invitation to practice attention.
To notice the landscape around you.
To become curious about the places that call to you, unsettle you, or make you feel suddenly more alive.
To experience myth not as something safely contained in an ancient text, but as a language through which human beings have always tried to understand what happens when we encounter a world larger than ourselves.
During our six weeks together, we will explore:
The Crossroads
Choice, uncertainty, Hekate, and the strange intelligence of not yet knowing which way to go.
The Forest
Wildness, instinct, disorientation, initiation, and what happens beyond the boundaries of the cultivated world.
The Cave
Descent, darkness, incubation, hidden knowledge, and the interior landscapes we enter when ordinary vision is no longer enough.
The Mountain
Effort, perspective, solitude, revelation, and the relationship between elevation and transformation.
The Garden
Cultivation, sensuality, enclosure, fertility, beauty, and the complicated boundary between wilderness and what we attempt to tend or control.
The Living Threshold
Bringing these landscapes home: discovering the thresholds already present in our bodies, our environments, our imaginations, and our everyday lives.
This course is for you if...
You feel drawn to mythology but want to experience it as something more than a collection of stories.
You are hungry for a deeper relationship with the natural world—even if your daily life takes place primarily in cities, homes, offices, or online spaces.
You sense that something important is lost when we move too quickly through the world without truly seeing it.
You are interested in feminine mythology, archetypal imagination, ritual, ecology, symbolism, or the mysteries of place.
Or perhaps you simply feel yourself standing at a threshold in your own life and want a different kind of language for understanding where you are.
No previous knowledge of mythology is necessary.
Curiosity is enough.
What Our Gatherings Will Be Like
Each live gathering will weave together mythological teaching, storytelling, reflection, guided imaginal or embodied practice, and conversation.
You will also receive simple invitations between sessions—ways of noticing, wandering, journaling, observing, or entering into relationship with the landscape where you actually live.
These are not assignments to complete correctly.
They are practices of attention.
Because one of the central questions of this course is deceptively simple:
What happens when we begin treating the world as though it might have something to say to us?
Come to the Threshold
You do not have to disappear into a distant wilderness to find the wild.
Sometimes it begins with noticing the tree outside your window.
The bird that keeps appearing.
The path you always take.
The place you avoid.
The landscape you dream about.
The moment when the familiar world suddenly feels slightly less familiar.
The threshold may already be beneath your feet.
Join The Wild Threshold
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students unable to attend live.
At the Threshold of the Dead
Samhain, Liminality, and the Journey Between Worlds
Free, Live Mini-Lecture and Ritual
Saturday October 31, 2026
4:00pm PST
What if the boundary between the living and the dead were not a wall, but a threshold?
Samhain arrives at a peculiar moment in the year. The harvest is ending. The days are growing noticeably shorter. The landscape itself seems to be withdrawing. For centuries, this seasonal turning has been associated with gatherings, fires, divination, the dead, and encounters with forces beyond the ordinary human world.
In this special Samhain lecture and ritual, mythologist Selena Madden, PhD will explore what it means to stand at such a threshold.
We will begin with Samhain itself, looking at its historical and folkloric roots while also untangling some of the modern ideas that have become attached to it—including the familiar claim that the “veil between worlds” becomes thin. From there, we will move into the larger and much older human fascination with crossing the boundary between life and death.
Myths are filled with people who approach the realm of the dead. Orpheus descends in search of Eurydice. Odysseus seeks knowledge from those who have died. Persephone moves between worlds. Psyche is given a task that requires her to enter the Underworld and return. These stories remind us that crossing a threshold is rarely casual. There are guides and guardians, offerings and instructions, things that must not be touched, questions that must be asked, and rules for finding one's way home.
These stories also give us a way to think about liminality: the strange state of being between one thing and another, when an old order has loosened but what comes next has not yet fully taken shape.
Our evening will culminate in a guided Samhain ritual of threshold, descent, and return. We will approach the boundary symbolically rather than attempting to summon or contact the dead. Participants will be invited to listen, remember, and consider what they themselves may be carrying into the darkness of the year—and what they wish to bring back.
No previous knowledge is necessary. Come curious. And perhaps, for one evening, become willing to stand at the door without needing to know exactly what waits on the other side.
Suggested Items:
A candle — to mark the opening and closing of the ritual and serve as a light at the threshold.
A small bowl or glass of water — representing the boundary between worlds, reflection, and passage.
A small offering — such as bread, fruit, herbs, flowers, or another simple biodegradable offering. This need not be intended for a particular ancestor or spirit.
A small stone — something tangible to hold during the ritual and ultimately carry back as a symbol of return.
A journal and something to write with — for reflection before and after the ritual.
