John Barleycorn is dead.

Today is Lammas or Lughnasadh. It is the season of the harvest.

In days of old, this was a time of celebration and of meditation. Festivals of plenty, Handfastings, weddings, grains and butchering and gathering took place.

Lugh is the deity of the day and the season of harvest. His foster mother, Tailtiu, supposedly cleared a forest for planting and thusly died of exhaustion.

How like a woman. She also didn't want anyone to fuss over her, but to have "games" and fun at her funeral.

How totally like a woman.

I'm sure if she could've gotten up off her funeral pyre and done dishes and put out dessert she would've.
It's what women DO.

They OVERdo.
They give all they have.
Then they get exhausted and die.
People miss them when they are gone, but mostly they will probably just miss their cooking.

When it's my "time to go"..... I want you folks to party too.
Fucking DRINK, would you?
Please play "Rosin the Bow" and have a keg at the funeral home or at Squirrel Haven.

Tailtiu knew that was the way to go. And so I aim to be like that as well.
Of course, it would be nice to be appreciated while you are here....
Party NOW....
Love NOW....
Lammas and Lughnasadh remind us that the time for harvesting, appreciating is NOW.

(i.e. I'd rather have a single rose today then a bouquet on my casket....)

Lammas is a day of HARVEST.  A day to reap what you've sown.
So, what have you sown?
Literally....or figuratively.

It can be a day of ponderance and meditation.
Is it a day of plenty?
Or will you starve this winter?

It's lovely to go out to the garden and pick things off the vine. We can do this physically or emotionally or spiritually in our lives. We do reap what we've sown.

But not always.

Sometimes the things we've planted don't grow.  The soil wasn't rich enough in nutrients to be able to nurture the precious seed.

Or maybe it didn't rain enough, or we forgot to water with love or attention.

Or maybe, things were growing right nice, and we were robbed by others. Bastard rabbits, the little fuck machines, came by and ate down all my sunflowers, peppers and squash blossoms. They were MINE. I worked hard on preparing the soil and planting, watering, weeding.

Or maybe blight, some inner disease brought in by others or on a whiff of the wind, killed your plants. In a day or a week, all was lost. All for naught.

Still, I have to keep on planting, learning and growing with my plants.
Maybe some of my "seeds" will keep dormant and grow when the time is right. Maybe I will be surprised one day by a tomato I didn't plant who decides to grow of its' own volition. Maybe the love I've sown with others from my heart to theirs will some day be appreciated.

But I like going out to pick the things that I've worked so hard on. I am sad when time has been spent on plants that won't thrive. I've given them everything that I had, and still...they are stunted.
What the hell?
Oh well.....
maybe it wasn't your fault at all...
"The Gods love those who TRY."
You just can't do more than that, other than compost everything and try again with new plants and seeds next year, eh?

Maybe it wasn't what you offered them at all.
Maybe they were inhibited in some way you didn't know about.
Maybe they weren't physically able to take in the nutrients of the soil for whatever reason.
Maybe they were a strange hybrid with particular quirks or growing conditions.
Maybe they were just bad seed.

Who the fuck knows?

But I love the plants that produce the effects of good fruit best.
"By their fruit ye shall know them".

Delicious, ripe and worth saving.

John Barleycorn HAS to die, in order to be reborn.

But he won't be just plain old corn anymore.

He'll be a MUCH stronger "spirit" in the end.

Song: John Barleycorn (Steel Eye Span)


So, here's to Lammas!

Here's a drink to John Barley Corn! 

Here's to reaping the good that you sow.