In the fading light of late Summer and quietly approaching Autumn, we feel the sweetness of the Sun even more keenly. As August begins, we celebrate the midpoint between the solstice and approaching equinox with the Old Celtic holiday of Lughnasadh. Celebrated August 1st on our calendar, this festival marks the beginning of the harvest season and the ripening of the first fruits. Traditionally, Lughnasadh was a time of community gatherings, markets, horse races and reunions with distant family and friends. The energies of these celebrations would have been a kin to the late Summer agricultural fairs we celebrate here in Maine.

On mainland Europe as well as in Ireland, the time of Lughnasadh is still celebrated with bonfires and dancing. In a practice that may be an echo of the celebrations of Celtic tribes who lived there in the Iron Age, August 1st is the national holiday of Switzerland. As in all other Lughnasadh-based festivals, it too is celebrated with bonfires. Following the timeworn custom of taking pagan holidays and putting a Christian overlay upon them, the Church established a ritual of blessing the fields on this day, as well.

According to old Celtic myths that survive in Irish stories, Lughnasadh was a feast started by the god Lugh. He is a being who is the product of a Tuatha Dé Danann father–Cian and a Formorian mother–Ethniu. This is interesting as the Fomorians are the Old Ones/giants and the Tuatha Dé Danann (People of the Goddess Danu) are beings who eventually receded into the “Hollow Hills” to become the Sidhe, who are later referred to as Faeries. All this is to say that Lugh is a bridge being. He bridges the primordial giants and later, more human-like divine beings. He also doesn’t belong fully to either group. As such he is described in a way that is both complex (he is a wright, smith, champion, swordsman, harpist, poet, historian, sorcerer, and craftsman) and conflictual (he is a fierce warrior who can also heal). He is said to have influence over storms. Makes me think about those late Summer storms, which have the dual ability to both nourish the crops with rain and destroy them with hail and wind.

An Anglo-Saxon and Christian holiday, which occurs at about the same time, was a festival and feast of thanksgiving for grain and bread. The Anglo-Saxon word hlafmæsse, which refers to "loaf-mass," or “loaves festival,” may be the root of the word of Lammas. This is the more common name used among Wicca groups for the August 1st celebration. Wiccan traditions suggest that the origins of the holiday commemorate the sacrifice and death of the Wiccan Corn God, in his/her cycle of death, nurturing the people, and rebirth. Before Christianization, in traditional pagan European culture, it was believed that the spirit of the “corn” (in modern American English, “corn” would be “grain”) lived amongst the crop. In its cycle of death, nurturing the people, and rebirth, the grain cycle is a microcosmic reflection of the way sunlight waxes, wanes and returns to the land. Because of this, Wiccans consider the Corn God as an aspect of their Sun God.

When the corn/grain is harvested, the spirit, which enlivened it, is effectively made homeless. Among the customs attached to the harvest that remain from pre-mechanized agricultural Europe, is the tradition of the corn dolly. The dollies would have been in many shapes from abstract spirals, crosses, sunbursts and fans to figurative images of animals and people. These images are still created from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crop as a home for the spirit of the grain. Traditionally, the dolly would have an honored place in the home—often hung above doorways, on mantles or in the rafters to bring good luck. Animal-shaped corn dollies were sometimes hung in the barn to bless the livestock. In the Springtime, the little idol was placed into the first furrow of the field during the next planting season—thereby ensuring the enlivening of the next year’s crops. In contemporary American culture, the cornhusk doll and even the merry straw men/scarecrows that are used as decorations for Thanksgiving, are descendants of these older, pagan images.

The early European agriculturalists depended upon their cereal grain crops for sustenance not only for the people, but, to sustain the livestock over the winter months. The relationship between sunlight—that nurtured the grain as it grew—and the stored grain, which allowed the people to survive in the winter, would have surely been clear to our ancestors. In a way, the waning Sun was captured in the harvested grain until it was able to return to full light and warmth in the Springtime.

