Beyond Bread: A More Practical Way to Celebrate Lughnasadh
Finding Additional Flavors to Add to the Harvest Table
Children of the Corn is nothing compared to a crop spirit quizzing you about rye production.
Greetings, Curious Spirits!
As someone who has written about Paganism and witchcraft since at least 1997, I have a confession to make. Lughnasadh/Lammas is the hardest neopagan holiday for me to write about. It should be easy. It involves bread. In some traditions, that poor bastard John Barleycorn gets sacrificed.
Part of what led me away from Wicca is that I don’t resonate that well with English tradition. My English ancestors aren’t thrilled with this, and we’re working out the “I love you, and I won’t center you.” My Polish ancestors tend to call me more. Perhaps it’s because I look like more of them. Perhaps that side has shown me love and acceptance.
Also, my Slavic perspective makes me leery of getting too close to a crop spirit if I’m not the one harvesting. In Polish lore, the crop itself becomes a living spirit that haunts the fields. If it finds you, you could be screwed harder than if you binged on cyclosporiasis-infected lettuce. The spirit often appears at the sun’s zenith as a woman in white. She will quiz you on your crop care and lore. You have to answer her questions. If you answer wrong about the proper care of the crop, you fall ill.
Children of the Corn is nothing compared to a crop spirit quizzing you about rye production. The children might make you part of their scary cult. If you miss an answer from the lady of corn or wheat, best case scenario, you only almost die of sunstroke.
The crops may have some resentments over the way humanity has co-opted their life cycles.
I have an English ancestor, an herbalist I am making peace with. She also expresses confusion at the way we approach these modern neopagan cycles. To her, it seems like it moves the tough realities of survival farming into the realm of fantasy.
I have to admit, I agree with her.
August is otherwise oddly void of holidays (aside from my birthday - and my dear friend Cynthia’s!) It’s good to have something to celebrate. Since I can’t quite connect with bread, I am taking a broader view. I did look to Polish Folk Magic by Joanna Tarnawska for inspiration.
Rather than just celebrating “bread” (let’s not feed that tradwife egregore) I found more.
It’s the beginning of harvesting squash, beans, and other nutrient-dense goodies. Squash and pumpkin seeds make great snacks roasted - and can be used instead of “money rice” to represent abundance in money bowls.
