Festival of the Harvest - August 1st

My Harvest altar

This is one of the 8 festivals (Sabbats) of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, more commonly known as Lughnasadh or Lammas. In my personal path, I've chosen to call this the Festival of the Harvest instead as my path is not wholly Wiccan.

It is a festival of the first harvest, not of fruit or vegetables but of grains; Mabon (or the Autumn Equinox) is considered the '2nd harvest', the harvest of fruit, vegetables and meat. As it is the festival of grain, bread is usually the main festival food offering!

Lore
I suggest also checking into more traditional lore of the Sabbats in books on Wicca, the below is the 'lore' from my personal path.

Everything in Nature is now ripening from bud and blossom to fruit. Everywhere you look are fruits of the fertility sown earlier in the year. The golden fields of ripe grain are swaying in warm sunlight!

Some soft fruits are also ripe, such as raspberries and blackberries. Make bread and sacrifice some of it to ensure continued fertility of the fields; a forage for food in Nature is also an appropriate activity to connect with the turning season and to appreciate the bounty Nature provides at this Sabbat.

Crafting
In American tradition, a corn dolly is also usually made (Google them, it's fun!). In my personal path, a grain dolly of sorts made of oats is made and stored for the winter. They are basically stalks of grain bound together, hung upside down to dry and then put out in the winter to feed the birds when it's cold. It comes from the Swedish tradition of "julkärve" (Google that too!). When I lived in the country, I used to do this, however nowadays I rarely have access to the materials, so bird feeders have replaced this...

Lammas Bread Recipe
This year I am going to try this recipe from The Spruce Eats!

Other activities...
I've recently started on a journey with Moonology, the excellent resource by Yasmin Boland! So today was my first New Moon manifestation following her book.

I have my old wishes candle, the crystal set recommended by Yasmin for this New Moon, my Moonlogy oracle cards and the absolutely lovely 'manifestation rock' which is a painted stone I got from a very talented seller on Etsy.

As I am going travelling I also made a runic travel amulet to ensure smooth travelling... It is a tiger's eye chip bracelet, I find tiger's eye is a great stone for protection and calm during travel and the rune Raido, which is a classic protection rune for travelling. I asked for the assistance of Odin on this one, but other travel related deities or angels are also appropriate!

I've also been offering some New Moon incense at the garden altar while feeding butterflies some over-ripe nectarines (there is an absolute abundance on Painted Lady butterflies in the backgarden!).

 

I am so grateful for abundance of the season and

I look forward to my journey through this moon cycle!