Scheduled

THE GOLDENING

missing Lughnasadh (loo-na-sa) is one of three pagan harvest festivals that stretch from late summer to the end of the vegetal cycle at Samhain (sow-en, Halloween). Lughnasadh celebrates the first harvest early in August; Imbolc, at the autumnal equinox is the second; and the last is at Samhain, on November Eve, after which the world dies back for the winter.

Mother Earth—the Great Goddess—is watching her lover, the sun, age now. She is eternal, but He loses strength and influence as fall progresses. Earth grieves this loss, He is the light and warmth of her life. She lies barren through the darkening of the year, quiet and spare, as she awaits his joyous rebirth at the winter solstice. The passion they will share at Beltane (Mayday) is what will resurrect the green growing world.

Lughnasadh, also called Lammas, the Feast of Bread, is a 'yeasty' holiday celebrated with the first loaves baked with this year's grain. The bread on the altar is offered in thanksgiving for the energy of earth and sun it imparts to our bodies. Lughnasadh invokes community and community effort. Harvest in times past calls up images of people working in golden fields of ripe chest-high wheat. We celebrate with tortillas and green chili here in the Southwest.

As the bounty of the harvest nourishes our bodies, Lughnasadh also offers the opportunity to gather the fruits of the spiritual seeds we've planted within ourselves and our communities throughout the year. What will we harvest in happiness and connectedness at Lughnasadh? What have we put our time and energy into? Have we grown into the kind of people we want to be? Have we surrounded ourselves with the kind of nurturing, healthy relationships that sustain us?

It's not fall yet, but we can almost see it from here for the first time. Lughnasadh is the first vague reminder—-just an inkling—-that summer's energy and plenty will wane through the harvest season, to leave us sitting by the Samhain fire in contemplation of what we will carry with us through the dark, introspective part of the year. We first know of our mortality now, and with that glimpse Lughnasadh reminds us not to forget our childlike awe and wonder, for that is what fills the world, our world, with mystery and possibilities.

After the punishing, desiccating summer sun here in the American Southwest, Lughnasadh is like a cool sip of water on a hot day. It is whiff of the forthcoming winter, and if our harvest has been good, whispers promises of being fat, happy, and snug through the cold and dark of the year as we enjoy the fruits of our hard work.

Lughnasadh brings with it the first thinning of the boundary between this world and the next that will, as the harvest season progresses, eventually allow the soft, murmuring voices of the ancestors to be perceived once again in this world of the living at Samhain.

Lughnasadh is also a festival of light. Lugh is a god of light, craft, and honoring oaths. His origins are lost in the ancient mists of Celtic time. Among the blessings he brings to contemporary Lughnasadh is that oh-so-subtle shift of light. A mere whisper of change wherein the silver sun of summer starts to take on the first hints of autumn's gold. Lughnasadh is a sweet, very slight shift of Presence, a softly undulating current of our star's energy as it kisses our planet. It is a kiss that rocks my pagan soul, a subtlety that changes my world, and the way my heart beats within it.

If I were to lose my sight, the subtle change in the quality of sunlight at Lughnasadh, and the profound change in the world it means for me, is first among the things I would miss.

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Lughnasadh 2024

This piece is indebted to Emma Restall Orr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Restall_Orr, whose truly excellent explorations of the pagan worldview I have recommended as primers to so many pagan-curious people.

Should you be one of those people who are curious about contemporary paganism, I highly recommend:

Spirits of the Sacred Grove: The World of a Druid Priestess (Thorsons, an Imprint of Harper Collins, London, 1998)

Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.

Terryl is the author of:
The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 ‏: ‎ 978-0-9894698-5-2

AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.

A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.

Together, we are MoonLit Press.