Harvest Gratitude
Almost all spiritual traditions around the world have some form of celebrating the harvest season and giving thanks for the provision of the Creator through Earth. The Celtic traditions celebrate this moment of provision on or around August 1. It is called Lunasa (or other related names). Christians easily adopted this celebration as well, but more on that in a moment.
The festival celebration of Lunasa was, and still is, a time to call awareness to the fruits of the earth that were brought forth from their beginnings in Spring, ripened in Summer, and now are beginning to be ready for harvest, feasting, and storage. Lunasa is celebrated through gathering and enjoying the “first fruits” such as the bilberry (similar to a blueberry) or with loaves of bread baked from the first grain to be harvested and with dances, pilgrimage journeys to mountain tops (such as Croagh Patrick in Ireland), and trips to holy wells.
Ancient Celtic stories, which are reenanted at the celebrations, often tell of an important Celtic figure seizing the harvest grain stores from where they are being kept and guarded and defeating the giant of the land who represents blight and drought. These grain stores are then given to the people for their substance which erupts into feelings of gratitude and celebration.
Christian Celts, as well as other Christian traditions, adopted these celebratory and gratitude filled understandings of God’s cycle of provision and our dependence upon the generosity of God’s love and sustaining of all of life. This is also a time to indicate our reliance upon and participation with all that is natural and flowing from the Creator’s very Being. Life gives way to life again. Christians have called this celebration Lammas Day which means “Loaf Day”. This is a day to enjoy bread baked from the first grains of the season as a way of giving thanks and communing with Divine goodness and provision. And sometimes this bread is seen as the bread of Communion and thus is not only a symbol of provision but becomes the great symbol of taking God’s very being into our being and bringing life to us anew.
In honor of this day, I will enjoy a newly baked loaf of bread with a deliberate pause to bring gratitude into view and to humbly realize reliance upon God’s sustaining in each and every moment. It is a time to say thank you to Earth and to the Creator for allowing life to flow through my life and a prayer that my life would also bless the life of other people, creatures, and all of creation as well. And it is also a time for a trip to a water source, like an ancient well, spring, stream, river, or sea that illustrates the life-blood of Earth as it brings the energetic and physical foundation of life to all of us. Earth holds us beautifully and offers these symbols of body and blood for our redemption on this day. Perhaps you can find your way into a deliberate moment of feeling your inclusion amongst all things and allow your gratitude to come forth as you give yourself over to participation in the Divinely crafted flow of all of life.
-Kirk Webb
(Director of the Celtic Center)