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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Lammas

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

I touch the earth and offer gratitude
 for this land I call home.
I reach towards the sky and offer gratitude
for sun, moon, and stars.

I place my hand on my heart
and breathe deep, offering gratitude

for all that I am and all that I have
and for the many blessings of my life…

As we reach the celebration of First Fruits, Lammas, on August 1 (or August 7), it is a beautiful time to reflect on the abundance in your life, the bounty around you, and that which you are harvesting or savoring.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Sabbat Incense: Lammas

Most people I meet who are interested in making or using incense want to make sticks and cones.  That’s understandable since these are the most familiar commercial forms.  Many of us have a variety of nifty incense burners for these types of incense and they are simple to use.  Probably the next largest group of incense makers/users I encounter are, by many measurements, the exact opposite.  They prefer to mix aromatics in a “raw” form and use incense charcoal to heat whatever blend they mix.  There is a wonderful style of incense that fits right in the middle of these two extremes.  It’s easy to make and many people have everything needed in their cupboards right now.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Trouble with Lammas

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.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Mariah Sheehy
    Mariah Sheehy says #
    This Gaelic polytheist/Druid/ is glad the pan-Pagan Celtic trend seems to be waning a bit. I'm happy to share Lunasa with anyone
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    So, your down home famtrad would have home made bread, preferably from home grown grain. The making of corn dollies, especially th
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Please, please, please, O gods: Please may every dish on the Lammas table not have zucchini in it. So mote it be!
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks Tasha, I love "Word to the Wise." Happy Lammas.
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    Wonderful, Steve, as always. Thanks! Sharing on Macha's FB page.

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Elder and harebell

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.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Nimue Brown
    Nimue Brown says #
    watermelons are a bit of an expensive treat here, I am imagining what an abundance would be like... :-)
  • Laura Perry
    Laura Perry says #
    Watermelon is one of the few garden crops that I don't get tired of, even when everyone has too many and is giving them away. Othe
  • Laura Perry
    Laura Perry says #
    I live in the American South, and we've always done our own twist on Lammas. Early August is indeed harvest season here, but not f
A Time to Plant, a Time to Harvest

It seems like summer just arrived and already it is on its way out. Today is Lughnasadh (Celtic) or Lammas (Germanic), the beginning of the harvest season in Western European tradition and the first day of autumn according to reckonings that count summer as starting from May. Traditionally, it’s a time for working the fields and baking the first bread of the new harvest.

As always we’ve gathered all of our related posts as well as those we found across the internet that we thought you might enjoy. Have fun!

--Aryós Héngwis

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Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Christopher Ward
    Christopher Ward says #
    Shared thank you fer sharin Miss Karen awesome post

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Meaning of Lammas

 

The Wheel of the Year is widely honored by we Wiccans, along with Druids, and many other NeoPagans. The eight Sabbats arranged along the Wheel are divided into universal solar cycles celebrating the solstices and equinoxes and four place-specific ones representing the agricultural cycles of planting, growth, harvest, and death.  The Wheel’s symbolism is beautifully adapted to illustrate profound insights in regions with four seasons because both cycles are coordinated, but its basic insights are true everywhere.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

It is traditional to bake a Lammas loaf at this time of year, although many may wait to celebrate next weekend, closer to the cross-quarter day.  But there are harvests and harvests. Lammas or Lunasa as we have it in Ireland, is the time when there is a pause in the silage making and hay cutting. There are plenty of festivals around the country and in yesteryear this would be the time for fairs and all that they include - drinking, fighting, wooing, some horse trading.

From Ballycastle's Auld Lammas Fair up in Country Antrim where you can get your dulse and yellow man (a really hard candle that might extract your fillings) down to County Kerry where they crown the goat at Puck Fair, this was the pause for revelry. Many gatherings happened at holy wells and there are numerous accounts of priests having to ban nude bathing of both sexes (together, imagine!) at these sacred sites rededicated to the Virgin Mary.  There were 'faction fights' - supposedly playful, but often they got ugly. My local holy well was contaminated by blood spilt in it at a Lunasa fairy. (All is well; it has been renovated, re-dedicated and the local priest lifted the curse on it back in August 2014.)

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Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Tasha Halpert
    Tasha Halpert says #
    Here is my Harvest Poem, in answer to our question. Blessed Be, Tasha My Harvest My harvest is not from a field or meadow It is n

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