31st July / 1st August
Also celebrated as: Lughnasadh, Loafmas, Feast of Bread
This is the celebration of the first harvest and the cutting of the corn. It is a time when the first of Nature's bounty is delivered and we honour this. It is known as Loafmas as the newly cut wheat could now be baked into bread.
In my ritual I like to toast with something red; red wine would be nice, but cranberry juice normally does the job. I also like to share an offering of wholemeal bread.
In the story of the Goddess and the God she is Mother, providing for her children while carrying the child of the God. She also has a dark task to perform. He knows he has passed his peak and he is slowly losing his strength just as the days are now beginning to shorten. He knows that if he weakens the land does too, so he willingly sacrifices his life at the hands of the Goddess, so that his vitality returns to the land and the future harvests.
The Goddess mourns her lover but knows that she carries his rebirth in her womb. Poppies in the cornfields recall the blood of the God's sacrifice; a sign of remembrance here as elsewhere.
Also celebrated as: Lughnasadh, Loafmas, Feast of Bread
This is the celebration of the first harvest and the cutting of the corn. It is a time when the first of Nature's bounty is delivered and we honour this. It is known as Loafmas as the newly cut wheat could now be baked into bread.
In my ritual I like to toast with something red; red wine would be nice, but cranberry juice normally does the job. I also like to share an offering of wholemeal bread.
In the story of the Goddess and the God she is Mother, providing for her children while carrying the child of the God. She also has a dark task to perform. He knows he has passed his peak and he is slowly losing his strength just as the days are now beginning to shorten. He knows that if he weakens the land does too, so he willingly sacrifices his life at the hands of the Goddess, so that his vitality returns to the land and the future harvests.
The Goddess mourns her lover but knows that she carries his rebirth in her womb. Poppies in the cornfields recall the blood of the God's sacrifice; a sign of remembrance here as elsewhere.
Lammas