Lughnasa Blessings

Today marks my thirteenth anniversary in service to the Goddess, and to Her consort, An Daghdha!  Indeed, by Lughnasa of 2002 I had been practicing the Old Ways for approximately five years, and I had a great deal of knowledge already under my belt.  That only increased in the thirteen years that followed.  I would like to take a moment, yet again, to share my personal religious calling with you, as well as to explain what the Sabbat of Lughnasa means to me and how it is celebrated within the confines of the Covenant of Morrighan.

My story actually began thirteen years ago yesterday, on the Eve of Lughnasa.[1]  As I was sitting on the back steps to my home that overlooks a field heavy with maize (corn), I reflected upon the meaning of tomorrow's celebration.  Suddenly, and to my amazement, someone in the distance began igniting a truly fabulous fireworks display of an almost professional caliber over the field.  Whether or not the maize farmers knew the Mysteries of Lughnasa, I do not pretend to know.  However, I took this as a fortuitous omen of what was to come!  When the last wisp of light faded into the warm embrace of that summer night I stood up, and retired to bed.

That night, as I slept, the goddess appeared to me in my dreams, but it was all-too quick to fade when I awoke the next morning with only Her name on my lips and in my heart.  That day, as I prepared my simple solitary Lughnasa Rite I extended a "psychic tether" to my Goddess, lighting an especially prepared red candle, unsure of what to make of my vague dream the night before!  As I went about my day through town I was keen to observe any signs that The Morrighan was responding to my "return message".  But, nothing revealed itself to me.  Not until that night as I slept, when I was besot by a grand Visionary Experience involving the Goddess adorned in Her regal vestments, leaving no doubt about Her intentions.  I had been Initiated by the hand of the Goddess into Her sacred Mysteries!  Indeed, serving my Lady has been the greatest, the most rewarding, and the most challenging experience of my life.  And I will be forever grateful.

The Cult-Image of An Morrighan at Beltane with an offering
of lilacs, which were also known as "May Flower".

Over the ten years that followed, as I began to research Celtic society and tribal religion, and how The Morrighan was viewed by Her contemporaries, a new paradigm began to emerge from the academic consensus as well as the source-material, which ultimately exhibited my Goddess as an Earth-Mother Goddess of Sovereignty whose consort was tied to Her fertility and the sustenance that She could provide as the personification of the Land itself.  As a consequence, within the doctrinal structures of The Covenant of Morrighan, we celebrate our Lady as the Harvest Mother during Lughnasa.  However, only he who is deemed the Champion of the Goddess as the winner of the rough Lughnasa Games, may be rewarded with the ruddy mantle of the Goddess.  It is a special cloak worn over the ritual robes signifying this Holy position.  The Champion must them take a vow of fealty to his Brothers and Sisters of the Craft, as well as to the Earth whom he is charged with defending.

[1] This is another important layer of synchronicity that was revealed, much later, through my academic research into Celtic society, religion, and culture.  The Iron Age cultures that inhabited western Europe and the British Isles calculated the onset of a new day not with the dawn as we are generally accustomed, but with with the preceding evening when the sun has set.  Presumably, this was considered the moment when the indigenous tribal Sun-God entered the Underworld in his chariot of white horses!