Summer Abundance
Celebrating the Grain Harvest
It’s the first week of August. In the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, we are celebrating Lughnasadh, or “Lugh’s Gathering.” The Christian equivalent is Lammas or, “Loaf Mass.” It is the beginning of the harvest season, time of the “first fruits,” particularly the harvesting of the grains. In the Celtic myth, the God Lugh, organizes of feast with games, crafts, and a harvest celebration in honor of the Goddess Tailtiu, his foster mother, who sacrificed her life preparing the land for the peoples’ crops.
Because it is a grain harvest, Wiccans and Pagans tend to celebrate by baking. In fact, when the Christian church appropriated the celebration from the pagans, they created the Loaf Mass, where every household would take their first loaf of the season to the local church to be blessed. As an interspiritual minister and ceremony officiant, I love anything that has to do with ritual, so I love observing the seasons through Wheel of the Year rituals. For Lughnasadh, I personally baked a peach cobbler this year to not only celebrate the grains, but also celebrate the stone fruit that is in season this time. Also, it’s because I made the most horrendous looking apple pie for my first Lughnasadh in 2020. It looked like a monster opening its goopy mouth. I didn’t realize it was way too hot in my kitchen for the crust to come out correctly. So now, cobbler it is.
My peach cobbler with fresh whipped cream and mint from my windowsill garden.
But what if you don’t want to bake? What if you don’t have a garden you are harvesting? Are there other ways to celebrate? Of course! This is a celebration of abundance and gratitude. Besides baking and cooking, this is also a festival of crafts and sport. So there are all sorts of rituals and ceremonies you can create to celebrate this holiday. You can write a poem about the things you are grateful for. You can host a game of beach volleyball and dedicate it to Lugh and Tailitiu. Or you can simply list goals that you met last year, meditate on your gratitude and how you have “reaped what you have sown,” and set goals for the following year.
This is the beautiful thing about ritual. You can do just about anything to mark any milestone, from something as big as a wedding or life celebration, to something as small as lighting a candle to reflect on the abundance in your life.
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What successes have you sown this year? How will you celebrate me? Please tell me in the comments below. I’d love to hear about them.
Do you need help planning your ceremony or learning how to set up a spiritual practice? Contact me at revmercy@revmercy.com.
