Celebrations

Heat! Productivity! Success! Growing Darkness!  These and many other themes join with the baking of bread and early harvest celebrations of Lunasa.  I strive this year to balance both the recognition of the heat of global climate change with the celebration of heat with Lunasa.  It can be a delicate balance, and with it, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that spiritual celebration is part of empowering ourselves, and that we still deserve it, even when there is bad news.

This year we have just had a heat wave in Europe (with thousands dead), and are seeing the continued climate changes in the American West, with drought and fire.  Lake Mead, for instance, is dropping to historically low levels, and this change can even be seen over one short month.

Nonetheless – we still have hundreds of millions of people the world over pushing for climate change action.  We still have human resilience, and the many wonders of our Universe around us (as the Webb Telescope has just reminded us of).  We can still celebrate our Earth with joy!

Some of the ways many of us are celebrating were recently published (along with many online rituals you can join, some of which are still ahead of us).  For my family, celebrations with our annual Lunasa blueberry harvest, baking bread, and evening ritual are coming up!   As a special Lunasa treat, check out this Lammas music from Bart Everson, and the additional music from John Halstead which will soon be published on this blog.  It could be part of a ritual, solitary observation, or just having around now.

For some of us, the celebrations will be later this week – the actual midpoint between the Solstice and the Equinox is August 7th.  However you are celebrating (including Imbolc celebrations in the Southern Hemisphere), may your be celebration be blessed.