Lughnasadh – Serendipities

Crow Folks: Three Things for Lughnasadh

July 21, 2023
by Alexandra

I was planning to write up my experiences of Mystic South for this week’s blog, but while I was there I attended a ritual to the Morrigan and the Dagda (run by the same lovely people who put on the Morrigan’s Call Retreat), and I was reminded that my service usually starts on the dark moon closest to Lughnasadh, but that the timing was at Their discretion… and yep, that started this past weekend, and I’m already running a little behind on posting, as I try to catch up on sleep and get unpacked and the bunnies resettled from their vacation, and my house even remotely organized, while my child is doing his best impression of velcro.

So.

I did the journey to my usual place, and was given a set of three tasks to share with you all, for Lughnasadh, or perhaps more appropriately for Brón Trogain, the Earth’s Sorrowing:

Fearn: Renew your protections
Both shields and wards: on yourself, your children, your animals; on your house, your car, your place of work
Idad: Honor the Might Dead and your own personal allies
It’s a good time for renewing oaths but also for just coming together with those who are your kith and kin
Gort: Blessing the first fruits of the harvest
Whatever is coming into ripeness right now, collect some and hallow it and offer it to those same allies

Fairly simple, fairly straightforward, and honestly it seems very doable, even for a very busy practitioner. Reminder, however, that this is of course all UPG – I seek what wisdom they would have me share, and they tell me in a mixture of ogham, imagery, and words, and then I write it up and ask for their approval… and edit and tweak until they give it.

Lughnasadh – A Belated Summary

Lughnasadh season is busy in our house because it also usually coincides with the start of the Kemetic Epagomenal Days, and this year it also coincided with my return to Priestessing for the Morrigan.

Altar for the Fox and Fungi Lughnasadh celebration

This year, our main ritual was celebrated with the Fox and Fungi group at our local UU Church, which I co-led with another group organizer. We did a druidic style ritual based on a liturgical outline I’ve devised for the group, which sort of splits the difference between Wiccan ritual structure, UU service structure, and the ADF Core Order of Ritual that I became accustomed to when I was previously a member of an ADF Druid Grove. (Yes, those work together better than you might think!) We called upon Lugh and Tailtiu as the deities of the occasion, and a friend and very good storyteller regaled us all with her version of Tailtiu’s story. Our main working was done with leaves placed in baskets. We each had two leaves. On one, we wrote something we were good at or something we’d accomplished that we were proud of. On the other, something we hoped to learn to do, or something we hoped to achieve. As we listened to musical accompaniment, we each came up to the altar to put our leaves each into the appropriate basket. Later, the leaves were taken outside to our ritual space.

It was nice to be with our community, but it did mean that our home observance went largely undone – I wrote a prayer and Scott poured Lugh and Tailtiu each out a shot of whisky, but we didn’t do a large family dinner. I’ve copied the prayer below, for those interested.

Lughnasadh has arrived,
And the days begin to grow shorter
Fruit is ripening on branch and vine
And grains are golden in the fields

Summer heat still hangs in the air
But we have begin the harvest
We are standing on the cusp of autumn
And soon the nights will be chill

On this day we honor Lugh and Tailtiu
His foster mother, who cleared the land
So that the people might plant grain
She gave her life for her people’s needs

Come to us now, and join in our celebration!
We offer you food, drink, and merriment!
We ask in return for your blessings:
Help us to bring in the first fruits of our labors

Lugh and Tailtiu, Hail and Welcome!
lughnasadh Prayer, by Aleja Nic Bhe Chuille

Lughnasadh 2018

This year for Lughnasadh, instead of continuing our theme of having a family meal, we were involved in a lay-led worship service at our local UU Church, focusing on Lugh and the bounty of the first harvest. I was part of a team that called the quarters (using the traditional elements this time, instead of my local cultus river goddesses) and presented representations of the harvest on a central table, around which we’d put the chairs for seating in two half circles.

I didn’t have a large role in part because I’d missed the second-to-last planning session, when we went to Wisconsin to visit my family and present the Acorn at the tribal picnic for enrollment. That was nice – seeing everyone, including my brothers, whom I haven’t seen since last August, and before then not for almost two years. With all the talk of community and coming together at the harvest, it’s hard not to think about how much of my community doesn’t live close by. Still, this pagan group and the rest of local UU Church is slowly becoming the community I want and need, somewhere I can raise a child, somewhere I can find help when I need it.

I usually find myself more reflective as we move into autumn, but it seems to be starting early this year. It makes sense, though – with Wep Ronpet following closely afterwards, Lughnasadh is the beginning of the end of my year, with a number of new year’s days of different traditions occurring between now and the secular new year on Jan 1st.