T: I love bread.
S: yes so that is why we gave you the whole bread episode last week so you could be ready for today. SO the festivities fall between July 31 and August 3 in the northern hemisphere and January 31 and February 2 in the southern hemisphere. It is a harvest festival, So it's all about reaping rewards and bounties and it's the time to appreciate all the earth has done for us but also understand that there are darker times coming.
T: yes it's a time of getting prepared.
S a lot of the traditions surround the first crop that's harvested at this time which is a wheat. the first sheaf of wheat is often cut ceremoniously, the grain separated and then as used to make bread. this bread is then shared with the entire community
T: yes you share the bounty
S: the last sheaf is also cut ceremoniously but then it is turned into a corn dolly. and the dolly is stored until the new year at samhain and then re-buried into the earth. another Lammas related tradition is the Lammas Bannock it's a cake that is both baked and eaten outside and as the cake is being eaten pieces are thrown over the shoulder to feed the predatory animals that live in the area as a petition to these animals to not eat the livestock in the coming year.
T: It is also again part of sharing the bounty, so you're sharing what you have with them in the hopes they don't take what is not bountiful, Like the animals.
S: and that is a big belief of this festival in general, and let's be honest life in general, that sharing your bounty means that good things will come back to you.
T: yes put good energy out in the universe it'll come back to you.
S: so as we usually do with these sabbat episodes, let's get into the correspondences. so the colors traditionally associated with Lammas are brown orange gold yellow and green so it's those traditional harvest nature colors but you still get a little bit of that green in there cause we're still in the summer season. the animals are cows sheeps roosters and Bucks. the crystals are citrine which we talked about in the crystals episode as being associate with the sun, cat's-eye Carnelian adventure, the herbs, flowers, trees there are a lot of them, wheat obviously, also barley oats and rye, harvest things, Sage Meadow Sweet Rose aloe heather oak basil elderflower and sunflower. the foods are breads of course which is why we did last weeks episode, apples greens potatoes beer, pears rice elderflower drinks and mead so stay tuned because next week is all about booze. all that next week. the incense and oils are rose rosemary frankincense and sandalwood the deities are Lugh of course, Demeter Persephone Loki Thor Odin and Cerridwen. Cerridwen is like at the Celtic goddess underworld related like Persephone is, so all about that rebirth. And the spells that are good to work At this time are all about money abundance of career health and connection.
so let's go to the fun part which is how you can celebrate. Wear are the colors we always talk about that you can always wear the colors if your in a broom closet and don't or can't necessarily outwardly celebrate this, wearing the colors is a good way to sort of subtly acknowledge the festivities some other good enough in the broom closet thing to do is just take a nature walk and collect berries nothing poisonous be smart, check your books, picking apples and baking pies and crumbles are good way to celebrate if you're still in the broom closet because that's obviously something that's popular even with non witches. and if you are I want whether you're in or out of the broom closet you can make a corn dollies those are very popular this time of year bonfire since this is a fire festival it is very popular to have bonfires this time of year and to throw petitions in the to the fire. so there's something associated with lammas that's called the wicker man and you it's this little wicker man that you make and you stick your petitions in there, what you want to ask for and throw him into the fire or you can just write your petitions down and throw them into fire that's find too. fire dancing is another popular one if you're going to use the bonfires and especially if you are part of a coven or celebrating with other witches, ritual fire dancing is a lot of fun.
and baking bread and giving offerings obviously that's why we started with a bread episode it's kind of like the main the main point out but also to give up those breads as offerings so give those offerings back to the earth, to the creatures around, we also had the Fae episode that bread is one of the things that they do like. having a feast is very traditional even if you're in the broom closet you can still make a ton of different food if your family or friends it doesn't know you don't have to tell them it's a just a feast, it could be just just for you but since it is a holiday about the bounty it's traditional to make a huge feast and celebrate
T: yes I do that I do a huge feast invite friends over and then we have a bonfire.
S: decorating your altar of course this is also a good time to dry herbs and flowers for your spellwork. Making a besom is also popular, we talked about that in witch tools that the besom is the broom and sort of collecting the twigs and things that nature is starting to shred, shed and is a good way to get a besom started and then a lot of people like to do house cleansing either Mabon to get ready for samhain or at samhain that's like the new year so either making the besom in preparation of doing a house cleanse this is the holiday that you do that.
T: yes and you also want to make it early enough and this is just for personal experience you want to be able to bless it and cleanse it after you've already assembled it so it's really good to make it right around this time because then it's already to go for the new year.
