Lughnassadh Meditation

Sir or lie comfortably in a favourite spot. Close your eyes. Ground and center. Acknowledge your personal guardians and gods, and project a circle around you. Breathe deeply and steadily.
Without opening your eyes, take a moment and study your surroundings… This time of year, all around you is abundance, for the first harvest is here, the harvest of the grain… So as you breathe, just observe all the greenery, the ripening fruits on tree and vine, the flowers in bloom, the golden grain in fields and wild places… and breathe…

All around us, the signs of harvest appear, and we know it is almost time to choose… what will be taken for our greater good? What will remain to ripen into form? What will be left to nature to recycle into compost? Likewise, in the harvest of the self, we must choose… What will we keep as we prepare to enter the Dark Time? It seems so far away now, but it will be here before we know it, perhaps before we are prepared for it… and so, we must think now of this inner harvest and what we will choose to keep, what we will let “ripen”, what we will leave to the gods to recycle into spiritual “compost”, as our spirits grow and evolve… and breathe… And now, just take a moment to consider these things.

Here, in this place and time, the sun wanes, yet we know he will return, for he is the sacrificed Kin, the god of the harvest and the grain, and he goes willingly under the scythe, to feed his people… and so at this time we are called upon to decide what we are willing to sacrifice as well… for on this path, there will be larger and larger sacrifices of time as study deepens and skills develop… We must decide what our priorities are… what are we willing to give to the greater good of this planet and our smaller subculture of brothers and sisters of the Craft? Perhaps we have a calling of some sort, and we are either planning to offer our gifts to the larger community, or perhaps we are still honing those gifts… only we can decide when we are ready… So just take a moment now and ponder these thoughts… your gifts… and breathe… see the abundance around you…

Know that whatever you give in the name of love and truth, in the name of spirit, the universe will refill almost immediately… so our willing sacrifices, then, are doubly sacred, doubly rewarded, for we have given of our hearts. For this is the true nature of the giveaway - to give so willingly, to surrender to the will of the gods, is to understand that we are but vessels, receiving and priming, and then overflowing with the energy of the Divine… and as we come to this place, we find there is more than enough… for our fellows, our sweet Mother Earth, ourselves… and now just take a moment to see how this cycling occurs… observe the process, be one with it, knowing all turns and returns again and again.