Celebrating Abundance: A Thanksgiving Ritual

This day of giving thanks denotes the high point of the year; the crops are in their fullness, weather is warm and the countryside is bursting forth with the beauty of life. Pagans know we have the heavens above to thank for this and the gods of nature must be acknowledged for their generosity with a gathering of the tribe and a feast, ideally in the great outdoors.  Ask invitees to bring harvest-themed offerings for the altar: gourds, pumpkins, bundles of wheat stalks and corn, fresh pickings from their garden and food to share in thanksgiving made from the same- pies, tomato salads, cucumber pickles, green beans, corn pudding, watermelon, lemon cakes, berry cucumber, apple cider and beer brewed from wheat, hops and barley. This celebration of the reapings from the summer season should reflect what you grown with your own hands. Fill your cauldron or a big beautiful colored glass bowl half-full with freshly-drawn water. Get packets of tiny votive candles for floating in the water. At the feast table, make sure to have a place-setting for the godly guest Lugh who watched over the plantings to ensure this bounty. Place loaves of home baked bread by his plate.

When all guests have arrived, everyone should add a food offering to the plate of the god and light a candle to float in the cauldron.  Cut a slice of the loaf of bread for Lugh and begin the ceremony with this prayer of thanks:

    Oh, ancient Lugh of the fields and farms,

    We invite you here with open arms,

    In this place between worlds, in flowering fields of hay.

    You have brought the blessings we receive this Thanksgiving Day.

Begin the feast and before the dessert course, everyone should go around the table and speak to their gratitude for the gifts of the year.

Lammas Day, August Eve Ritual

Essential elements for this ritual are wheat or barley, sheaves of grain, cauldron, water, one floating candle, one candle for each person present, and essential oils of rose, lavender, or other summer flowers.

To create the sacred space of the ritual, arrange the sheaves of grain in the four directions around a cauldron. Fill the cauldron three-quarters full with water and add essential oils of the flowers of summer. Cast your circle in the usual manner.

At this point, the leader of the ritual should light the candles and then hand them to each person and guide the participants to form a circle around the cauldron. Now the floating candle should be lit and placed in the cauldron by the leader, who says:

O Ancient Lugh of days long past, 

Be here with us now

In this place between worlds,

On this Lammas Day

Rap three times on the cauldron and say:

Harvest is here and the seasons do change, 

This is the height of the year.

The bounty of summer sustains us

In spirit, in soul, and in body.

Now the group circles five times around the cauldron. All present should then speak their gratitude for the gifts of the season, and the riches of the summer bounty. Storytelling, singing, and dancing should all be a part of this rite, and the leader determines when the rite is done by putting out the candles and proclaiming:

This rite is done!

Close the circle.

There are many ways you can create your own variations on Lammas Day celebrations with your own views on the summer season and how you show appreciation to nature and spirit. One lovely way to celebrate Lammas Day is to have a feast that begins and ends with gratitude and blessings for the good and wine with a place set and food served for the great godly guest, Lugh. 

August

August 1, Fiesta Day (Nicaragua)

August 2, Our Lady of the Angels Day (Costa Rica)

August 3, Drimes Day in Greece with offerings to the dead, all-night parties and bonfires in vineyards and orchards

August 4, Dom Perignon invents champagne in 1693— celebrate!

August 5, Grasmere Rush Bearing Festival in Cumbria, England, dating back to the medieval custom of weaving flooring for cathedrals

August 6, Peace Ceremony for World War II bombing of Hiroshima

August 7, Feast of Hathor (Ancient Egypt)

August 8, Dog Days in Japan, or Doyo

August 9, Nagasaki Peace Ceremony in Japan

August 10, Celebration of the Goddess of Reason, established 1793 in France

August 11, Puck Fair in Killarney, Ireland 

August 12, International Youth Day

August 13, Feast of Vertumnus, god of seasons, gardens, and trees, in Rome

August 14, Ferragosto, Italy’s traditional mid-August holiday 

August 15, Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary

August 16, Saint Roch’s Procession in France and Italy 

August 17, Potunis in Italy; Marcus Garvey Day for Rastafarians

August 18, St. Helen’s Day Pilgrimage

August 19, Roman Vinalia Rustica in honor of Venus since 293 BCE

August 20, Szent Isvan Napja, Day of St. Stephen, in Hungary

August 21, Consualia in honor of Consus, god of seeds, grain, and harvest

August 22, Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Star of the Sea, since 1954

August 23, Paper Costume Parade and Holy Bath Day in Portugal

August 24, St. Bartholomew’s Day

August 25, Opiconsivia, festival to the goddess Ops

August 26, Feast day of Luonnatar, Finnish goddess of fertility

August 27, Birth of Isis

August 28, St. Augustine’s Day to honor Augustine of Hippo (354-430), leading Christian theologian and Father of the Church

August 29, Festival of St. John, commemorating his death 

August 30, Santa Rosa (Mexico); Saint Rose of Lima (Peru)

August 31, Anant Chaturdasi, a women’s purification festival (Hindu)

The Romans honored Demeter, the grain mother and overseer of the harvest, during August. The Celts celebrated Lughnassadh in honor of Lugh, their god of many skills. Lughnassadh was adopted and adapted by the Christian church as Lammas (“Loaf-mass”) and is still celebrated. The custom is that when the first grain is harvest, it must be baked into a loaf and offered to Lugh as thanks for healthy crops. Native Americans called August the Corn Moon, and the Franks referred to this time of year as Aranmanoth, The Corn Ears Month.