It’s that time of year when we've simply gotta talk about harvests and connectedness and, well, bread.

Here's the deal. When you follow agricultural, earth-based festival calendars, the first days of August is the traditionall time to celebrate the first of the three harvest festivals, and it's all about the GRAIN.

It makes sense since all around us, this is the time and season of Mama Nature's GRAINING, right? I mean, here is a recent picture I snapped in my neck of the woods.

time & season rituals

When I began following my curiosity down the hole of meaningful milestone markers of Time & Season, a number of occasions made the list. You can find that (constantly evolving) list in my ritual blog, here.

In the Well-Seasoned Woman’s Studio, we draw upon the idea that every calendar year (AND, every LIFE!) can be divided into four sections or seasonal quarters. The beginning of each of these quarters is marked by a “sky happening”—i.e. The Spring Equinox, The Summer Solstice, The Autumn Equinox, and the Winter Solstice.

Halfway through each season, a “cross quarter” calendar event evolved over time. Most of these are still featured on ordinary calendars:

Imbolc, aka Groundhog’s Day (February 1)
Beltane, aka May Day (May 1)
Lammas (August 1)
Samhain, aka Halloween (October 31)

As their label implies, these mid-season markers occur halfway into each season, i.e. in the very heart of the season, when the “seasoning” is at its most concentrated. Taking time to mark these milestones is saying YES to more fully absorbing the energetic wisdom of that season & moment. It’s saying YES to the invitation to celebrate our growth and to course correct— if needed— in the seasonal time remaining.

So, here’s what you’ll wanna know about THIS time and THIS season.

the lammas lowdown

Think about cereal/bread ingredients--like wheat, corn, rice, oats, buckwheat, barley, etc.--as well as grain-based beverages, like beer.

Some use the figure of Jack Barleycorn, the personified spirit of the grain, to illustrate the themes of this first harvest festival. These include the ideas that sacrifice for the greater good is sacred + there is abiding goodness to be found at the community table + Mama Nature is the source of goodness & life.

Here's my version of the story. Each Spring, seedcorn from the previous year's harvest that has spent the winter resting, quickening & germinating, “gives birth” to Jack Barleycorn. He springs forth from Mother Earth's soil and spends a very busy few months growing tall and stretching out his arms to the sun, greening and blooming and fruiting. At the peak of his maturity, Jack willingly sacrifices himself to the goddess of the grain in order to provide both the seedcorn for next year's crop and sustenance for his community's people & animals throughout the winter ahead.

During a Lammas festival, people often create a Lammas dolly (a corn doll of sorts) and participate in ritual bread & beer making before gathering to feast in celebration of the gifts of the GRAIN.

I didn't grow up in a family that celebrated the GRAIN festival--nor did anyone that I hung out with, but when I began crafting GRAIN HARVEST RITUALS of my own years ago, I started experiencing both a deep and abiding gratitude for all the amber waves of grain in the here & now + a sense of connectedness/responsibility for all the fruited plains in my world--and in the worlds of both my ancestors and my descendants.

I’m totally into decorating my suburban back yard’s Sacred Circle with herbs from my garden and ribbons in preparation for a homegrown celebration of the harvest festivals! Lammas is the first of the three annual harvest festivals.

key themes of lammas

Grainy, “bread” goodness (think about the ordinary miracle of combining grain & fire to form nurturing yumminess—i.e. the bread of life, the answer to our prayer to “give us this day our daily bread,” etc.)
Our Social, Instinctual drive (think about “breaking bread with others” and/or a mother at work, kneading & baking bread as an expression of her nurturing power)
The joyful work of the harvest and its “first fruits” (across the “fruited plain”)
Our deep, primal connection to the Earth (from whence comes our sustenance) & to both our ancestors + descendents (It’s a chain that stretches backwards and forwards across time as an ongoing expression of what it means to hold privilege & responsibility simultaneously)

Some cornbread muffins I crafted for a shared Lammas celebration with a few other women. In the upper lefthand corner, you can spy some of the little bowls of grain I used to decorate the feasting table!

3 grain harvest ideas to try

Here’s a small is a list of ideas to spark the content of your own, Well-Seasoned, Lammas celebration. If you’re following the WSW’s 5-part ritual template, these ideas could be used as the content for #Step 4.

#1 Connect with Mama Nature's grain

Take a slow, sensory walk in a local field of corn or wheat or hay. Pay attention to the ripe lushness with your eyes, your ears, your nose, and your skin. Meditate on the fact that the fullness and fulfillment of the present harvest already holds at its very heart the seed of all future harvests, and that what you're experiencing all around you has sprung from the seeds of a past harvest. Feel your connection to the earth, to the grain, to the sky, to the past, present, and future.

#2 Bake & Share/Make a Grateful Toast

The idea here involves the intentional ingesting of a grain-based food/drink, preferably with others. This is about the goodness of breaking bread together or raising a glass with those in your community.

When I have time, I like to bake bread or a cake or muffins (You can see some Lammas corn muffins I made in the picture above) as part of my ritual. As I bake, I light a candle and as I process through each part of the baking, I thank the earth for producing the corn I'm using, and the farmer for harvesting the corn, and all the factory workers for processing and packaging it, and the grocery store workers for stocking it and sellling it, etc. I like to bake an extra pan to share with a neighbor or friend.

If I don't have time to bake, I might either whip up some rice krispy treats or simply pick up some baked goods from the grocery store & then invite someone to share it with me as part of a slow meal, where we can eat with gratitude and intention.

I've also had friends over for a fun meal that included a beer tasting, using a variety of domestic and international beers and grains. We had so much fun with this one! If you don't imbibe, maybe create a malted milkshake to share with family & friends--delish!

#3 Conduct a Mothering Fire Ritual

Since Summer is the season of MOTHERING, it's good to connect the social nourishment & gratitude of the grain festival with our natural, feminine nurturing and protective (i.e. Mothering) instincts.

Light a candle and spend some time reflecting/journaling on one or more of these prompts:

What is bearing fruit creatively in my life? How can I celebrate that fruit now?
Where are my efforts/sacrifice most needed?
How can I ignite my inner MOTHER instinct so that it FLOWS (not being blocked or overloaded) to nourish my own body & heart?
How can I ignite my inner MOTHER instinct so that it FLOWS (not being blocked or overloaded) into the world for the greater good of all?

When you're done journaling, write out 1-3 NEXT STEPS that will help you put your reflections into action. Read them aloud slowly and say something like, “I commit these intentions to this Lammas fire." If possible (and safe), allow the candle to burn out on its own. Otherwise, extinguish the candle to end the ritual.

grainy takeaways

We all know that the day-to-day can get messy. The news is filled with the seemingly senseless and unloving acts of others, while we feel pressure to just stay busy and keep carrying on and on and on-- through pandemic, recession, political polarization, etc.

It. Is. A. LOT.

The grain harvest celebrates and honors the idea that we're not in this thing called Life alone. We are part of a community, working alongside one another to nurture and protect what nourishes our connectedness, sharing the bounty of our harvests together, and affirming that we will make it through the winters to come together. Just as our ancestors did. Just as our descendants will.

I'm thinking we could all use more reminders like this.

Until next time,

xo