Welcome Bountiful August “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” wrote Shakespeare in Sonnet 18. To me summer seems to surge forth at a gallop when Lammas or Lughnasa (loo-nuss-uh) arrives. We are half way to autumn. When winter reaches its mid-point, I moan, six weeks more, but at this point in summer I […]
Welcome First Fruits of the Harvest This is no ordinary August. As the Green Corn moon ripens in the sky and crops plump up in the fields, we vacation in quarantine, mask up, and socially distance in fear of covid virus spread. This season of abundance in the northern hemisphere is menaced with loss and […]
Summer is well underway. A profusion of daylilies, sunflowers, gladiolas and sweet peas, brighten city sidewalks and gardens as they bake under the blazing fury of the sun with its enervating heat. For many contemporary people in Europe and America, August 1, marks the beginning of summer vacation, not a reckoning that we have come […]
First Fruits of Harvest Blessings, Reflections Long, sunny days shrilled by the rise and fall of the cicada’s hum carry us from July into August. The first day of August marks the half-way point between the summer solstice and the fall equinox. The ancient Celts named this day Lughnasa (loo-na-sah), after Lugh (loo) a powerful […]
Reflections Heat! The fully stoked engines of the sun are charging full steam ahead into harvest. We are at summer’s midpoint, and while the heat is at its most intense, the hours of daylight begin to visibly decline. Vegetables, grains, and fruits ripen in the fields and orchards. For those of us who live in […]
Reflections Happy Lammas! August 1 marks the mid-point of the summer and the beginning of the harvest season. For the ancient Celts the holiday, called Lughnasa (loo-nə-sə), after the Celtic god, Lugh (loo) who dedicated the day to his mother Tailtiu (til-too), was the most festive celebration of the year. Fairs were held on hilltops–round […]
by Melody Lee, co-creator August 1, the ancient Celtic festival of Lughnasa is the cross quarter day between the summer solstice and fall equinox. It is a celebration of the first fruits of the harvest, a time to eat the first meal of the new crop year. Máire MacNeill in The Festival of Lughnasa notes […]
Lammas celebrates the beginning of the grain harvest in northern Europe and parts of North America. It is a Christianized holiday with deep pagan roots. It is a time to show gratitude for the fertility and abundance of the earth on which our lives depend. The first farmers in Britain constructed Silbury Hill at Avebury […]
Lammas, or Lughnasad, is the cross-quarter holyday which celebrates the first harvest of the grain. The first is the greatest harvest, and is significant to our physical, emotional and spiritual selves. It is a time to honor not only what we harvest, but what is still on the vine and what we intend to do […]
