The Festival of Lughnasadh

The Festival of Lughnasadh is the festival of Harvest, celebrated around 1st August. Share in the preparation of all the Festivals of the ancient Irish with the Druid Forest School worldwide courses: www.druidforestschool.com/courses

Take stock: What talents have you harvested so far this year???

Honour your harvest. Honour those who support you: your Tribe. Honour the Land that supports you: your home and the sacred earth.

The Festival of Lughnasadh is the celebration of the harvest of our individual and our joint Tribal efforts in the year, so far.

The Festival of Lughnasadh is also overshadowed by the approach of winter. The Tribe has to prepare for winter as it celebrates the Harvest. The powers of Darkness must be defeated. You need your Harvest to weather any hard times in the future.

The main theme of the Festival of Llughnasadh was feast celebrating the successful reaping of benefits from the Land by the Tribe, the communal enjoyment of first fruits was the high point of the day’s ritual.

Lughnasadh combines key cosmic sacred themes of the Land and the Tribe. And for the ancient Irish, it was the transition from the culture of the Land (The Formorians) to the spirit of the Tribe (The Tuatha de Danaan), that underlies the Book of Invasions, and this was the difference between the two sides at the Second Battle of Moytura (Maigh Tuireadh), fought near our Healing Centre in the West of Ireland, in the Irish Iron Age.

At Llughnasadh, we hear the call of the new god, Llugh, that was the catalyst for the members and the gods of the Tuatha de Danaan, to value the manifestation of the special and individual skills of each of them, and thus be able to use individual and very special crafts and skills to defeat the more cloddish, vicious and less civilised lower-consciousness Formorians.

We each incarnate to burn negative karmas, and also to develop and manifest our own special unique special skills. Llugh is the catalyst for this. He thus calls us to bring in the harvest of our talents at Lughnasadh.

And so at Lughnasadh, a key theme of any celebration is recounting the call of Llugh for each member of the Tuatha to name and bring in his own special talents, as at the Second Battle of Moytura that the Tuatha fought against the dark Formorians above Loch Arrow, near here.

The issue is also our personal sovereignty. For the Tuatha de Danaan, their victory at the Second Battle of Moytura was yearly sealed by the annual mating of the War Goddess the Morrigan and the Good God, The Dagda, both standing astride the River Unshin where it flows from the Loch, to wend its way to its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean near Carrowmoor. Thus the sovereignty of the Tribe and its Land was sealed.

The issue is also about reverencing and relying upon the Goddess of the Land, she who provides, she who now rules as Queen of the Harvest.

And the Festival of Lughnasadh also calls us to value skills of communication, creative thought and breakthrough, just as Llugh used eloquent oratory to call each member of the Tuatha de Danaan to value themselves and their individual special skills. And thus the Celts linked Llugh to Mercury, but of course, there is also a lightning, revolutionary, fore-front creative Uranian dimension to him too!

And it is these words that inspire the people, win the Goddess for the Tuatha are the people of the Goddess Danu and the actions the words inspire that defeat the cruel blinding heat of the Sun, that defeat Balor: Balor of the evil Eye.

So, have a look at my Druid Forest School Courses and get in touch: www.druidforestschool.com

I look forward to hearing from you,
Michael