August 1st marks the beginning of harvest season and Lammas or Lughnasadh, the first of the harvest festivals in the Wheel of the Year.

Lughnasadh honors the god of grain, light and many gifts, Lugh. It is a time to give thanks for the bounty in your life and the blessings of the Goddess and God.

Christina Aubin at Witchvox writes a wonderful Lughnasadh Overview.

Lughnasadh is a time of personal reflection and harvest, of our actions and deeds, events and experiences, our gains and losses. A time when we begin the cycle of reflection of that which is our life. A period for personal fertility magic to ensure the bountiful harvest of life's gifts and experiences, that which we have reaped though trial, tribulation, enjoyment, joy, love and loss. As my Elder once said to me, "We can not know what we have not experienced." Such is the truth of life - we become not by chance but by experience. Each experience opens a window into ourselves, into who we were, who we are, and whom we are choosing to become.

Another of my favorite online resources for description of the Celtic-based sabbats is Celtic Spirit: Lughnasadh.

...all over Ireland, right up to the middle of this century, country-people have celebrated the harvest at revels, wakes, and fairs – and some still continue today in the liveliest manner. It was usually celebrated on the nearest Sunday to August 1st, so that a whole day could be set aside from work. In later times, the festival of Lughnasadh was christianized as Lammas, from the Anglo-Saxon, hlaf-mas, "Loaf-Mass," but in rural areas, it was often remembered as "Bilberry Sunday," for this was the day to climb the nearest "Lughnasadh Hill" and gather the earth’s freely-given gifts of the little black berries, which they might wear as special garlands or gather in baskets to take home for jam.

Tonight I will be attending a Lughnasadh ritual led by my teacher, Christopher Penczak. With Mercury now direct and the Waxing Moon moving into Libra tonight, it seems like the perfect time to be surrounded by friends and to spend some time turning one's attention to the sacred work Christina Aubin mentions.

Brightest blessings for for a lovely and bountiful Lughnasadh.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 12:41 PM