The first day of the month of August, pagans use to celebrate Lughnasadh. It is a Celtic feast, whose name means "festival of Lugh" or even "the marriage of Lugh".
It is an important Sabbath, which represents the peak of abundance and the harvest with which Mother Earth has blessed us, these are the warmest days of the year, the fruit is ripe, it's time to harvest the wheat and turn it into flour, days are longer and the sun is shining high in the sky.
Reached this abundance culmination, now it’s time to begin to prepare ourselves for the cold season, it is as well a moment to relax and reflect on the future.
It corresponds to the English festival of Lammas, in archaic English Hlaf-Maesse (from which the word “Loaf-Mass”), which means "Gathering of Bread", where it is used to bake a loaf with the new flour obtained from the harvest.
As we have said, this festival is dedicated to the god Lugh, a God of the Celtic lore, who was often identified as a solar deity, associating him epithets like “the bright one" or "the child of the sun".
It is said that he excelled in all of arts and all the techniques, for this reason, according to legend, the king Nuada of the population of the Tuatha Dé Danann (a prehistoric people who invaded Ireland before the Gaels, evemerized then as the same Gods of the Celtic lore) gave up his throne, and his sacred spear (Slèabua) whose owner it is said that will never be defeated by anyone.
In the depictions and descriptions, it is always shown with his sacred spear, with long blond hair and no beard.
Lugh is considered the God of Light, we can find him in ancient texts which tell the pre-human history of Ireland, and the gestures of the gods that lived there before humans did.
In these texts you can read the battles of Lugh, commander of the Tuatha Dé Danann, spirits and demigods belonging to the goddess Danu, against the Fomorians.
We can identify the Fomorians as demigods even prior to the Tuatha Dé Danann, belonging to the pantheon of the inhabitants resident in Ireland at the origins; we might compare them to the Titans of Greek mythology.
For these ancient population, the Fomorians were identified as a sort of "Demons", representing the forces of chaos and wilderness, the primitive nature, in contrast with the new gods, representing instead the forces of civilization and reason.
Both the Latin word lux, lucis that the one used to identified the god of light Lùg seem to recall the proto-indoeuropean root “leuk” ( "brightness").
As we said, Lugh excelled in all the arts, from metallurgy to music, he is the one who helps to shape the energy form, making it become something touchable; He is therefore associated with the creative talent, the ability of the human mind to achieve projects and intelligence.
He shares many of his characteristics with Odin (included being accompanied by two crows), with Mercury and Apollo.
On this day, the Sun God begins the preparations for his funeral. He voluntarily dies by the Goddess hand, as a sort of sacrifice to allow people to survive the winter season, and his blood poured into the fields will nourish the earth and will help the sprouts to reappear again in spring.
At the same time, the Goddess prepares to transform herself from mother of abundance to Crone, the one which helps in passing away and then return to life again.
The symbol par excellence of this Sabbath is wheat, you can use a good quality flour in order to make handmade bread or cakes. During the preparation, concentrate the energy of this day to your dough, in this manner the food you are going to consume, becomes a magical tool to represent the light God.
Remember to consume fruit on this day, collect all the seeds contained in it and try to make them sprout. The plants that will be born will help you to bring the energy of this Sabbath throughout the cold season.
♄Unornya
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