How to celebrate Lughnasadh or Lammas in 2024: Welcoming the Harvest
Early August is by far my favorite time of year: the garden is overflowing with vegetables, goldenrod and sunflowers are blooming, and the sun is setting a little earlier each day—autumn is on its way. Along with this time of year comes Lughnasadh, or Lammas, a celebration of the first harvest.
Just a note: while this holiday has two names, Lughnasadh is the traditional name, and Lammas is a more recent Christian spelling, translating to “loaf-mass.” For the purpose of this blog post, I’ll be using Lughnasadh.
Lughnasadh is one of the eight sabbats celebrated during the wheel of the year. It falls on August first or second—about halfway between the summer and autumn equinoxes. Lughnasadh is associated with celebrating the first wheat harvests of the year, as well as coming together to bake bread and share in the harvest with friends and neighbors.
The holiday of Lughnasadh is one of four Gaelic festivals celebrated throughout the year. Celebrations of the holiday in the Middle Ages often centered around feasting, trading and matchmaking, while more recent celebrations are often marked by sharing bread or having dinner with friends. In early Ireland, it was believed that harvesting before Lughnasadh was bad luck; it meant the previous season’s harvest ran out early.
While Lughnasadh is often celebrated by witches, wiccans, and pagans in the present day, it can and is observed by people falling outside of these categories as well.
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Common symbols of Lughnasadh
Some common symbols of Lughnasadh include:
- Colors: yellow, gold, green, brown, orange
- Crystals: citrine, aventurine, carnelian, jasper, moss agate
- Foods: bread, butter, blackberries, peppers, corn
- Herbs: yarrow, parsley, mullein, thyme, sage
- Plants: sunflower, juniper, daisy, cedar, alder
How to celebrate Lughnasadh in 2024
1. Bake and share bread
Since Lughnasadh is traditionally a celebration of the first grain harvest, a great way to celebrate is baking a loaf of bread to share with friends. Or, if you want to get creative, you can try another wheat-based recipe; cinnamon buns and scones are two of my favorites for Lughnasadh.
2. Harvest what’s growing in your garden
Another great way to celebrate Lughnasadh is to harvest whatever you have growing in your garden—bonus points if you share your crops with friends and neighbors. For me, living on the West Coast of B.C., my garden is full of beans, peas, cucumbers if I’m lucky, and some early carrots.
3. Hold a feast
What better way to celebrate Lughnasadh than to use your harvest in a feast! For Lughnasadh, I like to make a cucumber dill salad, grilled chicken, and blueberry sorbet—with fresh-baked bread, of course. However, you may also want to try more traditional meals, such as Dublin coddle, soda bread, roasted corn, and blackberry pie.
4. Gather seasonal wildflowers
Gathering seasonal wildflowers is the perfect way to decorate your space for the season. Where I live, there are countless flowers blooming at the beginning of August, including sunflowers, goldenrod, echinacea, asters, and black-eyed Susans.
5. Attend a local fair, festival, or farm
If you’re lucky, your town will have a summer festival or fair where you can celebrate Lughnasadh. If not, visiting a farm open to locals to walk through the orchards and fields is a great substitute. Most u-pick farms open right around Lughnasadh to give folks a chance to pick the early season apples.
6. Reflect on your year so far
Since Lughnasadh is a turning point in the year—the time that all the hard work you put into your garden and life is coming to fruition—it’s the perfect time to reflect. Think about and celebrate how far you’ve come, but also consider how you want to spend your year going forward: what will you work toward with the months you have left?
7. Offer something back to the earth
Since the earth grows the food and flowers in our gardens, a good way to celebrate Lughnasadh is to offer something back to the earth as a way of thanks. This could be in the form of late-season seeds (calendula is a good choice), or conserving water, or going to a local park to pick up trash.
8. Practice abundance magic
Since Lughnasadh is all about abundance—collecting the crops we’ve put hard work into—another great way to celebrate Lughnasadh is to practice abundance magic. This can be done in any way that aligns with how you work, including candle magic, a ritual, creating a sigil, or any other method that draws you in.
Parting thoughts
I hope this post gives you some ideas of how you’ll celebrate Lughnasadh this year; feel free to let me know in the comments what you’re planning. While I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing, I know I’ll be spending the evening with a few close friends—and I know there will be lots of bread.
xoxo,
Catherine
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Some more posts you may like:
All you need to know about the phases of the moon: a beginner’s guide to lunar cycles
How to Start an Herb Garden at Home: Herb Gardening for Beginners
Tincture Making 101: How to Make an Herbal Tincture for Anxiety
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