Lammas

Lammas is the time of the first wheat harvest and is celebrated on August 1st or 2nd

This was a time to celebrate the bounty of the earth that gives to us our daily bread.

 

It is also the beginning of the decline of the sun into winter and the departure of the Sun God Lugh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the Dog Days* of Summer when we also give thought to regrets and farewells.

Lammas is an excellent time to look around and take stock. The year and the summer are half over. Think of the things you meant to do this summer and as yet have not and of the thing that have not come to fruition in your life. Remember those things that have left your life.

Consider what has come into your life.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the experience of the turning of the year. The seasons are winding down to the time of peace and rest from whence they shall rise again anew in the spring.

This concept is represented in many pantheons such as the Greek Goddesses: Demeter (Goddess of the Grain) & Persephone (her daughter), The Horai: Eunomia (Good Order, Good Pasture), Eirene (Peace, Spring), and Dike (Justice), Aztec: Tezcatlipoca (Fiery Mirror) Roman:Vertumnus, Egyptian: Ma'at, etc.

Things to do on Lammas

Make a grain doll

 

 

Bake a grain man and offer it to someone in thanksgiving

 

 

 

Lammas Spells

Lammas Bread Wishing Spell
Make a loaf of bread at Lammas and before you put the loaf into the oven, dip a paintbrush in milk and write on the crust what you most desire. Bake the bread, then eat it while still warm.

Lammas Bread Protection Spell
A book of Anglo-Saxon charms advised the crumbling of the Lammas loaf into four pieces and the burying of them in the four corners of the barn to make it safe for all the grain that would be stored there. You can use this old spellcraft in a protection spell for your home.

Bake a Lammas loaf, and when it is cool break it into four pieces don't cut it with a knife and take one to each corner of your property with the words:

I call on the spirits
Of north, and south, east and west
Protect this place
Now, at the time of the Blessing.

Leave the bread for the birds to eat or bury the pieces. From Lammas: Celebrating The Fruits Of The First Harvest
by Anna Franklin and Paul Mason A Harvest Spell Set an orange candle on either side of the caldron. On a piece of paper (small)write the things you have harvested over the past year, light the paper from one of the candles and let it burn in the cauldron. After it is done put some corn (or squash) seeds in the cauldron. "Stir" the seeds with your wand visualizing white light coming from the tip of the wand, filling the cauldron and entering the seeds. When you feel the seeds have absorbed their fill stop, put the seeds into another container to be kept on the altar until next year's planting.