Celebrating Sabbats: Lammas
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The Sun Harvest
In case you’re wondering what those links are up top, this Sabbat Special is part of the Tarot Blog Hop, with the topic The Sun Harvest: What end of Summer harvest do you want to bring in before fall? This hop is like the mythical town of Brigadoon. It all shows up at the same time. On the Sabbat. Just like magic! If you like tarot, please follow those links up top, and read more from others just like me but cooler. And then comment. And then share!! Let’s give tarot a boost at this very special time of year!
The house where I live was my grandparents’, and for as long as I can remember, there was always a vase of flowers in the house from the garden. It’s the sort of garden which blossoms year round, a garden which keeps on giving. And even though the sun has been beating and grass is scorched, the roses and chives are still managing to keep up their chins.
Lammas, The Sun Harvest, marks the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn. Well, that makes sense to me – mid way between midsummer and the Autumn equinox, and the leaves are starting to fall. Well, they have been for a few weeks now, it seems even the trees are struggling to survive in this blazing heat we’ve had for the last few months. Lammas, known as the first harvest, is a time of giving thanks, but if I’m honest I’m finding it hard to do so this year, since thanks to the dry hot summer the garden is struggling, and the vegetable are late and sparse. 
But each and every day, I do try to remember to show my gratitude to the Universe, and today it was for the raspberries. We don’t have many this year (in fact there are so few that I have been collecting them in my Nana’s mint sauce boat, rather than the desert bowl I’d normally use…. but they looked so puny in there), but those we do have are delicious. It’s almost as though they are trying to make up for their predecessors, the first batch of raspberries which were tiny and bitter due to lack of water.
And next week we’re have an Apple Pie Night. It’s a Pot Luck without the element of luck. Everyone just brings an apple dish. Apple tart, apple cake, apple pie, apple juice… it doesn’t matter. Apple and raspberry crumble if you like, or blackberries if you prefer! But the dish has to be made with apples off our tree, and raspberries or blackberries from the garden. We can’t wait!
So it isn’t difficult to decide what I’m going to use as the base of my Lammas spread, it just has to be a raspberry. So let me go find that red paper again… the same paper I used for the Valentine Spread. No. I’ve changed my mind… I’m going to do an apple, not a raspberry. First to formulate the questions. Well, we need to find out part I played in the garden growing as it did,
The Whispering Tarot
First, an easy one, the core. What is at the heart of the issue? That the flesh grows around, and from which grows the seeds for what is to come next. And I think I’ll ask for a water card, representing what goodness I put into my fruit, and perhaps a sun card, what challenges did I have to face. And I’ll ask one card about the flesh, what goodness can I take out of my situation? And perhaps finish with a bit of a bruise (yup, we always get some, but husband eats them, I prefer not to)… What do I need to try and avoid damaging this apple.
I amaze myself every time. I love the spreads I make! And this one is simple enough to use for entertainment at our apple pie party… which is apparently also going to have bobbing apples as well, according to Summer, our lodger’s daughter. And hanging apples too… hanging on string from the rafters under our monsoon shelter (I thought about making snowman type dolls, actually, and hanging them… but do you think that’s a bit macabre?) And toffee apples which we’re going to make there (I need to google toffee apple recipes now – so if you know of any great sites, please leave them below). I look forward to hearing from you!
Anyway, this post is getting far too long, so rather than posting my reading here, I have created a separate post for it, just in case you’re interested: Celebrating Lammas: The Apple Spread
And if you enjoyed this blog hop post… check out more here:
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