Embrace the energy of the first harvest in this enlightening episode of the Kairos Wisdom Keepers Podcast. We explore the traditions of Lammas and the ways you can amplify gratitude during this season of abundance. Learn about the spiritual practices that honor Gaia, the significance of grain and bread in rituals, and how to create meaningful offerings. This episode is packed with insights to help you connect with the cycles of nature and deepen your appreciation for the blessings in your life.
Welcome to our eighth episode of Kairos Wisdom Keepers, amplifying gratitude during the first harvest.
I’m Janet Raftis. And I’m Ina Lukas. And today we’re going to talk about what the cross-quarter holy day of Lammas is and how to bring appreciation to this particular season of your life. So we are in the harvest season, Lammas is the entryway. So Lammas, it translates as loaf mass. And it’s the first of three cross quarter days that honor the harvest. Lammas, Mabon, which is the fall equinox and Samhain. And this is the one that happens during high summer when things are really ripening and ready to be picked, ready to be sold at market, ready to be consumed. This celebration usually happens on August 1st, but its astrological day can vary some. So, Lammas is also known as Lughnasad, which is such a wild word. L -U -G -H -N -A -S -A -D, Lughnasad. It’s a celebration of the god Lugh, L -U -G -H, Lugh.
Lou is the god of craftsmanship and he’s skilled in many things, including blacksmithing, wheel making and fighting. Go Lugh. And it’s also a day that celebrates the mother goddess during pregnancy. She is at this point in the Wheel of the Year poised to birth new life and bring bounty into the world. And if you work with goddesses, this is a great time to work with summer mother or grain goddesses such as Demeter, Ceres, Corn Woman, Inanna, Mama Sara, Ocean, Sif or Inari. traditionally, Lammas was the day in which the first grains were harvested.
That’s why what we’re really celebrating here is the first harvest. And in fact, it was considered bad luck to harvest the grains before then. And so by the end of the day on the Lamma celebration, the first loaves of bread would be made from it. So this is, you know, the season of corn and wheat and bread are big symbols of this time of year, of this celebration. Because of its association with grain as an essential component of the celebration, including grains and bread on your altar or in your ritual is a great way to honor the deities. And so, you know, for thousands and thousands of years throughout the world, we’re talking about one particular European tradition, but harvests are celebrated around the globe because it was a very important time of the year. This was the time everybody knew they were going to be fed, they were going to be nourished. It was a time to gather. You might get together and see people you hadn’t seen all year. And so it was a time of heightened celebration. And this was when at these cross quarter days, this was when they really did show their appreciation for the deities, for the goddess, for the God, where they really did have offerings to them. There was this practice of reciprocity happen. And so no matter what tradition you come from, we’re speaking to one in particular that is called Lammas, but the energy of this day is throughout the globe and it falls around the same time within the cycle, right? So whether you’re on the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere, when it gets time for high summer, there is likely some sort of celebration that honors the of abundance that is growing in the field and that likely has a tradition of creating offerings for the deities who are supporting you in bringing this forward, which is why we have Horn Goddess, Demeter, all of these mother goddesses, agricultural goddesses around the world also when the Earth is closest to the Sirius star system. It’s when we’re very connected to our psychic abilities and intuition and receiving an abundance of downloads at this time.
So we talked extensively about the Lionsgate portal in our last episode, episode seven, on harnessing the Lionsgate portal. And there’s no coincidence that this time coincides together. have an abundance. of connection to source, connection to higher powers and the abundance of the gardens is really starting to kick in. So right now, here we are in the beginning of August. Summer really is at its height, but the days are getting shorter and right around the first of August each year, especially if you’re the further you are from the equator the more you feel the impact of the days shortening, right? On the summer solstice, that was the longest day. And so the days have been getting shorter over the past six weeks, but it’s right around August 1st here in Lammas that our biology really starts feeling the impact of these shorter days. And I wanna honor that for any of you that are starting to feel depression that are starting to feel a little sadness. I know for me, when I lived in Wisconsin, every summer around the beginning of August, I could start to feel the sadness in me. could start, I could really feel the of light the shorter days impact my biology. It’s so important at this time to really keep getting outside in the morning sunrise. We’re going to say this over and over, know, going outside at night, but still taking the light into your body because the quality of light changes at this time of year.
