First Harvest: The Celebration Of Lughnasadh

Sharing Our First Harvest

August 1st marks the day we enter into the season of Lughnasadh. That means it is time to take stock of our first harvest. How will we be nourished spiritually by what our garden has grown? What life goals have you brought to fruition? With two more harvests ahead of us, what will you spiritually reap at the end of this wheel?

Lughnasadh, is a Celtic holiday that many earth based practioners celebrate. It is the first of the three Pagan sabbats in the triple harvest cycle. This first harvest is the time for the reaping of the grain and first fruits. It is named for the Celtic Sun God, Lugh the Long Arm.

This sabbat is also known as Lammas, meaning Loaf Mass.  This is the time we celebrate the harvest of grains and first fruits.

Every turn of the wheel at Mystic Elements, Roger Lockshier, of Shaman Fire, and Rachel Wurz, Mystic Elements’ talented store manager, shares a wonderful ceremony with our local community.

I attended with my husband Walter and our dear friend Eve, who was visiting from Houston, Texas.  It was a well attended ritual with several known faces from our greater local community among us.

Lughnasadh And How Our Garden Grows

During the ceremony I found myself casting a long eye over my own harvest as Roger aptly spoke the lessons of blood, bone, and sacrifice. As the ceremony progressed, I found myself carried away on the healing vibration of chant. That happens when we loose ourselves in the shared expression of the sacred collectively. Our voices mingled as one, always soothes my soul.

In my tradition, every cycle of that wise ole moon, and each turn of the wheel, gives us an opportunity to look at how we have spiritually grown or held ourselves back. We all have challenges of self we work to improve on. Of course,

your mileage may vary.

Each one of these cycles, within bigger cycles, offer us an opportunity to let go of that we have deemed unproductive in our lives. This process of self evaluation helps us grow so we can experience our best lives through our harvest of spiritual growth.

To be honest, that is the big work, in my eyes anyway. Most of that hard work is about our beliefs we hold about ourselves. It is quite often about things we experienced before we were adults. This was a time when our ideas of self were being shaped by our home environment.  Quite often we incorporated ideas about ourselves that are negative and not necessarily of our making. For myself, and maybe even you, those ideas crop up to challenge us, even in the very best of situations, and most certainly in our worst.

Measuring Our Personal Harvest

This place on the wheel lets me evaluate once again where I myself have grown spiritually.  What lessons did I hope to harvest this season?  For me, brave and skillful Lugh, and his beloved foster mother Tailtiu’s sacrifice speaks to me.  Their fearlessness teach me to let go of my own personal struggles of self. I choose, once again, to give back the gift of my inner fears through growth.

We could all choose to lift our vibrations for the good of our higher selves. Today could be the day we, once and for all, turn our challenges into opportunities.

We are enough. We really are. The universe makes no mistakes, Earth Child. You are, by design, a creation as miraculous as the mountains, the steams, the ocean, and even that glorious moon. Who are we to argue with the Gods?

Even if the next turn of the wheel finds me still working on these lessons, I know this is true, I am enough. I am enough, and so are you.

May the Ancients guide and protect you on your journey.