Lugnasadh Traditions, Symbols, and Rituals

Design your own ritual to celebrate the waning sun God and mother Goddess who will once agian give birth to the God. This is a time to think of the harvest and bounty of the land as it is the first of three harvest celebrations. Think of your directions, questions and needs and focus on them.

A traditional Lughnasadh pastime: Make witches' bottles to bury  and corn dollies to represent the sun God and save to place in the Bride's bed at Imbolc. Cast spells for abundance, connectedness, career, health, and financial gain.

Other traditional activities include  gathering and drying herbs, flower, grains or seeds for spellworking in the next year. Make magickal oils now with fresh herbs. Collect rain water for magickal workings and store in glass bottles.

Foods in tune with this day (linking your meals with the seasons is a  fine method of attuning with nature) include corn, rice, grains, wheat, ginsing, rye, alfalfa. Onion is sacred to the sun -- because of its shape, and its dye (as for Ostara eggs)  is golden like the sun. When the onion is cut, it reveals the symbolism of the moon. Garlic, too, is sacred to the moon -- the crescent shape of the cloves. It exorcises evil and protects. Make homemade bread, or corn bread,  incorporate fresh herbs and serve with fruits and veggies. Bake corn bread sticks, collect blackberries and make a pie marked with a solar cross.  Drink cider. Gather berries for use in recipes or wine-making. Rose petal wine would be appropriate.

Candles are red, gold, yellow, orange and green.

Incenses to be used alone or in combinations include eucalyptus, safflower oil and corn oil.

Plants and herbs are corn, rice, grains, wheat, oat, barley, hops, ginsing, rye, alfalfa, straw, goldenrod, peony, nasturtium, clover blossom, yarrow, heliotrope, boneset, vervain, Queen Anne's lace, myrtle, rose, sunflower, poppy, milkweed, Irish moss, mushroom,  garlic, onion, basil, mint, aloe, acacia, meadowsweet, apple leaf, raspberry leaf, strawberry leaf, blueberry leaf, mugwort, holly, comfrey, marigold, grape vine, ivy, hazelnut, blackthorn, elder, bee pollen.

Stones to use include clear quartz, yellow diamond, peridot, and citrine, tiger's-eye, advnturine, golden topaz, obsidian, moss agate, rhodochrosite,  marble, slate, granite, lodestone.

Animals and mythical beasts for this time of year are roosters, calves, pheonix, grifin, centaur.

Altars can be decorated with

Goddesses honored at this time concern grain, livestock and mothers. Ashran, Damia, Frey, Morgay, Persephone, Tea, Taillte, Tauret.

Gods honored at this time include  Bes, Bran, Llew, Llugh, Odin.

Chakra is the

The element is water.

The direction is South.

Zodiac sign is Cancer.

 
 

Lughnasadh Rite
Lughnasadh History  and Lore