This year's Lammas observance falls on a full moon -- a time of intensification of emotions, pulls of nature and illumination. Known as the first harvest in the agricultural cycle, this is a time for gratitude for what has already come to fruit (or vegetable). Then comes the exploration of hopes and fears for the rest of the harvest.
This year I am helping out on friends' farm, and most likely we'll celebrate with a meal picked hours earlier and eaten near the generous plants that grew from seed, rooted deep into the soil, and produced leaves and fruit to please and nourish us.
I hope that my efforts to squash the squash bugs will be enough to let the zucchini and yellow squash flourish. I hope that we have found enough of the horned worms so that the tomato plants can retain their leaves and ripen their fruits. I hope that the erratic weather will give enough water and sun to grow and strengthen the rest of the harvest for us.
I fear that the weather has already shifted into new patterns, with so much more moisture in the air and less predictability. I hope that we will not succumb to fear, when instead we can ramp up the local activities already underway, such as the Transition Town movement where citizens organize to transform their own communities. Forget waiting for big government to lead in the needed environmental changes; it's a groundswell of local activism that can lead the way. Remember that small positive stories of people taking charge and planting gardens and reorganizing local community life are not considered the most newsworthy. Most likely this groundswell will go unreported until it reaches a tipping point and becomes the new normal.
I hope that everyone will consider growing some of their own food and reconnect with the life cycle and the abundance of nature, as well as the rigorous competition and the challenges involved in nurturing plants. I hope that enough people will do this so that we will begin to balance the power of the forces of commercial agriculture that do not bring us local produce or connection to the land.
Small-scale farming includes a sense of intimacy with the plants, whether from squishing bugs on the same plants day after day, or eating the fresh leaves or roots or fruits, some still warm from the sun. There's a natural communion with the nutrients of life that cannot be bought at any store. There's a sense of honoring and participating in the wheel of life, of belonging to life and to the earth. This belonging is key, it's an elemental part of rebuilding our relationship to the natural world and can lead to getting right sized about our needs and wants. Let this be the harvest of this year, the turning toward a renewed love of the earth and cherishing of life, including our own.
Now back to the farm, where I'm just a rookie helper, grateful for the community and chance to learn. Blessings on the first harvest.
Omega Institute: The Spiritual Adventurer's Guide to Prayer
Teo Bishop: Every Conceivable Jesus: A Review of "Jesus Through Pagan Eyes"
Anne Hill: Do Progressive Politics and Pagan Activism Mix?
Kelley Harrell: Pagan Is as Pagan Does
Blessed be and thank you for remembering this day since many times our faith is overshadowed by the mainstream faiths of the world.
(Nice article, too, Grove: it's always a little harder to celebrate when the actual harvest isn't looking too good, but all the more important, just the same. )
I hope that my efforts to squash the squash bugs will be enough to let the zucchini and yellow squash flourish.
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Maybe the plants were growing to please and nourish the bugs you killed.
Pagan beliefs usually involve paying respectful attention to nature: In general, we don't like to kill *anything* needlessly. This doesn't mean there's some prohibition against killing anything ever when there *is.* That would be silly and also placing ourselves above and apart from the very cycles of life we seek to be closely connected to.
Some of us are vegetarian, some hunt for food, etc, (with respect) ...Most eat meat and do the best we can about the respect part, really.. and you won't find Pagans who think it's wrong to swat a mosquito or protect our crops (Believe it or not, paying attention rather than spraying all manner of poison without paying such attention *works.*) ...if there's a legitimate need or conflict of interest, that's different from wanton killing and disrespect.
I admit to being shocked sometimes how others treat animals, and life in general, but some out there really seem to think they're in a dominance contest with the world... To the death.
I don't see what you think is so non-functional about *our* sort of worldview. Just cause we're spiritual don't mean we're impractical. Actually, for us, they're supposed to be part of the very same thing. :)
It's tempting to think that it'd be great if we could divert the excess rainfall that's caused floods to our area. But considering the way that human beings have brutalized the planet via technology devoid of values, it's probably a good thing that isn't possible. Our society could certainly use more than a little of the regard that pagan faiths have for nature.
"O Earth Mother who receives the blessing of the grain,
Return now the Horned God Lugh back to his domain.
Return to us next Spring, God of the Grain, Lord of Rebirth,
By bringing Your renewed strength to keep fertile our Mother Earth.
By the Goddess & God & Elements that be,
I thank Thee for your gifts given to me.
May We Never Hunger, May We Never Thirst."
So Mote It Be...
I hope everyone enjoys a Harmonious Lammas (Lughnasadh)!
Blessed Be! BB