In truth, plants do capture the energy of sunlight through photosynthesis. The word comes from the Greek word, photo meaning, ”light,” and synthesis, “putting together.” In this process, plants take water and carbon dioxide converting them to carbohydrates (sugars and starches) and oxygen through harnessing the light energy of the Sun. All green plants can effect this miraculous transformation and it is this process allows plants to be nourished and grow. In turn, nearly all life on Earth either directly or indirectly depends upon plants as a nutritional foundation. Higher life forms either eat plants themselves or eat plant-eating species and nearly all life on Earth depends upon the plants’ gift of oxygen.

Since our farming ancestors knew the relationship between sunlight and the crops, it is understandable that various forms of solar deities and Sun honoring rituals were celebrated. Among the Norse, the Sun is represented by the goddess, Sól. She is the sister of her brother, Mani, the Moon. Both are children of the primordial giant Mundilfari whose name refers to cycles and celestial revolutions–the turning wheel of the cosmos. Here on the Earth where we feel time in a linear progression, we may think of the Sun as an expression of Time. Our days are marked by the Sun’s rise and our years by the Sun’s journey across our sky.

At the North Pole, the Sun sets in Autumn for the long night of Winter. The sun isn’t seen again until Springtime. In the Northern latitudes of Europe, the sun grows weaker in Autumn and the nights grow quite long. It is little wonder that the Sun was held in such veneration by the peoples who lived there!

The sun disk, sun wheel and sun whorl are all images that have been used to represent the Sun. Found from South America to Asia and into Europe, they have been painted and engraved since ancient prehistory. Along with their relationship to the Sun, they have allusions to time and even direction. Twelve centuries before the magnetic compass was created, the Vikings used a solar compass. Archeological evidence for this Viking compass was found in Greenland by the archeologist C. L. Vebæk of Denmark. According to Franck Pettersen of the Northern Lights Planetarium in Tromsø, Norway, this instrument draws on the fact that the sun's shadow from the tip in the middle of a disk describes different curved lines at different times of the year. When you have the hyperbola representing 62° and the four weeks around summer solstice, you don't have to know the time of the day in order to find the general directions. All you have to do is rotate the disk until the shadow of the tip falls on the curved line, and the general directions are given with an accuracy of a few degrees.

Since the Sun’s blessing was necessary for Life, itself, there are also Norse symbols based on the solar cross/wheel, which were used for protection. Good examples of these have been preserved in Iceland. Vegvísir is one such rune stave that was used to guide people through “rough weather”—which I think of in both the literal and metaphoric senses. Another bind rune in this vein is, Ægishjálmur. This symbol is alternately referred to as the “Helm of Awe” and was said to protect the wearer in battle. Echoes of the solar wheel/whorl can also be seen in the spindle whorls used to spin fibers for weaving. The action of turning the spindle is what twists the fibers into thread or yarn. Spinning is an act of creation—turning one thing into another—and living creation is certainly contingent upon the action of the Sun. One can argue that the movement of the wheel of the Sun across the sky and the turning of the solar year is part and parcel with the creation and sustenance of Life.

This time of year, we notice the shorter days and the dimmer sunlight. On the Autumnal Equinox, the length of the day and the length of the night will be nearly the same. The darkness will continue to deepen until the Winter Solstice. At that time, the sunlight will begin to grow stronger again. Until that time, we have to find ways to capture and preserve our Light. Whether in rituals of Thanksgiving, lighting ritual fires, though celebrations of the seasons of Life, or in the creation of sacred objects and bread—we have the capacity to nourish the luminous inside.

Sometimes, this will mean doing battle with the darkness that also lives inside of us. We cannot escape this battle, but we do not have to do it alone. Call upon Sól in all her radiance. Draw the rune staves to protect yourself from the “rough weather” of the soul and to keep you safe in the “battle.” Use the compass of your radiant heart to keep you on course. Call together those that you love and give thanks. Break bread together. Know that the Light inside each of you is as powerful as the Sun!

© 2008 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Evelyn C. Rysdyk, author of the book, Modern Shamanic Living, is a nationally recognized teacher of shamanism, healer & artist in joint practice with C. Allie Knowlton, LCSW, DCSW as Spirit Passages.

Since 1991, they have offered workshops across the US and Canada. In addition, they have worked with hundreds of people in their private shamanic healing practice at True North in Falmouth.

Featured in the book, Traveling Between the Worlds, interviews with 24 of the world's most influential writers and teachers of shamanism, they may be contacted at: www.spiritpassges.com .