FEBRUARY 1

‘Sacrifice’

Also known as Lammas, The Festival of Bread, Celtic Grain Festival

Element: Water

At the start of February, everywhere is rich and gold. Butter-coloured fields are sandwiched between deep-green hedges. Earth is blessed with aboundance, but the first touches of rust tinge the tree-tops and we begin to notice the Sun sets earlier. Although Nature’s bounty is so obvious at this time, all good things must come to an end and there is a price to everything.

The Sun has poured his energy into the lands and is now fading. With the yellow corn  He is cut down, but then it is born again as the harvest fruits, vegetables, new-baked bread and all the other good things that are stored against the coming winter. Lughnasadh is considered to be the first of the three ‘harvesting’ festival.

Lughnasadh is a time of sacrifice, not in terms of harm to oneself but for the sake of self. It is a recognition that anything worthwhile involves putting something dear into it and that can hurt, but it makes the goal more valuable.

In a sense, the Goddess gives birth now to the harvest and the God dies. In another sense, they are both still with us, generous and serene as we enjoy Their gifts – so this is a wake and a celebration.

Things to do: Do different crafts using corn, by making corn dollies. Eat outdoors and offer some food and wine to the Earth and animals. Save seeds from the feast and plant them next year.

Correspondences

Goddesses:    The Mother, Dana, Tailltiu, Demeter, Ceres, Seelu, Corn Mother, Isis, Luna.

Gods:        Lugh, Lleu, Dagon, Tammuz, Dionysus, Tanus, Taranis.

Colours:    Green, yellow, gold, grey, red, orange, light brown and bronze.

Symbols:    Grains, Breads, Threshing Tools, Berries, Cornucopias, Harvest Foods

Essence:    Fruitfulness, reaping, prosperity, reverence, purification, transformation, change, generosity, continued success, good fortune, abundance, The Bread of Life, The Chalice of Plenty.

Purpose:    Honouring the parent Deities, first harvest festival, first fruits grains & drink to the Goddess in appreciation of Her bounty, offering loaves of sacred bread in the form of the God (this is where the Gingerbread Man originated)

Rituals:        Meditate & visualize yourself completing a project you’ve started, the traditional riding of poles/staves, country fairs, breaking bread with friends, making corn dollys, harvesting herbs for charms/rituals, Lughnasadh fire with sacred wood & dried herbs, feasting, competitions and games, spear tossing, gathering flowers for crowns, swordplay.

Tools:        God figures made of bread or cookie dough, phallic symbols, corn dollies, spear, cauldron, sickle, scythe.

Candles:    Orange and yellow.

Animals:    Roosters and Calves

Plants:        Wheat, acacia, heather, corn, cyclamen, aloe vera, sunflower, hollyhock.

Herbs:        Frankincense, myrtle, ginseng, fenugreek.

Incense:    Rose, sandalwood, wood aloes, rose hips, rosemary, chamomile, eucalyptus, safflower, corn, passionflower, frankincense.

Stones:        Aventurine, citrine, peridot, sardonyx.

Food:        Loaves of homemade wheat, oat, & corn bread, barley cakes, corn, potatoes, summer squash, nuts, acorns, wild berries, apples, rice, pears, berry pies, crab, blackberries, grapes.

Drink:        Elderberry wine, mead, meadowsweet tea, cider and beer.