And just as we’re in the first harvest, there is also a shift from this point forth where there’s a bounty of harvest that’s coming in, but also there’s a slowing that starts, like we’ve peaked in the plant world. And so it’s this time that is signaling to our biology that autumn is on its way. And there might be grief in that, as Ina is saying, right?
It’s interesting to remember, or important for us to remember, that our bodies are synced to the sun and the amount of light we’re getting in the same way that it is synced to the plants.
Right? And so the sunlight, the amount of sunlight signals to plants peak growing times, you know, and then the time that start to shed. Right? And so what happens after the peak? Well, if we don’t harvest the bounty, it’s going to start to wilt. It’s going to start to droop. It’s going to start to fall off. It’s going to start to rot. Right. Because that is the natural cycle. And so here, as you know, as saying we’re hitting the peak, but as we hit the peak, we also start that process of releasing. In the very initial stages, we get into that in Samhain, right with the last harvest. But for now, already, we’re getting these signals that it’s time to start releasing and letting go. It’s time to start the initial stages of shedding. And that can bring up a lot. And you know, it may even be on a subconscious level, you may not even be recognizing like, why does my energy start to wilt a little bit right now? Why am I starting to feel a little down? So as you know, said like, the more you can attuned to and have awareness around what’s happening, the more you can align with it, the more you can accommodate your life to be fully immersed, attuned to the cycle because that is going to support you in recognizing these feelings are normal. And as you go through it, you’re going to be bolstered by the continued connection of really understanding what’s happening while also being in the space of really being able to honor the feelings that are coming and the feelings of release that may be happening along with the celebration of the bounty and that those two things can coexist. And honoring the feelings that are happening in your biology, any fears that are coming up,worry coming up.
There is ancestral lineage for those of you, those of us, that our ancestry comes from more northern, please southern climates, less equatorial, where when this time of year really meant that we had to harvest to make it through the winter, right?
And so another energy of Lammas is that it’s this time to think about your hopes and your fears because it’s a time of first harvest. Like we’re really coming into more and more bounty in our gardens seasonally where the, you know, the fruits, the grains, everything is starting to kind of hit its mass peak of harvesting. But simultaneously you could lose your crop overnight.
So when we go back into that ancestral energy of fear, it’s like we have all this hope that yes, you know,the tomatoes and the squashes and the pumpkins and the things that are going to get us through the winter. We’re watching them grow. We’re watching them reach their peak so that we can harvest them. But you could lose your crop overnight. that fear is still there of how are we going to get through the winter? How are we going to get through the dormant times? And so there can be survival mode happening in your DNA if this is in your ancestry. I mean, for example, my arugula was all just about to peak, like I was about to harvest all my arugula. And the other morning I came out and literally overnight I had Luper caterpillars like just completely eat, decimate all of my arugula. And I’m like, damn, that was like, you know, it’s overnight that the entire thing can go that you put all these, you know, months and weeks and months into of growing. So you can translate that out from the garden into your life.
You know, like, what have you been building? What have you been growing? Maybe there are fears coming up. Like, what if it doesn’t pan out? What if some sort of, you know, symbolic storm or a pest infestation comes in and takes away my harvest? You know, so looking at the areas of your life where you’re feeling fear coming up.
Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. And especially as we enter into the time where there really is a lot more scarcity, or was historically, right now we have grocery stores with food from all over the world. And it’s not as much of an issue. But as Ina said, it’s in our ancestry. And as you were telling that story too about your garden, I wanted to add in Ina, what you told me this morning is that Ina then took
She harvested that arula that she could no longer eat with all the caterpillars on it. And caterpillar shit all over it. Let’s just say caterpillars poop so much. And she took all of that and she fed it to the neighbor’s chicken. So chickens got the bounty, right? Yes. So like there’s a point here too where we can always remember that there are cycles and flows and currency flows, right? And so, yes, Ina took a hit on her bounty, but she was also able to provide abundance for the chickens and for neighbor and the cycles continue, right?
