Thinking about Lammas

[Tanya]

I'm posting this here since more than just Wiccans celebrate the Wheel of the Year

Lammas is comming to the Southern Hemisphere.. and as I looked through my BoS for thoughts about getting ready, i realized I have very little written down. if fact, its the holiday that has the LEAST resonance for me... and i thought I probably just needed to learn more


So I drug down a stack of reference books and started reading up last night...

I'ld known it was a grain festival... and besides the obvious food and game playing.. i was at a loss...

what I found were repeated references to cutting down John Barley Corn... and as one reads about Lughnassa traditions going farther back... it seems its a thinly veiled and recently 'cleaned up' holiday..... that had featured the death of the Corn King...

and sniffs of human sacrifice are all over the place.... from burying a man up to his neck in a a hole for a few days, to Jesus's connections to the idea of the sacrificed and restored king... we are talking about an ancient tradition of the Sacrificed King who's blood is used to fertlize the soil..... The idea of a man marrying the Queen for a year and a day, living large and then being sacrificed to the earth....that's poetically powerfull... but practically.... umm.. ewwwwwwwww....

how do we (peacable) pagans who celebrate the Wheel find a resonent way to move beyond in these gruesome and outmoded practices....

should Lammas be closed up as too brutal? How can we celebrate the IDEA of sacrifice and fertilization as an important part of life in a way that is powerful but free of the historic blood-letting that at least my sources hint at.

how do we maintain authentic practice that values sacrifice as a REAL powerful thing, but obviously.. killing our husbands... or brindled cows is kinda ...out in our suburban back yards...

[Brigid Rowan]

Hmm, Im going to think on this before really posting, but I do have to complement you on a good topic. I look forward to reading the various ideas and opinions.

[sunny.spoone]

While in the past the sacrifice of a king was literally what was going on, I don't think we should just disown the practice and symbolic ideas.

Sacrifice is a fact of life. Plants and animals sacrifice themselves so that we and other things may eat. In return, we sacrifice a great deal of time in raising animals, farming and harvesting fields, etc. While these may not be blood sacrifices on the parts of humans anymore, a part of being alive is making sacrifices to get the things you need and doing things for the people you love.

If we can't celebrate these very real realities, what can we celebrate? History isn't always pretty, and neither is life. You can't take all the happy parts and ignore the sad. It would all be meaningless without the other side.

[Tanya]

Agreed Sunny,
The question is how do we find a satisfying way to symbolize that for all the reasons you noted