Thoughts on Lammas
Lammas is when I feel the exhaustion of production...that first thought of "Gods I need to sit down and REST!!!" Or at least that is what I normally feel about this time of year. This is a time when if you have a garden, every day brings some blessing of abundance from the green world. It is also the time when forgetting to water just once can cost you the rest of your well earned harvest.
It is a time to remember, for me, that the focus needs to be staying the course, seeing it through, NOT forgetting to water, NOT leaving the ripening harvest out to be claimed by all the other creatures standing in line behind you waiting to snap up what you do not protect with vigilance.
I've noticed it is also a time when I seem to give up on tasks that seem like they have taken all I had to give and and wanted more. It is a time when I have felt inadequate to the challenges that the blessings of life bring, for nothing is gained without something lost. This time last year I was flailing, floundering, drowning in the knowledge of a thing as opposed to the speculation. I felt beaten, tired, worthless, and worse. I felt like I had wasted a good part of my adult life on a fantasy. I still feel that way most of the time about that particular subject, so I guess that one is gonna stick.
This year, I do not have a garden, or let's just say TRYING to garden in dismal, dead soil that has nothing to respond to the Call of Nourishment, has been unrewarding. I am reminded that it takes YEARS to rebuild what man will desolate in pursuit of progress. This year Lammatide is accompanied by a Full Moon. Fitting for a Cross Quarter, a Greater Sabbat. The playgans keep saying there is a "Blue Moon" when they have no real idea what that is. Even though, this time they are right, this Full Moon fits both definitions. Yeah, research it yourself if you wanna know what a REAL Blue Moon is.
All around this subdivision, this desolate area where trees and ponds once stood, the natural cycle is taking back what man had claimed. From the financial crisis that claimed the money to finish it to the ceaseless tide of insects and birds that have chosen to reclaim what man thought to take away. The grasses are coming back. I have watched rebirth without even realizing it. Sure, it's not enough to sustain MY needs, but the natural world operates differently. There IS life here, small beings, one-celled organisms that feed the larger ones, natural predators like spiders and snakes have returned, so I know that in spite of Mem's best efforts, the small animals have returned as well.
Three kinds of clover, the little sweet yellow, the timothy and the red, dandelions, chicory, bull thistle, Queen Anne's Lace, wild mustard, bluets, ox-eyed daisies, joe pye weed and wild roses have all returned bringing with them the insects that both feed and pollinate. I am relieved to see a lot of honey bees, butterflies, carpenter and bumble bees, wasps, hornets, and grasshoppers. These tell me there is both building material for their homes and leaves, buds, seeds and nectar to feed them.
The crows, which have never left me even though I changed residences, are quieter now. They always seem to get pensive in August, perhaps it is the heat. Occasionally I see the pair of red-tailed hawks that hunt the area, circling against the noon day sun as they search for the little soft bodied creatures they feed upon. I keep the cats in most of the time right now because the hawks hunt in the day time and are big enough to carry one of them off. The resident owl of the neighborhood has all but decimated the little flock of baby ducks in the pond as it has dried up. Even a week of rain in the early part of July wasn't enough to replenish the drought scorched pond. The little ducklings have disappeared one by one, if not at the talons of the owl or hawks, then in the jaws of the enormous snapping turtle that also shares their pond. I have heard red-winged blackbirds for the first time in nearly 30 years this past summer. Swallows and killdees dominate the skies just above the rooftops. Mockingbirds, cardinals, nuthatches, and finches all feast on the insects flying about. I saw lightning bugs and mayflies a full month before they should have appeared. I wonder if scarcity can speed things at times for we had an early spring.
This is a time when you see the second seeding begin to bloom and grow, and also when the better part of the spring population of new residents meets its demise. Nature's population control. Perhaps as humans we feel that decline in a subtle way and thus, seek shade and a moment's rest. Twice in the past I have sought freedom from my bonds of relationships in the transit of the Sun into Leo. In fact, whole summers have been devoted to running away in the past. In any case, August always offers some sort of a journey. This year I am reflecting on last year's journey. Leaving a home and land I loved and moving into a subdivision, this gardening Witch's worst nightmare. In the past year I have become acquainted with the local genus locii, the rhythm of Time here, and though I ache for what I once had, though I long for the harvest of ripened fruits, veggies and herbs, I have learned to remember that the small things matter too. I don't know yet what sort of journey I will undertake this year. I could do with a rest, actually.
But it is no small thing to remember one's blessings. To count and enumerate each one, to fix it in your mind so that you KNOW it, so that you feel it and appreciate it for what it is, and once again learn to miss what it contributes if it fades away. Like that Mother Duck, who watches all but one of her progeny disappear in the jaws of death. One little duckling for a summer's vigilance. Sometimes a little bit goes a long way. Sometimes just enough is all we get. I choose to be grateful for that little bit of progress that differentiates from total failure.
The Mother is tired, her body still full with the Child of Promise, still round with the blessings of Abundance yet to come; so she turns to her Consort, for His blood is what the Sacred Land will require to survive. Blood, sweat and tears. It is the price for progress and sometimes it is not enough. THAT is Life. Harsh, glorious and hard won. Cherish it. It is both Gift and Mystery, Known and Unknown, ebb and flow, and we can be Hunter or sometimes we are Prey, Balance is the name of the game of Life. It is fitting that Lammatide brings us the First Harvest, and His blood heralds the First Fruits of the Equinox, and the Virgin will once again hold the Scales of Balance and see them Equal for that fleeting moment before the Last Harvest demands that blood be shed, that Life be sustained through Death and survival of the fittest insured.
