Lammas –
A Festival day. A Gathering Day.
Cross quarter day between summer & autumn.
And so, yellow leaves are beginning to fall, here & there.
Speaking to us of autumn.

Lammas, (Old English, for “lamb”, & later “loaf” as in “bread”) celebrates the first grain harvests.
Observed August 1st in the northern hemisphere, we can extend the festival all week.

Lammas is a festival of harvesting & of gratitude.

After summer rains, wheat was harvested and ground into flour. Loaves of bread, including communion bread, were made and taken to the churches for blessing.
Lammas was a community celebration.

Shakespeare refers to Lammas Eve as the 14th birthday of Juliet (Romeo and Juliet).
This first harvest prepares humanity for the coming autumn and winter, cooler days, crisp apples, roasting of the southwest chiles and the last of summer’s tomatoes and corn.

Lammas reminded us of the cycle of life and death (light & dark).
And of the four seasons & their cross quarter days.

During August in earlier times when the people lives more closely with nature, the people knew that soon Persephone would be taken to the underworld by Pluto and Demeter, her mother, grief-stricken, would make the leaves fall and the darkness (of the winter season) to arrive.

But before autumn, there was a pause, a focus of the people – to be festive, celebrate in the gathering of the first fruits & grains and baking the first loaves of bread.

Remembering these things, we too, as the August days begin, give pause, recognizing what is abundant in our lives.

In celebration, we decorate doorways and tables with vines, leaves, sheaves of wheat and oats, make corn dollies, eat summer fruits, celebrate skills, talents and craftsmanship of friends and family, and bake bread together from the first harvest of grains (biodynamic flours & grains, non-GMO, organic).

Today – Venus’s day- Ray 5 day, the color is golden orange.
Friday, August 1, 2025.
Leo Sun & Mercury –
Scorpio Moon today – a mysterious day.
Venus (Cancer) squares Saturn (Aries), Neptune (Aries) & Pluto (Aquarius) – the outer planets.
The value of disciples, refinement & transformation.
Venus suggests that we recognize these & value them.
Venus in Cancer – we bake our breads & bring the first loaf to the alter. The rest of the breads we offer to humanity.

Venus in Cancer – nurturing & nourishment.
The Bread of Life. The 1st Initiation.
The First Harvest – love, Risa