Happy Harvesting!
Today marks the celtic celebration of Lughnasadh, the first of 3 harvest celebrations.Like most turns of the wheel, this is a celebration that goes by many names and is embraced by most cultures. While we have assigned an official calendar date, it is thought that most of these turns of the wheel were celebrated as the seasons dictated. A really great example of this in my own garden is that some years at this time, I was really in my second cycle of harvest and this year we had to plant things much later in the year. With the exception of herbs, I’ve just started reaping the first of this year’s harvest in the past couple weeks.
Lughnasadh really marks the transition between this cycle of growth and long summer days, to reaping the harvest. It’s a great time to give thanks to the sun god Lugh, we are also in Leo season, so fires are a very appropriate way to celebrate. While nature is transitioning to autumn’s bounty and this official start of harvest season, our everyday lives are still designed to do the same thing. August is usually the last breath of what we know or acknowledge as summer and if you have school age kids, summer may already feel like it is officially over.
Getting outdoors, spending time in the garden, visiting your local farmers market, and celebrating with fire are all great ways to spend Lugnasadh. I always like to spend some time with magical cleaning for every turn of the wheel too, usually the week leading up to it or the week after.
Here are a few magical cleaning activities I suggest
- Make your own holistic herbal potions for cleaning, if you don’t have easy access to herbs, using herbal tea bags is a great hack!
- Create a seasonal magic space in your kitchen to honor this time of harvest and whatever elements or deities you may want to thank.
- Declutter your pantry and refrigerator to make space for what you want to harvest, in both a literal and magical way
- Banish negative or stagnant energy with cleaning and cleansing. Do this to your kitchen appliances, countertops, and floors.
- Hang dried herbs, flowers, or other items symbolic of the natural world around you at this time. Dried corn dolls are also really fun to make.
- Use sigil magic on brooms, mops, or any other cleaning utensils with your intentions
As you can tell from this list of ideas, magical cleaning is more than just cleaning. It is the combination of mindset, decor, infusing all we do with intention and our natural world.
No matter how you celebrate, be sure to think about all the magic and wonder that is involved in the gifts nature provides us through this harvest season. I like to think about how our ancestors and those who came before this modern age we live in relied so heavily on these gifts, how they didn’t waste them, and all the love that went into the preparation and preservation of food…it’s very spiritual to all walks of life.
