Lammas/Lugnasadh

Keeping with my commitment to observe the Sabbats today we celebrated the first f the three harvest festivals by enjoying a meal together. On the menu was a homemade chicken soup flavoured with some of our garden herbs and some corn bread. We toasted to a fruitful harvest and enjoyed our meal.

Simple and easy which worked well since my Bean is teething and has her sinus working overtime. This means my early evenings are filled with trying to get her settled and not in pain. Not a great place to be doing a lot of ritual work but that can come later.

What I did do was spend some time in my garden (something I have been doing almost daily so far, if only to pick berries or harvest some lavender) and really look at where we are in the growing season and doing a little planning for the next few weeks. This is only our second year planting a garden and I find that my main concern other than weeding, ant control and slug trapping; is that I want to plant more next year.

Our growing season is pretty behind right now, so far raspberries, lavender and a handful of pea pods have been the only things coming out. My basil is not doing as well as I'd like, Tomatoes are flowering but not showing any signs of fruit, and broccoli and the lettuce is starting to show heads but my carrots, and onions are dead in the ground, the carrots flopped last week and the onions didn't even make a show. I'm learning and have plans to start from seed in the coming winter.



If I can get to it I'll post a little about what Lammas and Lugnasadh is another time. Until then I've got these images from our dinner with the lemon Balm Tiger Lily arrangement I put together for the feast.

Magick Everyday, Everywhere

Over at the Balanced Witch, the second assignment (for lack of a better word) is to consider supposed “coincidences” and to try to look at it from a magickal point of view. I've written about my views of magick here, and here and I still believe that our intentions, the energy that we put out into the world we live in comes back to us. This is magick. Like quantum it's all around us.

I've been pummeling my poor little brain to think of other examples of how magickal energy works. My introduction to both my daughters jumped to mind but at first thought, both of those seemed to me to be less about active energy than passive.

For the Peanut I "met" her spirit on a Summer Land meditation during Samhain. As I was getting ready to leave that place I felt a hand resting in my right hand a sensation that has repeated over and over since she became a part of our little family. During the Summer Land meditation we meet with our beloved dead and the spirits of those who are meant to be in our lives in the future can introduce themselves. At the end of the journey they sometimes follow us back. The Peanut followed me back and I invited her to stay.

Before the Bean made her presence known last year (with a combination upset stomach and an uncontrollable desire for frosted croissants and poutine with dill pickles) we had come to the conclusion that the Peanut was going to be an only child. We'd been not not trying for a second child for three years and with no signs of pregnancy, we reluctantly decided it wasn't to be. Both the husband and I felt that if we were meant to have a second child it would happen, if not it wouldn't, no pressure.

It hadn't happened and we had no sooner acknowledged this to each other when I dreamed one night of kicks in my belly. I took this dream as my subconscious' way of mourning the loss of a second child; I'd mentioned to the husband that I would miss feeling the quickening of pregnancy. Little did I know, that the Bean was and is a real kicker. She spent a good portion on the inside working her leg muscles into the big juicy dumplings that still kick out at all hours of the day and night. Once we learned that we had a bean the dream took on a whole new meaning.

Both of those experiences were amazing and magickal, but not based in any overt active pursuit of a goal. As I mentioned, even though we had made the decision to have a child (and once the Peanut was thriving; children) we didn't do much more than stop practicing to have a baby. We weren't not trying to get pregnant. Of course we put our intentions out into the universe but only in as much as we wanted it to happen if it was supposed to happen.

Yule

Happy Yule!

What do I have planned? I'm afraid that it's not much. This pregnancy is getting to the point where I ache all over and where I'm not aching I'm being pummeled from within or experiencing lovely Braxton Hicks contractions from the time I go to be until roughly 4 each morning. So any ritual or magick that I participate in will be the barest of the minimum. Perhaps a shared cup and a sun shaped cookie to offer the goddess and the god. As for the lunar eclipse tonight, we'll see how things go.

I wish you all a most beautiful celebration tonight.