Witch’s Circle: Building a Living Practice
Witchcraft is something we learn by doing.
Live Online • Six Weeks
Mondays, October 19 - November 23, 2026
4:30–6:00 PM Pacific
$150
Witch’s Circle: Building a Living Practice of Ritual, Magic & Sacred Relationship is a six-week, practice-centered course for people who are curious about witchcraft as well as experienced practitioners who want to deepen, expand, or reconsider the foundations of their practice.
Contemporary witchcraft is not a single tradition. Its practices may be shaped by folk magic, modern Paganism and polytheism, occult traditions, devotional and ancestral practices, regional customs, and individual spiritual experience. Throughout the course, we will consider where particular practices come from, what they are meant to do, and how they can be approached thoughtfully and responsibly. Rather than presenting one “correct” way to practice, students will experience different ritual methods and consider what has meaning within their own developing practice.
Most importantly, we will practice.
Through short framing lectures, discussion, the gathering of materials, and guided exercises, students will build and tend a working altar; learn to prepare, open, and close ritual space; cleanse and consecrate an object; work with candles, water, herbs, cord, and other accessible materials; construct a simple spell; make an offering; experiment with divination; and develop an ancestor or remembrance practice.
Special Focus
As Samhain approaches, we will turn specifically toward the season of the dead. We will look at the history and development of contemporary Samhain observances before creating an ancestor altar and exploring divination as a practice of asking, listening, and discernment. Students are never required to work with biological ancestors, deities, or spirits; alternatives will be offered throughout the course.
Each week builds upon the previous one. Students will gradually gather a small collection of ritual objects while gaining firsthand experience using them. In our final meeting, we will bring these practices together and construct a complete ritual as a group. Students will learn how preparing the space, opening the ritual, making offerings, performing magical or contemplative actions, and deliberately closing what we have opened create a meaningful ritual structure.
What We Will Learn
By the end of six weeks, students will have more than notes about witchcraft. They will have created an altar, consecrated a ritual object, performed a magical working, made an offering, practiced divination, explored ancestor remembrance, and helped construct a complete ritual. They will leave with practical experience, a collection of practices they can return to, and a foundation from which to continue building a witchcraft practice of their own.
Course Prep
Students will be asked to gather a small collection of simple ritual materials throughout the six-week course. Most items can be found at home, gathered from nature, or purchased inexpensively. No specialized ritual tools are required.
Materials will include:
- A candle and matches or lighter
- A small bowl or cup for water
- Salt
- Incense, herbs, or another preferred form of ritual scent (optional)
- A small piece of cord, ribbon, or thread
- Paper and pen
- A journal or notebook
- One object to consecrate for ritual use
- A few natural or meaningful objects for a working altar
- Optional photographs, names, heirlooms, or symbolic objects for ancestor/remembrance work
- A tarot or oracle deck, if the student owns one; alternative forms of divination will be provided for those who do not
Additional inexpensive household or natural materials may be suggested for individual weekly practices. Students will receive a more detailed materials list before the course begins, and alternatives will be offered whenever possible. Students should not need to purchase specialized or costly supplies to participate fully.
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students unable to attend live.
The Veiled Moon: Ritual & Mini Lecture (Free)
A Lunar Eclipse Ritual of Thresholds and Transformation
This event has passed, but you may view it using the link below on my YouTube channel.
Saturday, August 29, 2026
5:00 pm PT (CA time) | 8:00pm ET (NYC time)
Hosted by Morbid Anatomy
The moon has long been a symbol of intuition, mystery, memory, and the hidden dimensions of the psyche. During a lunar eclipse, that familiar light is temporarily obscured, creating a liminal moment that cultures throughout history have regarded with awe, caution, and reverence.
In this special online gathering, we will explore the mythology and symbolism of lunar eclipses across cultures, from celestial dragons and cosmic serpents to stories of descent, shadow, and transformation. Drawing from mythology, depth psychology, and ritual traditions, we will consider what it means when the light of the moon is veiled and what such moments can teach us about change, release, and renewal.
Together we will engage in reflection, guided visualization, and ritual practice designed to help participants identify what is ready to be released, reclaimed, or transformed within their own lives.
Suggested Ritual Items:
- A candle (white, silver, black, purple, blue, or red)
- A small bowl of water
- A journal and pen
- An object representing a threshold, transition, or transformation in your life
- Optional incense (Dragon's Blood, frankincense, sandalwood, mugwort, myrrh, or a blend of your choosing)
- Optional crystals, talismans, or symbols of the moon, serpent, dragon, or other threshold guardian
Join us beneath the veiled moon as we enter a sacred threshold between what has been and what is becoming. This gathering is open to all experience levels and all items are optional.
