Lúnasa: it took a year to fix it
*updated 7/27/23: topic of weddings and Telltown marriages discussed below. Normally, weddings happened in Winter before Lent in Irish tradition.
Thóg sé bliain é a dheisiú — it took a year to fix it…
i can’t stress enough how important it is to journal. even if it is just a few lines a day on instagram to archive your day’s adventures and thoughts and memories…
this time last year i was packing. and now i’m doing it again.
gathering a meitheal of friends to commemorate 12 years together in Albany and help with the boxes and boxes of books, beehives, bones, and research.
but this year i’m doing it alone. in Brookline. Wampanoag lands.
Lúnasa is not just a time for feasting and going to the faires and games. it is about hard work (on our own & together). and sometimes the hardest bits of work take a year (or more) to complete, harvest, and finish. for me this work was a multilayered relationship that needed time and effort and a lot of sweat and tears, and for once i’m not talking about research.
Here in the states we have had a sordid idea of what Lúnasa is as a holiday, season, festival, etc. So far removed are the endless books in the “Self-transformation” section of the bookstore amongst appropriated and watered-down suggestions from the original purposes. So far removed are romanticised feudal trauma-porn Renaissance Faires that pop up around this time. Luckily, there are still living traditions that we can access in right relationship.
i don’t want to go into all of it because that would take away from the IPS course labour and course materials. instead i highly recommend the following:
- Lúnasa in Ireland course: https://irishpaganschool.com/p/lunasa
- Seasons and Sacred Cycles course: https://irishpaganschool.com/p/cycles
For a free lil glimpse, I recommend reading this article by Lora O’Brien.
instead, at the behest of a friend, i will share what Lúnasa means to me now.
Lúnasa is the first harvest of many more to come.
Lúnasa is not a single day, but three, and an entire month of what is now called August in the english language.
Lúnasa lasts for me longer still until we welcome the Ancestors at Samhain.
i’m trying to get away from the made-up 8 holiday wheel of the year shite — it’s that whole thóg sé bliain é a dheisiú thing i mentioned at the beginning.
it takes time to unlearn inaccurate information that you’ve repeated, every year, since like 1999. which is why i cannot stress enough the importance of learning from living cultural stewards of the lands you are practicing with.
Lúnasa is not about a sun god named Lugh (*spoilers* he isn’t a sun god!).
Lúnasa is a time for sports competitions, visiting wells, picking blueberries; and cutting, drying, binding, rolling, and bailing hay (amongst other things).
all in all… Lúnasa is not a time to forget your sunblock!
so as i said, this year, i am packing again. signing a different contract (lease). i went to gallop into the ocean like you do with horses, and offered butter and flowers to the beach, land, gods and *very hungry seagulls*.
i picnicked with my beloveds. not all of them, but the ones who could make it.
Lúnasa is not about baking bread, but all of the labour that is necessary in the makings of that bread: from seed to table.
here are the things i still want to do that are Lúnasa related:
- pick and bury the First Sheaf (not the Last sheaf!). The First sheaf is buried on Lúnasa as offering to the TDD gods proper (though special attention is often given to Tailtiu & Macha) and the ungods (Aos Sidhe) on a hill along with 1/10th “tip-top-pickle” of the first harvest. The Last sheaf, also called the harvest cailleach, is a very specific harvest knot or bundle; but isn’t gathered until an Clousúr (the close or conclusion or end of harvest). This means after Michaelmas, or after the Fomhar na nGéan, the Goose Harvest at the end of September — and when Hunting season begins. The Last sheaf is never ever buried — unless for murder — so don’t do that!
- visit a well spring and do the patterns
- play more games and watch some Irish sports *gay panic* with others
- hike a mountain
- have a fire
- pick & jam berries + bake a blueberry pie
- officiate a few weddings* (this is a bit convoluted in the words of Morgan Daimler. “Lúnasa isn’t generally associated with weddings and the idea of it being Lugh’s wedding in particular is modern. There’s no mythology or older folklore supporting this idea. The word lughnasadh does not mean wedding of Lugh. Nasadh means funeral games or assembly, later just games or assembly.” However, there is a nuance with Teltown marriages, which happened around the Lunasa fests. More info can be found here).
- charm household and garden tools
- make more allegiances and agreements
- help make less drunken feuds
- fight hunger oppression via canning, mutual aid, and direct giving
- learn more curses
- try at making my own last sheaf love knot but that not until end of September!
- research more into Tailtiu, Macha, Crom Dubh, Lugh and Balor
- research doing damhsa an scuab / the brush dance
- research the 1920s and 30s Tailteann Games, modern Tailteann Cup, The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)games, inter-gaeltacht games, and the Rás Tailteann games
- make plans to visit the ancestors in NY and Canada if travel restrictions are lifted for Samhain
this is what Lúnasa means to me: work hard at tending so as to harvest the fruits (and veggies) of all our relationships with lands, communities, and gods.
it is the joy and the sweat of it. because all relationship takes dílseach, the giving of time, energy, and devotion. and maybe, just a bit of cráifeacht too.
(Re)Sources
- Duchas.ie
- O’Brien, Lora. “Lughnasadh in Ireland”.(2019) https://loraobrien.ie/lughnasadh-in-ireland/
- https://irishpaganschool.com/p/lunasa
