Celebrating Harvest Season with a Backyard Picnic

When days are drenched in a honey glaze,

hot, thick, ripe

are the juicy gems that move from field to fingertip.

Succulent mouthfuls are ours for the tasting,

and the sharing,

when we we’ve earned the right to harvest.

On this cross-quarter festival I’m celebrating Lughnasa + Lammas with friends in the backyard for an indulgent summer picnic gathering. We’ll be indulging in home grown berries, stone fruits, homemade preserves, freshly baked sourdough, brie, and a few bottles of fabulous sauvignon blanc. I’ve been reflecting on the figurative and literal seeds I’ve sown in my life this year, so I’ll be spending these coming weeks enjoying the fruits of my labors that are now taking shape. The themes I’m embracing at the moment: indulgence, slowness in work in play, and carnal pleasure. I’ll also spend time journaling my seasonal needs, reading my tarot cards, basking in the golden rays of summer’s end, and realigning my goals and priorities as we cycle into the darker half of the year.

Lammas Day & The History of Lughnasa

Lammas (also Lughnasa; pronounced Loo-nah-sah) is the cross quarter festival that marks the midway point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. It falls on August 1st and at one time marked the beginning of the grain harvest for farmers. On the Wheel of the Year it is the first of three harvest season festivals; the following include Mabon (the fall equinox) and Samhain (halloween).

In the natural world, fields and gardens are exceptionally abundant with life, but active growth and transformation is beginning to slow. Garden rows, orchards, and fields are heavily laden with produce. Yet, this is a turning point - energy, colors, and activity in nature are beginning to wane.

The harvest season is a time of harvesting the fruits of our labors, communal gatherings, feasting and giving thanks, as well as welcoming summer’s end. It is also an important time to begin the preparations for the darker half of the year; preserving, stocking the pantry, curing culinary and medicinal herbs and adjusting priorities to meet our seasonal needs. While most of us are not agriculturalists, we are forever intrinsically connected to the rhythms of nature and there is an eagerness to the harvest season that persists. The old celebrations of Lammas and Lughnasa were of great religious and cultural importance to the Pagans first, then to the Christians. Traditional feast days have always shared a unique relationship between divine celebration and events occurring in the natural world.

The word lammas comes from the term “loaf mass” which is a Christian term indicating the sanctity assigned to the cycle of harvesting grain and the blessing of sacramental bread. For the early Christian holiday of Lammas the first loaves were baked from the year’s first grain crop then placed on the altars as an offering.

Preceding Christian Lammas celebrations, Pagans celebrated the same seasonal marker, known as Lughnasa (loo-nah-sah). Lugh is the celtic god of light and the son of the Sun. He is represented by the symbol of the life-sustaining grain. Many old germanic and celtic stories include tales about the Sun entering the grain as it ripens. When the grain is ready for harvesting it is ceremonially cut with the agricultural scythe tool. The grains are then processed and made into the first new breads of the season, which are shared with the community in celebration of the harvest so all might take in and honor the God Lugh. I also find it interesting that the scythe harvesting tool is the chosen tool of the grim reaper - the shepherd of death. It’s no wonder the grim reaper is so closely tied to Samhain (halloween), the very last harvest festival. In Shakespeare's The Tempest the celebrations of harvest are well marked in the Reapers Dance.

“You sunburned sicklemen, of August early,

Come hither from the furrow, and be merry.

Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,

And these fresh nymphs encounter every one

In country footing.”

Lammas + Lughnasa Rituals

This is a festival celebrating the first harvest, the fruits of our labors, and seeing the desires that we had at the start of the year unfold. It's a time for sharing garden harvests, bread-making, cooking, and hosting communal dinner parties.

For folks looking to incorporate more nature-based rituals into their seasonal year, consider replacing your Thanksgiving celebration by observing Lammas or Lughnasa, Mabon, and Samhain with communal harvest feasts instead. Enjoy the bounty of seasonally available food and homemade breads. Gather with friends and family in the backyard to give thanks for the abundance fruiting from the earth. Remember to begin to slow your activities and celebrate yourself and all your hard work so far this year.