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Welcome to the 2016 Midsummer/Lammas Tarot Blog Hop.

What are the colors of Lunasa?

Green and gold, one might think: the unripe grain, and the ripe.

And so it is. But these are the Lunasa of the fields, the Lunasa of Earth.

And there are other Lunasas.

Most people are familiar with the Celtic name for August 1st, Lughnasadh. Across the water it's known as Lammas Day.

From Leechdom, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, a compendium of wonderful folk knowledge of early Anglo-Saxon England, here's a fragment of a charm using bread [hláf] hallowed on 'hláfmæsse-dæg' the traditional grain harvest day:

In the ancient days of the world, when all was still mostly froth and chaos, there lived two great Kings.  The Oak King was the ruler of the places that were light, and the Holly King ruled the places that were dark.  At first They feared one another; for the Holly King was the master of the places that the Oak King dared not go, and the Oak King was the master of the places that the Holly King dared not go.  What secrets might the other be keeping?  But the Goddess of the Moon and Stars knew Them both, and She bade Them to go to one another.  “You’ll like Him!” She told each of Them with the twinkle of the stars in Her deep dark eyes.  “You’ll see!”

So They agreed to meet at the border of Twilight, where light and dark meet.  The Goddess guided Them to the meeting place with the twinkles of Her eyes, and then She tactfully withdrew.

We call it Lammas or Lunasa, and think of it as marking the commencement of the grain harvest.

And so indeed it does. In Western Minnesota, they're beginning the cutting of the “small grains” even as you read this.

But here in the New World, this was a festival long before the ships from Europe arrived with their sacks of seed wheat and barley.

“Green Corn,” they called it, and among many peoples, it was the greatest feasting of the year.

Maize cultivation came into Northern America from Mexico about 2000 years ago, and spread up along the river valleys. In the Upper Mississippi Valley, where I live, they've kept Green Corn for almost 1000 years now.

If you haven’t yet swum in the mighty Atlantic Ocean, gulped in a little salt water, floated in billowy delicious waves, hiked through deep cream-colored beach sand, picked up shells, jumped to save your bare feet from becoming burnt as you walk over 20 foot, hot dunes, wandered aimlessly in a small New England fishing village, or laughed to an outdoor-theatre Shakespeare Troupe, I highly recommend it. This August saw me doing all of this, and while it was an incredible week, what made it extra special—and a summer’s vacation I will treasure—is that I did it all with my sister.