And so the Cycle, the Great Wheel turns once more.
It is a time to remember, for me, that the focus needs to be staying the course, seeing it through, NOT forgetting to water, NOT leaving the ripening harvest out to be claimed by all the other creatures standing in line behind you waiting to snap up what you do not protect with vigilance.
I've noticed it is also a time when I seem to give up on tasks that seem like they have taken all I had to give and and wanted more. It is a time when I have felt inadequate to the challenges that the blessings of life bring, for nothing is gained without something lost. This time last year I was flailing, floundering, drowning in the knowledge of a thing as opposed to the speculation. I felt beaten, tired, worthless, and worse. I felt like I had wasted a good part of my adult life on a fantasy. I still feel that way most of the time about that particular subject, so I guess that one is gonna stick.
This year, I do not have a garden, or let's just say TRYING to garden in dismal, dead soil that has nothing to respond to the Call of Nourishment, has been unrewarding. I am reminded that it takes YEARS to rebuild what man will desolate in pursuit of progress. This year Lammatide is accompanied by a Full Moon. Fitting for a Cross Quarter, a Greater Sabbat. The playgans keep saying there is a "Blue Moon" when they have no real idea what that is. Even though, this time they are right, this Full Moon fits both definitions. Yeah, research it yourself if you wanna know what a REAL Blue Moon is.
All around this subdivision, this desolate area where trees and ponds once stood, the natural cycle is taking back what man had claimed. From the financial crisis that claimed the money to finish it to the ceaseless tide of insects and birds that have chosen to reclaim what man thought to take away. The grasses are coming back. I have watched rebirth without even realizing it. Sure, it's not enough to sustain MY needs, but the natural world operates differently. There IS life here, small beings, one-celled organisms that feed the larger ones, natural predators like spiders and snakes have returned, so I know that in spite of Mem's best efforts, the small animals have returned as well.
Three kinds of clover, the little sweet yellow, the timothy and the red, dandelions, chicory, bull thistle, Queen Anne's Lace, wild mustard, bluets, ox-eyed daisies, joe pye weed and wild roses have all returned bringing with them the insects that both feed and pollinate. I am relieved to see a lot of honey bees, butterflies, carpenter and bumble bees, wasps, hornets, and grasshoppers. These tell me there is both building material for their homes and leaves, buds, seeds and nectar to feed them.
The crows, which have never left me even though I changed residences, are quieter now. They always seem to get pensive in August, perhaps it is the heat. Occasionally I see the pair of red-tailed hawks that hunt the area, circling against the noon day sun as they search for the little soft bodied creatures they feed upon. I keep the cats in most of the time right now because the hawks hunt in the day time and are big enough to carry one of them off. The resident owl of the neighborhood has all but decimated the little flock of baby ducks in the pond as it has dried up. Even a week of rain in the early part of July wasn't enough to replenish the drought scorched pond. The little ducklings have disappeared one by one, if not at the talons of the owl or hawks, then in the jaws of the enormous snapping turtle that also shares their pond. I have heard red-winged blackbirds for the first time in nearly 30 years this past summer. Swallows and killdees dominate the skies just above the rooftops. Mockingbirds, cardinals, nuthatches, and finches all feast on the insects flying about. I saw lightning bugs and mayflies a full month before they should have appeared. I wonder if scarcity can speed things at times for we had an early spring.
This is a time when you see the second seeding begin to bloom and grow, and also when the better part of the spring population of new residents meets its demise. Nature's population control. Perhaps as humans we feel that decline in a subtle way and thus, seek shade and a moment's rest. Twice in the past I have sought freedom from my bonds of relationships in the transit of the Sun into Leo. In fact, whole summers have been devoted to running away in the past. In any case, August always offers some sort of a journey. This year I am reflecting on last year's journey. Leaving a home and land I loved and moving into a subdivision, this gardening Witch's worst nightmare. In the past year I have become acquainted with the local genus locii, the rhythm of Time here, and though I ache for what I once had, though I long for the harvest of ripened fruits, veggies and herbs, I have learned to remember that the small things matter too. I don't know yet what sort of journey I will undertake this year. I could do with a rest, actually.
But it is no small thing to remember one's blessings. To count and enumerate each one, to fix it in your mind so that you KNOW it, so that you feel it and appreciate it for what it is, and once again learn to miss what it contributes if it fades away. Like that Mother Duck, who watches all but one of her progeny disappear in the jaws of death. One little duckling for a summer's vigilance. Sometimes a little bit goes a long way. Sometimes just enough is all we get. I choose to be grateful for that little bit of progress that differentiates from total failure.
The Mother is tired, her body still full with the Child of Promise, still round with the blessings of Abundance yet to come; so she turns to her Consort, for His blood is what the Sacred Land will require to survive. Blood, sweat and tears. It is the price for progress and sometimes it is not enough. THAT is Life. Harsh, glorious and hard won. Cherish it. It is both Gift and Mystery, Known and Unknown, ebb and flow, and we can be Hunter or sometimes we are Prey, Balance is the name of the game of Life. It is fitting that Lammatide brings us the First Harvest, and His blood heralds the First Fruits of the Equinox, and the Virgin will once again hold the Scales of Balance and see them Equal for that fleeting moment before the Last Harvest demands that blood be shed, that Life be sustained through Death and survival of the fittest insured.
And so the Cycle, the Great Wheel turns once more.