S: prosperity workings are obviously good for this time to bring in an abundance a lot of people like to prosperity working at samhain, at the new year, but that is when the crops have died out so the prosperity is actually more associated with this holiday when everything is in abundance and like being reaped. Local fest and farmers markets are always popular at this time is it sort of like the good ending of them but it's when they have them most crops available good time to visit those and if they are open by you they are open here in Chicago I don't know.
T: they are open-ish you have to pre-order things right now and then it's a drive-through market
S: Yeah ours here are not really restricted they were going to do that that's the one restriction on our farmers market is that they have barriers up and you just tell the people who are working what you want and they pick it out for you you can't touch anything, so you don't touch the produce and then someone else handles the money.
T: It's kind of weird to do a farmers market where you can't like touch things or see what you're ordering that you have to pre-order and they're only allowed to bring in exactly what it was been ordered and then you pick up exactly what was ordered and you don't interact with all the different vendors and think it's very strange to me, it's very weird but it's still good to get fresh produce locally.
S: and the last thing that we have on the list to celebrate is to do any sort of dream magic this is also a good time for your dream workings.
T: also pay attention to your dreams even if you're not doing anything related this is the time when I get very oddly specific dreams and it's really good to pay attention to them around this time.
S: that is all the ideas that we have for you and I personally enjoy Lammas we are now getting in to the half of the year that that I enjoy holidays of, I'm not so big, we talked about that you don't like I like Beltane and Litha I know that they're not they favorites I like the dark half the year
T: but again it comes back to food I like celebrating on holidays are all amazing and I love them all but I just don't like it being cold. but I believe this year we're gonna be celebrating Lammas together and it's very exciting
S: so the last thing that we want to update you on because this is been something we've been working on and it's kind of fun so in the other sabbat episodes we have been asking if you would be interested in a sabbat related subscription box. obviously be eight times a year that we would start sending out and would include things to get you ready to celebrate that sabbat. It would be things like crystals and candles, some information about it maybe books or pendulums or whatever it is that is related that we can put in a box for you and we did get a lot of feedback that people would be interested in something like that. We are excited to offer this to you the thing is that we really can't start doing that yet because of the current state of the world. it's just it's making it difficult to sort of get all of the things that we would want to put in a box for you, and you know from your end we totally understand why you might not want to order something that's like coming to your house in the mail like you know you know that we're not sick but you never been some people are wary, we understand to it's Something we're going to offer in the future we are on hold until things kind of clear up a little bit the restrictions are lifted a little bit.
but what we have been working on instead is a patreon account. so if you do not know what Patreon is it is a website PATREON and in the notes for this podcast as well as on our website I will link to that account is and it is a website where we can offer our patrons you would subscribe there will be different tiers that cost a different amount each month and you can subscribe to get exclusive content that is only available to the patrons. basically how it works. eventually the highest level tier on there will be a subscription boxes that's where we're going to offer those.
So although they are not available yet that is where you will find them and we will definitely update on this podcast when Those come out but again it's likely not going to be until 2021. so we're working through that hard so hopefully next next year sometime we can start offering those but in the meantime we are offering other exclusive content on Patreon so if you want to check us out there you will find things that are not on the website and not on this podcast.
and they are things like blog post that are not on the blog or just like written things videos and yeah like planning, book reviews and we're going to do spell work on there, like the Rosemary glamour hair rinse, a video of me by noon cider is coming up all those things will be on there and the first tier to join is that when you do join you will get a Oracle card reading I will do a card pull for you and you get the card in the mail, I will send it to you and do a complete reading for you based off of that card and it's yours to keep.
lots of information on there so we encourage you to go and check it out we've been working on it
T: and by we she means her a lot and I've helped very little but I'm very excited about it
S: I have done all the posting so far but Tara will, I promise you I'm gonna make her.
T: she's always that is forcing me to do things.
S: she promised you more information about Tea
T: I can show you how to braid bread which is one of my favorite things braided bread they're so good witchy book reviews
S: but it is just another way for us to offer more content to you because this podcast is kind of limited forum and we can only do so much somethings are easier in video format for you to to see especially when we kind of walk you through things like spells and casting a circle, It might be just easier to to see that in a video format even though we have directed you to YouTube and other creators, but in case you want to see it from us we are going to work on providing all those things for you and it's just a another way for you to support us as well because we put a lot of work into this.
its way that you can support us and we can give something back to you in the form of extra content and work, card readings and eventually subscription boxes.
We have polls on there we can you can contact us directly it's very easy way to make comments and interact with us but with other you know witches in this community each other. highly encourage you to check it out we very much appreciate your support and that is all we have for you this week for Lammas and next week it's like Tara's pride and joy making wine mead and cider podcast. Tara will be a completely in charge of next weeks episode so could good either way
T: I am very excited even if it's a big old flop I'm very excited
S: Tune in then we will see you next week
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