Cat’s Bits for July 30 – August 6: 5 Ways to Celebrate Lammas and What is Lughnasadh
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August Events:
August 1: Lughnasadh / Lammas
August 5: Celtic Tree Month of Hazel begins
August 7: Full Corn Moon at 2:11 pm EST
August: 12: Mercury goes Retrograde until Sept. 1
August 21: New Moon at 2:30 pm EST
August 22: Sun enters Virgo 6:20 pm EST
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The Web That Binds
Spider, spider spin your web among the leaves and flowers fair; bind it firmly to each stem for my true love I’ll not share.
With rowan leaves and elderflowers bound with my own hair; I place my charm upon your web to ease away my cares.
Spider, spider spin your web and bind my token fast; I’ll not lose my one true love to a woman from his past.
(C) Cat/L Bolotin 2006
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5 Ways To Celebrate Lammas
BySue Kendrick
The Celtic cross-quarter day of Lammas falls on the 1st August and celebrates the beginning of the harvest season. To our agrarian ancestors it was a hugely important occasion celebrated by making bread from the first grains of the harvest and having a jolly good time!
In an effort to stop the majority of the population missing out on an excuse for an evening of drinking and debauchery here are five ways of celebrating the occasion!
1. Take some new wheat and have a shot at making moonshine whiskey. This is illegal and you will be flogged, put in the stocks and pelted with rotten eggs and dog dung if you get caught so don’t… get caught!
2. Join the local morris side for a round of hopping, skipping and knuckle bashing. Do this before sampling the moonshine otherwise you may end up under a hedge, bruised and bloody for spoiling their game.
3. Make a corn dolly. You need to collect at least 12 stalks of corn under the cover of darkness when the moon is in the 5th phase. (They call it a dark moon). This is not an ancient ritual to empower your dolly with the supernatural, but the best way of avoiding the farmer who will accuse you of destroying his crops.
4. Make a loaf. Do not look at the beautifully crafted pictures of plaits, pots and sculptures made by bakers with a million year lineage in baking as yours will only resemble your mother-in-law on one of her good days.
5. Assuming you got away with the moonshine, invite all your pals around for a big party. Tell them to bring a set of sharp pins so you can take it in turns to give the corn dolly the name of their worst enemy and prick it repeatedly in all its important little places!
6. Cremate your mother-in-law loaf over an open spit and feed to the dog!
Just a minute that’s SIX ways of celebrating Lammas? So it is! You expect me to count after that moonshine?
(If you want a more serious take on Lammas, read [http://www.folkonthefarm.co.uk]First Fruits Of Lammas.)
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Ways-To-Celebrate-Lammas&id=4739476] 5 Ways To Celebrate Lammas
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What is Lughnasadh?
By Paul Fitzpatrick
Lughnasadh is celebrated during the years First Harvest (1st August) and is one of the greater Sabbats. This is the period to start reaping what we has been sown at the beginning of the year, to collect the first bloom of the harvest.
Pagan rituals are performed in celebration of this welcome harvest, and to pay homage to the deities for the abundance of life and bloom during the season. Lughnasadh, was named after the god Lugh as taken from Celtic mythology, but is also translatable as the words “light” or “shining” in the old Irish Gaelic language.
Lugh held funeral games at this time of year in remembrance of his foster mother Taillte. Taillte died after performing the arduous task of clearing the forest of the plains of Ireland in readiness for the coming cultivation.
Lughnasadh also known as Lammas is the first of the triple Pagan harvest celebrations and is a period to collect grain, fruit (raspberries,gooseberries,blackcurrants etc) and seed before the days shorten and the lands welcome the pending autumn. Lughnasadh’s contemporary Irish name is Lunasa (meaning August), though consequently it was adopted into Christian belief systems as Lammas, which roughly translated means “loaf mass” which related to bread baked from the first grain of the harvest.
During gatherings of Lughnasadh, villagers would place offerings of blackberries, acorns and apples etc into the lap of a young girl wearing a virginal white dress, who would sit on the top of a hill, and a dance and procession would be held in celebration of the harvest. Traditionally, fairs are held (especially horse fairs), and numerous traders setup stalls to sell their goods and wares; men would indulge in games of strength and skill to impress the ladies, whilst the ladies in question would happily gossip about anything and everything.
More to follow.
Paul Fitzpatrick
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?What-is-Lughnasadh?&id=4250114] What is Lughnasadh?
Bright Blessings for a Magickal Week!
Cat
(this weeks articles are courtesy of ezinearticles.)
Laura (Cat) Bolotin has been following an eclectic pagan/spiritual path for over 25 years. She currently lives in Western Colorado where she enjoys communing with nature, desert crawling, belly dancing, nature photography, jewelry crafting and writing stuff she hopes will help others along their path. She is married and owned by 5 cats.
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Please feel free to check out my websites!
Cat’s Treasure Trove: An Eclectic Collection of Jewelry and Gifts! http://catstreasuretrove.weebly.com
The Desert Path: The Dusty Ramblings of a Desert Pagan. https://catsister.wordpress.com
Sacred Spirals on Facebook: The Place Where All Paths Meet https://www.facebook.com/groups/sacredSpirals/
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