Lammas

Celebrating Lammas

also known as Lughnasadh 1st August (Major Sabbat)

The first of three harvest festivals

Hang crystals, faceted glass and sun catchers in the windows of your house to deflect unwanted energy and to create dancing rainbow colours in your home

Sacrifice bad habits and unwanted things from your life by throwing symbols of them into the Sabbat fire. Prayer scrolls can contain written descriptions of offerings, or they can be doodled or drawn representations. They can be symbols or words, whatever is a more powerful association for you.

Bake a loaf of bread being sure to honour the source of the flour as you work. Shape the loaf into the figure of a man or a woman and give your grain-person a name such as Lugh or Demeter.
If you have a garden add something you've grown to the dough. Bread combines the elementals of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to become a substance that has nourished and sustained people since the discovery of grain. Bread combines seeds from the Earth (flour and salt), with Water and Air (yeast the secret, airborne traveller, sacred changer of the Gods) add Fire to bake. Suddenly, from those four ancient, basic elements, you have bread. If you don't want to bake bread you can make corn bread, or popcorn or muffins, the important part of the baking process is to mindfully enter the sacred by being fully aware of your intention.

The Lammas Altar

Lammas is a festival of regrets and farewells, of harvest and preserves. Reflect on these topics alone in the privacy of your journal or share them with others around a fire. Lughnasadh is one of the great Celtic fire-festivals, so if at all possible, have your feast around a bonfire. While you're sitting around the fire, you might want to tell stories. Look up the myths of any of the grain Gods and Goddesses and try re-telling them in your own words. One of the famous ones in Britain is told in the song John Barleycorn.

To celebrate the harvest, a loaf of bread hand made by you is a nice centrepiece on the altar, surrounded by harvest figures. Add a wooden bowl filled with fruits and vegetables to show a give thanks for the wonderful harvest. Colours for this sabbat are the yellow, gold, orange and brown. Once again flowers are appropriate and this time of year there are some wonderful late summer flowers and herbs in the garden that can be used. A small cauldron containing a fire or a candle to represent fire is also appropriate.

Grapes and wine
Corn dolls
Ears of corn
Iron, such as tools or weaponry or armour
Fall flowers, such as cornflowers or poppies
Straw braids
Onion garlands

Food

Bake your own bread/gingerbread men, blackberry pie, chicken salad, colcannon, breads, Carrot cake

Drink

Cider or elderberry wine

Altar decorations

Corn dollies, Sheaves of Corn or Wheat, Dried herbs, Sunflowers, Late Summer/Early Autumn Fruits, Bread and symbols

Symbols of Lammas

Corn, All Grains, Bread, Full Moon, Wheat

Herbs of Lammas 

Acacia flowers, aloes, calendula, cornstalks, cyclamen, fenugreek, frankincense, heather, hollyhock, myrtle, oak leaves, sunflower, vervain

Incense of Lammas

Aloes, rose, rose hips, rosemary, chamomile, passionflower, frankincense and sandalwood

Colours of Lammas

Red, Gold, Yellow, Green, Orange, Citrine

Stones of Lammas

Yellow Diamond, Peridot, Citrine

Altar candles for Lammas

Orange, Green, Red, Corn Yellow, Brown and Tan

Spells

Spells for Prosperity, Abundance, Honour & Thanks, Good fortune, Health and Financial Gain

Oils

Eucalyptus, Corn, Safflower

Gods and Goddesses

Gods Adonis, Hercules, Tammuz, Lugh, Odin, Loki, Baal
Goddesses Anat, Blodeuwedd, Ceres, Cerridwen, Demeter, Isis, Sif