Lammas.  A time for bread baking and contemplation ---

Pass.

Lammas.  A time to consider the fates of various sun gods --

Double pass.

Look.  We have a tiny air conditioner that is like the Little Engine That Could (Maybe).  The last thing I want to do when it's a million degrees out is bake some freaking bread right now.  Like what sadist decided those two things go together? (rhetorical.  I don't actually care.)  And sun gods?  As someone who spent her formative years in the company of women in most every aspect of her life, you can imagine how many effs I have in that arena as well.  

I'm supposed to be at Pennsic drinking homemade floral liquors under chandelier decked trees, listening to singing, laughing and vomiting like any good festival will offer.  And instead I'm stuck here at work, like a loser who is a million months overdue with this damn book baby that is determined to win the staring contest on how long it will take to actually launch (a week left and counting, this time last year I was having a very intense email exchange in a corset at Pennsic with my editor about getting all my edits into her in two weeks . . . .so I could launch, this time this year.  Book babies are elephant babies).  Summers in an accounting firm are as close to June in high school as I ever want to get again.  It involves horrors like "basement filing", "let's really clean this place up", "you have enough work, don't you?" and other key phrases that make me want to stab myself in the hand with a letter opener to make sure I can still feel feelings.  

I don't know what someone is supposed to feel like when one is on the cusp of accomplishing one's Great Work.  I get a lot of worried faces from my circles when I mention personal key phrases like, "I'm clawing at myself because I am full of hives", "I'm pulling my nose ring out in my sleep" and "I am having very strange vivid dreams".  JohnM says I'm like an anxious infant and I need sleep mittens which I think I would welcome at this point.  

So what do you do when you've been left behind for the biggest festival of the year, work is an eternity and you are freaking and hella pregnant with a book baby?  

Juliet turned the big 1-4 on Lammas Eve (Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen. . . ), so l say we should think of her as a template.  If you are older than 14, you can choose to selectively recall the good parts of being a teen, if you are that age this will be an organic experience.  I said recently to April(1) that I want to do something crazy.  And I named the (reasonably) crazy things we've done together in the past - piercing bits of our flesh, dyeing our hair blond before my wedding, that anything could happen feeling, that Sleep No More feeling, that Renaissance Faire in high school feeling, that feeling where you're in a Baz movie and it's about to get epic feeling.  

Your Lammas Praxis Exam

  1. Enlist help.  Yes, yes, solo everything gives you +5 Occultist points, but Lammas is a festival.  Don't be a pain.  
  2. Figure out something to do with said helpers.  You could have a full ritual and/or involve sun gods and/or bake bread and Hermione out if that's what you need to do but I really recommend against that.  There's always time for long, boring pompous rituals.  Trust.  This is a quest.  Think the Broad City "Narnia of Partias" episode.  Think about what it's like to be on the prowl for adventure.  Think about what it's like to make a boy kiss you.  Think about feeling your favorite song pulse through you.  Think about trying on clothes that you can't afford with your besties.  Think about skipping work to go to the beach.  Think about shots!  shots!  shots!  Think about wearing fascinators to a basement party.  Think about driving at night with a huge moon and the top down in a convertible.  Now.  How will you accomplish this?  Do some questing with you helpers.  Find something that you would usually wistfully say no to and then say yes to it.
  3. Get your shit together and make your own private Lammas festival happen.  Be sure to dedicate it to your favorite Red Goddess.  If you don't have one, St. Juliet will do nicely.  Just, like, try not to die during said festival.  Be cool.
  4. Insta or it never happened, losers!  I'll post mine late on Sat.  #GlamourPraxis