Lughnasagh/Lammas Celebration

This weekend, Wiccans and others celebrated the fire festival of Lughnasagh, or Lammas, a celebration of the first harvest. Even though it seems like the middle of summer, older cultures saw this time as the end of summer and beginning of the time of the waning sun (actually, if you read my post on Litha, it is that holiday that officially marks the peak of summer, and therefore also its decline). Although many people probably do not notice such things, the days have been narrowing ever so slightly since June 21. If you pay close attention, you can sense the gentle withering, feel autumn coming.

This morning, I had just such an awareness as I sat on my yoga mat on the porch. The humidity is way down, the sky is September-blue though the sun is still a hot yellow. I faced east as I always do during morning yoga, and felt a strong, cool breeze behind me, begging me to lift my arms and let the wind prop me up as it skimmed the insides of my arms. It was autumn sighing its way into the land. If it were up to me, I'd divide the year up into more seasons to mark the "in-between" or liminal times such as this one. Right now, we're in what I would call the "Fire before the Fall," the hot season of early harvest before the real cooling trend begins, usually sometime in September (of course, I am talking about typical New England weather; your weather where you are may reflect a different reality).

Sometimes in the past, I have been very bored during this time -- August can be filled with lazy days that stretch out without pattern, the heat slowing us down and the crickets droning us all into a trance. I think August is a lazy month partly because of the liminal nature of the season. It's not the early flowering of summer anymore, it's not Fourth of July frenzy, and it's not full-on harvest. We're in between, and we just don't quite know what to do with ourselves. We know we have to assess where and what we are, what we have accomplished this year in the garden, in the land, and just generally in our lives, but still we have a sense of the expansiveness of summer and the hope that there are still days enough to bring in more fruit, more joy, more energy into our lives.

It is just this desire to savor all the last bits of warmth and grace coupled with the recognition of the coming fall that prompts us to recreate the the ancient mysteries of the harvest festivals. In my community, we reenacted the sacrifice of the John Barleycorn as an embodiment of the God of grain who dies (or is harvested) at Lammastide and then is sent to the underworld at Mabon. I won't give all the details of the ritual here because they're not really mine to give, but it was a very powerful ritual that for me truly symbolized the threshing of the year, the gathering of what is good to make into something new.

(I'll say this, one of great things about sacrificing an effigy is that you get to call upon it all the things and people who you would wish to be rid of . . . and then you "kill" it. Violently. If there's a situation that is making you stew in an angry pot, pour it into the John Barleycorn and then rip the shit out of him. It feels really cathartic. )

These harvest rituals remind us of an even greater liminality, that is our own coming demise. All that grows eventually falls to the threshing floor. We spend our lives in between this one and the next, waiting for the lessons that will prepare us for our coming transition. What will we take into the underworld? What fruitfulness will we bring before we leave? The time of assessment is really always upon us as we work and play and love. The need for self-knowledge is never greater than during these times of pause and sacrifice.

So, perhaps, that is the great wisdom of the Goddess and God reflected in the land. We are given August to slow down, reflect, but not in a wintery, cold and still sort of way but in a way that can still fill us with light, love and adventure. The sun keeps us smiling, while the wind at our backs reminds us of what is to come. The days stretch out, even as they shorten; the plants ripen with life, even as they wither to gold. And the crickets sing us into the sublime.