Happy harvest season, my beloveds! Last month we touched on love and release, and this month, we celebrate our connection with the Wheel of the Year, and enjoy the fruits of our harvest. Lammas is the first harvest of the season. It is also a day of honoring Lugh, the Celtic craftsman god. He is the god of many skills, and was honored in various aspects by societies both in the British Isles and in Europe. Lammas also honors goddesses whose crafts and legends align with the work we’re doing at this time of year. This is the time to take a moment to reflect, and be thankful for the abundance that surrounds us.
Greatest of all, Lammas honors rebirth, and transformation. It is the beginning of lengthening nights, which signal the return of fall. By celebrating Lammas as a harvest holiday, we honor our ancestors and the hard work they had to do in order to survive.
This is the time to look back upon the first half of the year, upon the seeds we planted and what they’ve produced. Sometimes crops fail, and sometimes they’re successful. How much have we invested in ourselves, others, and the world? Have we emerged greater? Have we resurrected ourselves into a brighter version of ourselves?
Now is the time that our blessings manifest in the bounty of the food and growth we will enjoy in autumn and throughout the rest of the year. Our spiritual and emotional crops are ready for first harvest – the fruit of those sacred intentions we set in the darkness of winter and early spring.
Well tended seeds, sown with care, will yield a potent harvest. Lammas is a reminder of this sacred truth, along with a reward for your patience.
August theme – Connect: Rebirth/The Sun
The sun is one of the reasons we exist here on earth. Our ancestors worshiped the sun, as it is a life-giving force and represents co-creation. Our connection with the sun represents our interdependence. As I just shared in our class last month – I wish we had an interdependence day. We rely on one other, helping each other. For the sun giving us life, again and again, and gathering its energy, creates an unbreakable dependence.
Journal Prompts:
- How do you give thanks for what lies ahead?
- How have you grown this year? How are you celebrating?
- Have you deepened your spiritual connection?
- Did you plant your seeds with a mindful intention? Did some seeds bloom that you may have planted carelessly, or knowingly?
- What have your seeds of your intention grown into? Did your intention change from when you planted them?
Invoking Pele and Maui for Rebirth
Maui, the Polynesian kupua, demi-god, ensnarer of the sun, and fisherman of the islands, was born of a great and powerful lineage – the youngest son of Akalana and Hina (goddess of the moon). Maui is regarded as the father of Hawaii. Youngest of his brothers, Maui was always ostracized for not being an extraordinary fisherman. And so, with the magical hook that his mother Hina provided for him, he convinced his brothers to give him one last chance to prove himself. He cast his magical line and intentionally hooked it on land, using the strength of his brothers to pull, as mountains began to rise above the ocean – giving birth to Hawaii, where Pele’s fires would later soar. We will invoke his sacred warrior energy to remind us that within us all lies the power to create what we now only imagine.
Pele is the symbol of rebirth. There are many variations of how Pele came to Hawaii. Some legends tell the story of Pele being gifted the sea, by her mother, Haumea, after being exiled from Tahiti by her Father, Kane, for her destructive behavior. Others tell the story of Pele fighting her sister for control of the ocean, as she believed herself to be the water goddess. Once she found herself in Hawaii, Pele dug holes in the ground and uncovered lava. It was then that she felt the thrill and connection with fire, becoming the goddess of the volcano. Her fires spread in abundance, creating landmass when they cooled, and out emerged the islands of Hawaii. Pele, mother of fire, keeper of secrets, we will invoke you to protect us from harm, to harness the power of our own darkness, and to remind us that what is destroyed can be reborn, anew.
May the bounty of your harvest bring you joy. And so it is.
