The season of Lughnasadh is upon us! In parts of Europe, the grain harvest has started to come in and around these parts, we are enjoying an array of seasonal berries, with the major harvest season yet to start. Lughnasadh (pronounced: Loo-Nass-Ah) commemorates the Irish God, Lugh, for it was he who first brought the knowledge of cultivating crops to Ireland. In the modern Celtic languages of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Lughnasadh (spelled differently but sounding similar) is the name given to the entire month of August. The commemoration of Lugh continues to this day.
Lughnasadh is a time for thankfulness and rejoicing as the larders are filled once more with the fruit of the land and of our own labours. This time of year speaks of completion, of tasks begun and seen through to their conclusion. Few of you are likely to be full time farmers (I hope some of you are!) but the gardeners among you are likely appreciating their tended beds – the work of the spring and early summer has matured into a glorious blaze of colour and greenery. Perhaps you began to learn a new skill at summer’s start and now have gotten a good grasp of the basics, be it a strong tennis backhand or a new song on your guitar. Take a moment to see how far you’ve come and take pride in the work done.
The sun may still be hot and the days long, but have you noticed that they are growing shorter each week? The harvest season is a transition into the darker months of the winter. What begins in the heated haze of Lughnasadh continues into the proper autumn and ends on the last evening of October – Samhain or, by its modern appellation, Halloween.
To me, all the major points on the Wheel of the Year are times to stand still for just a moment in my busy life – looking back at the past few months and then ahead to the season to come, taking stock, noticing changes and visioning for the future.
To my delight, one of the acts of completion this Lughnasadh was a wildlife release. My friend, Janet, who is a volunteer at Hope for Wildlife, invited us to be present when she released six orphaned raccoons back into the wild. These sweet faced but not remotely tame critters had spent the early summer growing and fattening up and were now old enough to return to their natural home. Good luck, little guys!
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September 22, 2008 at 12:12 am
[...] known by its more Christian name, Lammas, aka “Loaf-mas”, Laghnasadh marked the time of year villagers would celebrate the first Harvest, on or around August 1, by [...]