Lughnasadh – The Harvest of the First Fruits and the Mourning for the Sun King
This past weekend has been one filled with reverence and revelry. I have the blessed fortune of being able to call myself one of the Witches of the WildWood – we who gather in the heartland of the Witches and dance it into Flourishing…In this area of the world – South-East Queensland, Australia – we have a beautiful and alive network and community. We struggle as most communities do, there is never a lack of tension, but the dedication and committment to live awe-inspired lives, witnessing to wonder and rooting our ‘practice’ deep in the simple truth of Being and endeavouring to express that Being far surpasses these human hardships in my mind - natural as they are. If I was to define WildWood Witchcraft right in this moment, I would sing,
O Weaver, Fabric of Being, Grandmother of Space, Great Eye – You Witness To Me!
O Green Man, Green Guardian, Grandfather of Time, Bones of the Earth – Through You I Witness God!
O Crescent-Crowned Queen, Mother of Magick, Raven-clad, Bearer of the Sword – I Sing With You…
O Horned One, Stag and Wolf, Dancer of Life, Covenant of the Holy Blood – I Tremble In Your Wake…
Cosmic Consciousness in (R)evolution…My Wholeness is renewed when I dance the Spiral!
The Sacred Four of the WildWood – the Cosmos Waking Unto the Dream – are our Beloved Ones. These are the names most unique to our Fellowship which we sing into the Abyss to have the Worlds blossom forth and penetrate into the very core of the Darkness of our souls in which the Light dances. At the time of the Harvest of the First Fruits we mourn for the passing of the Stag-Horned God, the Sun King, who at the Summer Solstice fell in battle to the Shadow of His Wolf-Brother, and whose zenith wound bleeds freshly into the brown earth. Our Lady of the Moon is gifted the Scythe by the Grandmother of Fate Herself, and She yields to the Power of the Aeon, for She bears within Her Belly the Seed of the Sun which ripens as does the Grain. In the world surrounding however, the Sun has gone into the Seed, and so with the Sickle-Blade she cuts Him down and we eat of His Body.
We are sustained, we give thanks, we celebrate the Harvest and we are renewed and readied for the Winter ahead. This is the time of reaping - our Crescent-Crowned Goddess has become the Reaper, and She has taken on the Black Veil of Mourning. She keens and wails and like a Beansidhe weaves through the worlds in deep desire to challenge Death and His Enduring Shadow – to cut Him down as She severed the bowing heads of barley and wheat and the winds scattered the husks to the soil.
Together, this past weekend, my WildWood community gathered to mark this time. We came together and arrived at the shore of the Eastern coast of Australia. We marked, honoured and celebrated two significant rites of passage within our tradition – the Blessing of the Aspirant and the Challenging of the Priestess. We breathed the Mighty Breath of Awen nine times within the Circle whose compass lies between the worlds…
Within the fallen husk of palm we lay our Horned One, our Beloved Sun King, and we surrounded His Body with freshly-picked frangipani, blood-red hibiscus, sprinkled frankincense and bread and we sang to Him. Together we lifted the Barge, the Moon-Boat of the Sister Who Watches and Waits, and in rites older than the Cold Breath of the Sea, we chanted, processed down the dunes and into the frothing surf…to set Him sail upon the Sunless Sea, to the Land of Youth, to the Isle of the Ever-Young…
This year the waves were too strong, ferociously so; not even our strongest and most skilled swimmer could break passed the Ninth Wave to set the Barge upon the Sea’s surface. In the evening our community gathered with extended family, Witches of Earthwyrm, and after shared ceremony, together we journeyed to where a creek weaves its way through the Witches’ home and by the light of one solitary candle, we walked to the Edge of Death, breathed in, released, stepped back and breathed out.