My goodness. Where has this year gone? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were putting away the Xmas cards and picking our favorites from the incoming seed catalogs? Now we’re already at First Harvest, although almost nobody celebrates it much anymore. Its formal name is Lammas, and it’s a vestige of those holidays we celebrated back during that old time religion, the pre-Christian era, when the year was divided not just in months, but into quarters to mark the seasons, and then divided again to honor those seasons within seasons, what was called the cross-quarters. Lammas is one of those. And since I’m a gardener, I’m probably going to tell you more than you want to know about all that.
The first cross-quarter, between winter solstice and the spring equinox, was Imbolc, on February 2. The word refers to the birthing of the first lambs and therefore the first fresh milk, but it symbolizes the return of the light, and in those days was a holiday honoring the Celtic goddess Brigid, the goddess of fire, fertility, and poetry, and the end of a hard winter, meaning it was now less likely one would starve from a poor harvest last year. The early Christians liked the holiday if not the religion, and adopted it. It became Candlemas, the goddess became St. Brigid and it was set precisely 40 days after solstice.
Then was the equinox, which was again adopted by those upstart Christians and was chosen as the proper place to put Easter.
The second cross-quarter was at Beltane, celebrating the height of spring, plants a-plenty to gather and eat, and the hopes for a continuing bountiful harvest. They threw huge parties and performed all sorts of fertility rituals in and out of the fields and gardens which today might best be left further undescribed.
Now, it’s just May Day and about all that’s left for celebrating it is the sweet dances around the Maypole with ribbons and flowers. That happens in all parts of the world, except in Russia, where its celebrations are magnified and marked by huge amounts of food and other festivities, and as it is considered their Labor Day, great parades of people who have the day off so they can get dressed in colorful costumes and march the main drag in Moscow.
Then of course, after that we’re on to summer solstice, called high summer, which nobody celebrates because they’re all out in the fields working their tails off to make sure they’ll have something to eat to get them through to February.
And then we come to Lammas, or first harvest, the most bountiful return from all the summer’s toil, when we dig the potatoes, pick the corn and tomatoes, and make peach cobblers. That’s provided there’s enough rain to match the summer’s heat, which we understand these days. And that’s where we are right now. It’s called Lammas, and it’s today. Right now.
On up the way there will be another equinox and that tiny window of time when a few diligent individuals can, if they’re patient, balance a raw egg on its small end, and on to Samhain, which is spelled Samhain, but actually pronounced “Salwain.” Now we pronounce it “Halloween” – when we make small mischiefs, wear masks and scary costumes, and tic tac houses, which I described in an earlier post.
And then we’re back to Solstice, where in honor of the longest night and that baby in the manger we have our choice of some 14 international holidays to suit your fancy for everyone from Anabaptist to Zoroastrian. But that’s for then.
Today it’s Lammas, and whether you’re a reflective sort, a gardener, a pagan, or just your wee self in a world of possibilities, it’s time to find a cool spot maybe by the creek, put a watermelon on ice, start a tiny fire just big enough for a couple of hotdogs and a few s’mores, and celebrate the bounty of the season. Maybe put a toe or two in the water. Eat a peach. And reflect for just a bit on how incredibly lucky we are to be blessed with these Ozarks Hills to live in, gardens large and small where we can grow ourselves as well as our sustenance, and consciences clever enough to create our own world in our thoughts, where we can adopt the belief system we choose, and believe whatever the heck we want, whether it’s the highest of logic, the depth of history, or just downright weird. We’re all human, we’re all neighbors, and we’re all in this tiny lifeboat of a world together.
Happy Lammas, y’all.
