Saturday, July 31, 2010

Lammas Tide


Lammas marks the time when the ebbing air tide turns, and the water tide flows in.
The ebbing air tide has been a time of waiting, patience and paying attention.

When the water tide flows, it will bring a time of ripeness, of completion; a time to gather the fruits of your labor, and a time for truths to be known. This is the first of the three harvests, the harvest of fruit. With the Fall Equinox comes the harvest of grain, and with Samhain, the harvest of blood.

This, like the planting time from the Spring Equinox to Beltane, is a period of intense hard work. It is a time of intense activity, both work and play.

The Mother at this time is at the height of Her power, her breasts flowing with milk at the very sound of a child's cry. Honor Her with works of healing and compassion, and by with a portion of each thing you earn or reap. The Mother of All Living tells us that she demands no sacrifice; she says this because she needs to make no such demand; a portion of every labor and every love returns to Her by the law of Nature. When that return is brought to Her consciously and with gratitude, she rewards Her children by opening to them the storehouse of Her wisdom; the truth which lies there is our own, which She has saved for us from our gifts of past seasons. The first fruits of harvest are come, and stores saved from the last harvest may now be safely eaten since we are now assured that they will soon be replentished. Thus, at this season we eat new fruit and old meat, celebrating new achievements and old wisdom.

Love and labor are one in the Mother at this season. Seek to perform all your work with love, and work to sustain your love for others.

Like the Planting Time this is a season which, in the old days, required the give-and-take of community effort, as large teams harvested one farm after another. Look carefully at the patterns of reciprocity in your relationships with those love and care about, ask yourself whether they are balanced and fair, and what you can do to improve their equilibrium.

Try to float to the surface of the Tide, to take a long and broad view of things so as to maintain your perspective. Take time from your full and busy days to study and contemplate the huge expanses of space and time--astrophysics, karma, your past lives. This is the most productive Tide for trance divination, for travelling in trance and dream the roads that lead to the future and the past.

The Lammas Queen


Come to me now, in the first hour of harvest,
Hour of falling wind and sun,
And the sweet rushing in of the salt sea tide.
Now I am fruit, moist and heavy before it falls.
Mine is the milk that lets down and flows
To the sound of a hungry cry.
I claim as sacrifice the first fruit of your labor,
And return to you from my golden store,
The fruit of your labors in seasons past.
I bare my breast and the world spills forth;
Joy and loss and flame and shadow.
Drink and be whole, for the joy will last