Lughnasadh is coming!

"Kernnunos" by Yannick Germain

I spent my Midsummer circling with other traditional Witches in a small ritual circle and subsequent feast. We invited the red and green man to come visit and tell us of upcoming needs and duties.  It was a pretty traditional sabbat, according to the wheel of the year mythos that my tradition follows.

The next sabbat is coming at the beginning of August- and since we are moving very soon afterwards (across the country from the SF Bay Area to Columbus, Ohio), we are doing a purely social harvest feast rather than planning an elaborate ritual and invoking gods this time around. We want to be surrounded by our friends and chosen family here, regardless of religion. We have decided that Lughnasadh is going to be our farewell party to many of our family and friends here. In case you don't know about this sabbat, here is some background:

It is a harvest festival- one of a few in the Wheel of the Year (the next is Mabon, a type of Witches' Thanksgiving). Lugh, the Irish god of light, called for the celebration at the beginning of August as a funeral feast for his mother, Tailte- who had been a patron of beginning agriculture. What better wake for such a figure than a harvest feast? Lugh also called for games of skill and strength for the celebration, and it has been a favorite time for marriages and handfastings.

The first of the three harvest festivals that make up the Wheel of the Year, Lughnasadh is the "festival of first fruits", where a blessing of the crop would take place around this time of the year as now was the time that apples were beginning to ripen on the trees, summer vegetables being picked from the gardens, and the corn waits to be harvested. It is the time to start gathering in the first harvests of grain, wheat and barley. That is certainly cause for celebration! Baking loaves of bread for this celebration is appropriate and we will certainly do so.

And so we celebrate this year- the Wheel is turning and we Kunnings turn with it. Our family turns eastward- to Columbus, our new home. Any of my readers from central Ohio? I would love to hear from you!