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Mystic South is a new (and awesome!) Pagan conference that was recently held earlier this summer in balmy, bustling Atlanta, Georgia.  I’ve never been to a big Pagan festival or conference, and every year Southern and East Coast folks are tempted with stories of PantheaCon or Many Gods West, much to our consternation.  Imagine how thrilled I was when friends sent me a link to a big event that was (mostly) local!

The Mystic South founders wrote on their website that when creating the conference they were focused on offering a “Southern-based conference – one that was not only [easy] to attend but also had a Southern flair and spoke of the mystic spirit of our own part of the country.  Since there [was] no such event to meet that need, we decided to create it.”  As a bona fide Southern Pagan, I was ecstatic for the chance to attend a conference that was local, affordable, and also spoke to my concerns as a Pagan practitioner and priestess living in the South.  I was also intrigued by a key concept – these folks saw a genuine need in our community and decided to step up and fill that need.  This is so, so incredibly impressive and inspiring to me!  I am humbled by their work and dedication to such an undertaking!

Lokabrenna Day is on the heliacal rising of Sirius. This year, that will be August 8^th through most of the USA. Lokabrenna means Loki’s Torch, and is the Icelandic name for Sirius. Some heathens and other pagans celebrate this day as sacred to Loki.

Jarume Uwujare  argues cultures should relate as equals when they take something from another, and contribute something to the other in return. I think we all can agree people can and should relate as equals, but I argue this is a confused way to think about cultures.

If I have what you want, we are not equal unless you also have what I want, and want it with about the same intensity. We can easily have a formal equality to make an exchange or not, but this equality is modified, sometimes drastically, by the intensity each of us has to make the exchange. The more desperate one party is compared to the other, the greater an important kind of inequality.

The Chipmunk, a small striped-rodent, is a member of the Squirrel Family. Scientists usually divide the twenty five species of chipmunks into three groups – the Western Chipmunks (the largest group): Nectamias, the Eastern Chipmunk: Tamias, and the Siberian Chipmunk: Eutamias. The root “tamis” is Greek for steward, which reflects this species’ role in plant dispersal.

Chipmunk is named for her call – “chip-chip,” which sounds like a shrill bird-like chirp. Besides the chip-chip, She also employs a deep chuck, a trill, and a high-pitched startle call. Upon hearing her faint high chip, a dog’s ears will perk up. By the time the dog reacts, Chipmunk will be safe underground.

Lammas < Old English hlæfmæsse, “loaf mass.”

“A harvest festival formerly held in England on August 1 when bread baked from the season's first ripe grain was consecrated.”

Blessing the harvest's first grain: something we've probably been doing since the end of the last Ice Age.

But (etymologically speaking, anyway) the name is inescapably Christian. What to do?

Well, there's always Lúnasa. (That's the simplified Modern Irish form of the feast known in Old Irish as Lughnasadh [and by many other spellings]).

But that name has problems of its own. For one, it's specific to a specific culture and a specific pantheon. For another, for English-speakers, it is and always will be a foreign import.

Some Old Craft folks that I know wouldn't be caught dead using a Pagan Revival term like Lúnasa. In the old days, under the radar was the only safe way to fly. Where they come from, it's Lammas all the way.

Here's one you probably haven't heard before: the Gule of August. We get Gule (rhymes with Yule, which is nice) from French, although there's a Welsh form (Gwyll) too; its ultimate origin may be Latin vigilia, “vigil.” Well, in the Wonderful World of Polytheism more is generally better; “Gule” is fine if you want to mystify your friends.

Lammas, Lugnasadh, the celebration of the grain harvest is a few days behind us. However, not all plant life corresponds with the grain, there are many things out there in the UK at different points in their life cycles right now so I thought I’d talk about those to offer some alternative takes on the wheel of the year for this month.

Lammas rituals often encourage us to focus on personal harvests and bounty, but there’s nothing in nature that says it is natural to be at the harvest stage at specifically this point in the year. If your life is not aligning you to the grain harvest, look around to see what you do connect with.

So, generally speaking, right now would be an excellent example about how you should do what I say, not as I do.  Full time job, Jow's about to start nursing school, my book drops in six days, my cat literally just died . . .this would usually be where my house is a mess, my hair is unwashed, I'm eating like a garbage animal, watching crazy amounts of reality tv and the gym is a distant memory.