20 MINUTES TO MASTER … WICCA. Vivianne Crowley

about May blossom. Only Witches could bring it into the house with impunity, my mother told me, and let me bring it in. In Germany, where everything happens a little later than in Britain and Ireland’s Gulf Stream climate, children make crowns of dandelions on May Day. For a few hours anyway, they really do look like angelic rays of sun.

      The Summer Solstice, the Longest Day, is the season of oak leaves and roses, symbols of God and of Goddess. Although both God and Goddess are present at Beltane and Midsummer, Beltane seems much more a Goddess festival; whereas Midsummer celebrates the God. In North America, Mother’s Day falls in May near Beltane and Father’s Day is near Midsummer. It seems to make sense to celebrate motherhood before fatherhood. It can take men a bit longer to become used to the idea.

      Midsummer rites are often dedicated to the crowning of the solar king and the dedication of his male energy to the service of the Goddess, her people and her land. Paradoxically, this time is both the height of the sun and the beginning of its decline. After the peak there is nowhere to go but down.

      This is a time when grass is cut for hay and the beautiful meadow smell of cut grass is everywhere. A natural instinct is to get up and watch the dawn on Midsummer Day and to celebrate the Sun in its fullness before its decline. Midsummer is a good time for men to do magic to help them in their everyday lives and for both sexes to do magic to help them with worldly matters – careers, houses, money. These are all the worldly but essential things we need for our material existence.

      Lughnasadh is the Irish word for the August Eve festival and means the Games of Lugh. Lugh the God of Light instituted these games in honour of his mother-in-law which may be a poetic metaphor for the Mother Goddess. The alternative name, Lammas, is a Saxon word which means Loaf Mass. At Loaf Mass, the first loaf of bread was baked with the new wheat of the year.

      What seems on the surface a simple thing – an ear of wheat – has many powerful connotations. Human invention of agriculture, like the discovery of fire, was one of the great stepping stones in the advance of civilization. Once we learned to cultivate crops, our lives became much easier. We did not have to spend so much time searching for food as when we were hunter-gatherers relying on meat, fish, wild roots, leaves, berries and nuts for our sustenance.

      In the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece, an ear of wheat was shown to the initiate as the final revelation. What did this mean? Try going out into the countryside at this time and picking an ear of wheat. Hold it in your hand and meditate upon it. What does it tell you? How does it feel? The ripened ear of wheat has not the smoothness of youth, but the ripeness of age. It is dry, but has the promise of transformation. New life can spring from it; for within it is the seed. Within the seed is the promise of reincarnation and rebirth. This was the secret revealed to the initiate: we are born, live, die and live again.

      Another message of Lammas is sacrifice. In ancient times in some societies, the king was considered Divine. He must die at the peak of his powers so that his strength and energy might pass to the new king. There is a message here for us all and it is about facing up to change. Middle age and death are part of life’s realities. We must accept that, whatever our worldly achievements, at some point we are going to have to let them go. We will have to take a step forward into the unknown – the realm of death and the after-life. This involves an inner sacrifice; letting go of all that we have gained in life and detaching ourselves from the past.

      Lammas magic can be magic of detachment. It is a time to let go of past griefs, hates, angers and injustices and to move forward. This is a good time for divorce. It is also, paradoxically, a good time for marriage for people who intend being spiritual partners as well as intending to have children or to pursue material lives together. This is not a good time for founding material enterprises: Imbolc is a better time to lay foundation stones. However, Lammas can be a good time to found spiritual enterprises.