Lughnasadh: There is still work to do

Gallardia puchella

I sat on the porch on this unseasonably cool July 31st, listening to cicada song and enjoying the still green grass, and reminisced past Lughnasadhs. On hotter, drier years the grass would already be tinged with gold and the sky might be rusty with dust or wildfire smoke. This year the summer humidity has finally broken, just today, and instead of the near 100 degrees that the days average, it will only be in the 80s. Lughnasadh is considered a Fire Festival. Here, we need no reminders that the sun has been king of summer. Having an actual fire would be uncomfortable if not banned due to high wildfire danger. One year the Grove gathered at 9am to get our celebration in before the worst heat. We celebrated a couple years at the lake so we could cool off in the water. We even once made a wicker man to burn after sunset, but only a very small one. As much as I enjoy celebrating this festival, it sure takes a little extra planning and preparation to convince myself to get out in the heat and do it.

Tiny Corn Silk

The Grove celebrates by singing John Barleycorn and telling the story of Taliesin. Lugh and Tailtiu usually get some mention, as the festival namesake. The Taliesin story forms part of the glue that hold us as an OBOD grove, so it takes center stage. Around the world, people celebrate “First fruits”, harvest preparation, and talk about the sacrifices of Tailtiu and John Barleycorn – crops cut down to become the food and seed of the future. But while our ancestors in Europe might have been preparing to cut barley now, USDA records tell me that the wheat harvest in Oklahoma is usually finished just a couple weeks after summer solstice, the corn is just silking and maturing now, and corn harvest could still be in progress at Samhain. Most of us aren’t farmers these days, anyway. The biggest activity that sets the tone for this time of year in our modern world isn’t agricultural, it is Back to School Season.

Sunflower Making Seeds

This gives a sense of beginnings to a season usually described as one of endings. It isn’t the fresh newness of Imbolc but more a leveling-up, expectations of increased maturity and new responsibilities. We are initiated into a new school year with shopping for school clothes and school supplies. Sometimes the new school year comes with new anxieties as the safety of old routines, buildings, and friends are left behind. This echoes the sense of anxiety our ancestors may have had for the harvest. Will there be enough for the winter? Will the weather cooperate? Did we do all we could? What work still must be done? Making friends and passing math may seem insignificant concerns next to surviving winter, but they are much more familiar in 21st century Oklahoma. Even though I am long past even my college years, I’m still reminded of the feelings of excitement and anxiety for the future.

I associate Lughnasadh with this sense of new responsibility and preparation. No one in my house is in school now, but I still look at sales ads and get the urge for new file organizers and pencil sets. In terms of a human life, I associate this time with that of the Statesman or Chief – between the Warrior at Summer Solstice and Retirement at Fall Equinox. During Imbolc, at the other side of the circle, we are babes in arms, supported by our community. By Lughnasadh, we support our community in turn. Physically we are no longer at our peak, but we’re not done yet. We work smarter, not harder, gathering wisdom from our elders to combine with our own experience to plan and organize. We can apply these concepts to our lives no matter what stage we’re in. As we watch the grass turn golden in the long, hot evenings of Lughnasadh season, we remember winters of the past, thinking of the projects we wished for last winter as well as those we began this last spring, and we plan. We can rest, but only for a moment. There is still work to do. 

Ripe Sumac