Hag Summer….

she’s undulating, waiting to burst, cool mornings are like an unopened jar and by noon the lid is off and the aroma and heat abound.

In early morn I can talk to the Hag, during the Dog Days Of Summer she’s waiting, peaking out on the world from hiding, when coolness tickles your skin. By Indian Summer she’s dancing, delighted the heat is burning off and Fall is about to join us. I welcome the Hag. I was done with Summer.

Some say Lammas is the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall. I like this best.

Darker earlier evenings are most welcome. Hag time starts around Lammas. The days and nights are shifting. The wheel of the year is turning. I can see it in the trees around , hear it too, in the caws of the crows. They find my tree and sit in the bifurcation where her 2 trunks meet. They look around, and know I’m up, and as I come out with a snack they gather like children ready for a good story.

Early mornings, before the full force of life hits, and people…. the stillness when you can hear yourself think, the best time of the day, ok , equal to that repose at day’s end. After the deep breath of ‘it’s over with, now I can rest’ no more chores or expectations, just me time and those spontaneous conversations with the Hag.

Lammas…..

I’m all about the bread, and the days drying and crisping, and awaiting the leaves changing color. The dimming down of sun and heat I await.

The first Harvest is here.

This is the best bread video =

https://fb.watch/6ZeW5LAoTG/

Apple Pie Bread Pudding =

https://fb.watch/6Zfkk4a689/

Pagans of old would have observed Lammas, also called Lughnasadh, in several ways, most commonly by baking a loaf of bread with grains from this first harvest, eating some, offering some on their altar, and crumbling some into the fields to send the energy back out into the system. 

The first sheaf of corn is supremely important, produces the first (and best) seed and assurance of future harvest. Death and rebirth. Everything dies in its season. Everything is reborn. This is our whisper of immortality. And the wonderful bittersweet of Lammas.

“By one, two, three and four, sweep Lammas gifts to my door. May abundance be a constant friend, by my hearth till Winter’s end.”