We had a wonderful Lammas Ceremony in the Airy Fairy garden.
One of the highlights was this meditation, written by Irina. She has kindly allowed us to share it with you:
What is this time we find ourselves in?
The time of harvest, hard work, and hardship.
The time of community, giving, and sacrifice.
The Corn King strides around the circle. See him walk powerfully on the land. He is blazing with late afternoon sun. He is full of power. He is larger than any of us, larger than the land, and he is all of our lives – the parts of our lives that have grown over the past year, that were sown in the dark, seemingly lifeless night, and drew strength from the four elements and the spirits of all our ancestors, and sprung up from the Earth at Beltane, and left us reeling, drunk with possibilities – and then turned those possibilities into reality, and rose high to the sky, and blossomed into fruition. This is the Corn King. This is our vitality. This is us, standing here, having sprung up from the earth, against all odds. This is the glory that is our community, and our hard work, and our hope realised.
What is your harvest? What has the Corn King brought into your life?
But as much as we love staring at the horizon across a field of golden wheat, the harvest must be reaped.
This time of our highest joy is also the time of sorrow.
The harvest must be reaped.
All gifts are sacrifices.
The harvest must be reaped.
Though we may fear what that means for us, we are not alone. The Soul of the Late Summer, the Queen of the Dawn of Autumn, our Goddess as Gwenith, knows that the harvest must be reaped.
See Him once again before your eyes, that Golden God, the fullness of all our hopes realised.
And now turn your awareness right behind you. And realise that all this time, She has been here. Enveloping this circle. Rising high to the sky, reaching deep into the earth. This is the Goddess Gwenith. She is the giver of all. She is the beginning of all life and the beginning of all death. All of our harvests have sprung from her, and all of the creatures of this Earth have gone to her to rest and be reborn. She will guide our sickles.
Raise your right hand and feel Gwenith’s sickle in your palm. Feel its weight. Feel the midday heat collected in the handle. With this sickle, we cut our way through into wisdom, into prosperity, into harvest and into sacrifice.
With this sickle, we will cut down the Corn King, and let all of the true and beautiful gifts of his spirit cover the land.
Sickles at the ready! With the blessing of the Goddess, with words of thanks on our lips, we cut. One Two THREE!
The Corn King is Slain!