The blackberries are ripening in the hedgerows and the barley glows golden in the fields: it is Lughnasa, the word for the month of August as Gaeilge, the season of autumn on the Celtic Wheel of the Year and the name of the agricultural fire festival and ancient celebration.
Lughnasa is named after Lugh, a god of the Tuatha de Dannan who dedicated this festival to honor his foster mother Tailtiu as a funerary celebration, which is symbolic of the Earth and nature giving the essence of their life to our sustenance. I share my version of this old story below.
At Lughnasa, communities came together to trade their wares, hold competitions of sport and strength, shared stories around the bonfire, feast and dance. The Lughnasa garden at Brigit’s Garden holds the essence of this time with the glorious feasting table and the circle of stones that invite dancing, surrounded by nourishing and healing herbs.
One of many traditions of Lughnasa is to make a loaf of bread from the first grains and leave it as a gift to the land. Even though most of us aren’t growing our own grains, we can still forage in our gardens or the hedgerows for grains or seeds from nettles, docks or angelica and add them to a porridge loaf, remembering that oats will be harvested in a field not far away. You may like to add a few blackberries to give your loaf a seasonal taste. Leave a loaf as an offering to the land and share a loaf with your human community too.
The Story of Lughnasa
She smiled as she saw the flash of golden light in the late summer breeze. Lugh, her foster son, ran through the towering oaks and sacred ash of the forest surrounding their home. His hair, glinting in the sun, was the colour of something she was meant to remember yet was only on the periphery of her memory.
She took a deep breath, checking in with her heart, as she encouraged Lugh to do and she practiced daily: how was her heart this day? She felt its fullness, reflecting an abundant life with family who loved her, living on land she adored and was a part of. She knew her sovereignty with the land and with her people. She knew she was loved, especially by Lugh, a bright light who had come into her life a few years ago. She graciously received Lugh to foster, as was the way between the tribes to keep peace and harmony. Lugh was growing into a young man with many talents and curiosities. She guided him in honoring the sacred: the balance of the feminine and masculine, the holiness of the land that was to be revered and tended to. As a goddess of sovereignty, she shared with him the cycles of life, death and rebirth and the values and need of each. He was learning well and wanted to please her.
Yet on this day as she sat amongst the trees, there was something calling to her heart. She asked the spirits of oak and ash to speak the language of her heart: what did she need to know? She lay back against the trunk of a favorite oak and closed her eyes. Here she saw it again: a flash of gold, like the colour of Lugh’s shimmering locks. Yet as she gazed closer, she saw that the brightness was not of his hair. A scene was revealed to her: a plain cleared of trees and the image of grains, golden and flowing in a late summer breeze.
Puzzled and curious, she continued to watch this scene, given to her by the spirits of oak and ash. But the trees are gone, cleared, to make way for a different type of prosperity for her people – prosperity that will keep them fed and secure, that will bring them wealth in money and in time. She watched as this scene continued to play out: community coming together to reap the harvest, gathering to celebrate, leaving a loaf of bread as an offering to the Earth for all of her abundance. She saw families spending more time together.
She grieved the loss of the trees, yet oak and ash remind her that from death comes life. And their ending will bring new life. Their death will rebirth a new era for her people and the people of Eire.
Tailtiu heard a rustle near her and pulled herself out of her reverie. She saw Lugh running away after leaving her a bouquet of golden grasses with heavy seed heads. And she knew what she must do.
She cleared the plains of Eire: brutal and intense, this was her work. She bought death to the oak and the ash to bring life to the cultivated grains. She worked tirelessly at this task, the calling of her heart. Until one day, exhausted and weary to her very core, she lay down on the plain she had just cleared and went into a sleep from which she never awoke.
Now, years later, Lugh leaves a similar bouquet of golden grains on the funeral pyre he builds every year at this turning from summer to the first fruits of harvest. He stands close to the place where Tailtiu lay in her dream-state just a few years ago, and where he left her the bouquet of wild grains. Wild grains that now are cultivated, bringing an abundance of time and money to his people, her people. He wiped a tear from his eye, missing his beloved foster mother while honouring the legacy she left to him and her people. With life, there is death. With the harvest there is the sacrifice.
And to this day, we honour Tailtiu with the song of lamentation and the funerary games that Lugh began in her honour, all those years ago.
By Tonja Reichley, Herbalist, Ritualist, Author
www.dancingwiththewild.com