The first of August goes under many names: Lammas, the Festival of First
Fruits, Lughnasadh, and more. It marks the start of harvest. What used to happen
is that the first ripe grain was cut, ground, and baked into a loaf which was
then blessed in church. In earlier times there seem to have been gatherings on
hill-tops and celebrations to go with them. All in all it seems to have been a
jolly time.
This reason for all this merrymaking is that this is one of the days which
divide the year into four; the others are at the beginnings of February, May and
November, and we usually know the last of these as Hallowe'en. These days
fall half-way between an equinox and a solstice. In this case it is between the
summer solstice (June 21) and Autumn Equinox (September 23). So we are now far
enough away from midsummer to start looking towards autumn; we start noticing
that the evenings are not quite as light so late as they were, nor the sun so
hot.
Near where I live, on an old road which joins two towns, there is a pub
called the Half Way Inn. It is, of course, half way between the two towns, and in
the days before cars it would have been a good place to rest. In the journey of
the year, we are now well into the final stages of summer. Lammas is
therefore a good time to take a little rest (older readers will remember the times
when the August Bank Holiday was at the start of August instead of the end), to
enjoy the fruits of our efforts, and to start thinking about the next stage of
our journey.
A Good Week for a Barbecue...
Adam Smith writes: Venus in Leo is following the Sun very closely in his path this week,
catching up slowly before springing a slick overtaking move later in the month. We
may describe somebody as a 'people person', well, Venus is a 'people planet'
and the best thing is that under her sociable influence, charm and good times
are the norm. Expect to hear a lot about peace in the coming week, too.