So even when we get into that space of like, something could be gone, something could be released, we have to remember things are always flowing in and out.
And this is such a huge piece, I think, for us in the abundance conversation in general is we can get caught up in like this thing I thought was going to happen didn’t happen. And there can be fear within our DNA. There can be fear within our nervous system around that. And also we can always reframe. The universe is always working to support you. And there are ebbs and flows and cycles and currency, right? I currency is the actual word that we use for money in many occasions. And that’s because it comes and goes. And so as we go through this, what can you notice about not just, you know, the flows, but the ebbs and always ebb and flow, ebb and flow. We say those things together. So what may not be working in the way you thought it was going to or in your expectation, well, it could be shifting the abundance cycle in some way where it’s still going to come back around.
It’s such a powerful concept that we’re working with here because this time of year is this juxtaposition of harvest energy with death energy. So it’s abundance with loss. so much and letting go because there are lot of plants that in order to harvest them, you’re actually then killing the plant. The plant is done. the plant has lived out its cycle, right? The plant did what it was meant to do. It fruited, it flowered, it bloomed, and it produced this bounty that is filled with all the seeds to create the next cycle of life, you know, for that plant. So even though we’re harvesting and things are being cut back and taken down, it is all part of that cycle of life. So that’s why Lammas is such a powerful representation of this energy of hope and fear, of beginnings and ending. And the key in all of this is the depth of appreciation and gratitude for everything, for everything that you have. harvested in your life. This time of the first harvest was traditionally a time for very special offerings. The first foods to harvest and the first grain that was ready to reap was considered especially sacred as if it carried within them the spirit of the goddess herself.
I mean, that’s so powerful. And we can really see how when people were more connected to the earth, and this is going to be different for people who live in the country, people who are farmers, for people who live in cities and have been removed from this, right? But this connection to Gaia really was a spiritual practice. And the peoples for thousands of years and over, you know, the entire world, because everybody needs sustenance, right? So they celebrated that they were actually taking in the energy of the divine, right? And it wasn’t separate, and it’s not separate. We just have forgotten because we go to a grocery store and we can pick up food from all over the world, right? And so there’s a disconnect that it’s actually like, it’s in this giant place with fluorescent lighting and it’s kind of cold, you know? We can disconnect from the energy that it actually is Gaia herself, offering herself, her manifestations. right, as a part of her body, just like we are all goddess, everything and God and everything that exists is of the divine. So all of this food that is growing is actually that sacred body of the divine. And so we can return to that. This is a part of the gratitude practice is really reconnecting with our food. And this is just one of many reasons why, you know, as much as you can eat seasonally locally is great, not always possible, but as much as you can, it gets you into that space of not just what you know, and I have talked about so much about taking in the light codes of the season and all of that, but there’s this piece too about really remembering that what you are taking into your body has come from source, has come from Gaia. Gaia herself is the body of the divine and all that grows in it is a fruit of her experience, of her expression, of her labor, so to speak. And when we ingest We are really, we are enjoying the fruits of the goddess for taking that into our bodies and allowing ourselves in this awareness to have this very powerful experience of appreciation and gratitude for all that she shares with us.
Yeah. And you know, this is why Janet and I are bringing through the Kairos Wisdom Keepers is bringing us back into remembrance.
It’s really the last 100 years where the biggest disconnection from nature itself has occurred. But when you look at that, 100 years is a blip in our ancestral DNA of our real connection through. And so we are at this time remembrance, remembering, feeling in our bodies. Even like Janet said, if you’re in cities and not outside garden or getting all your food from the grocery stores, the remembrance is happening. This is part of the awakening, the awakening, the remembrance of who we are. And a big disconnect that happens is the lack of appreciation for nature itself, the lack of appreciation for our beautiful Earth Mother Gaia that sustains us. So how do you really celebrate this season of Lammas? And one of the ways to do that is to feel deep, deep gratitude for the earth herself, feel the connection to nature, acknowledge how much has been given to you, how much has already been given to you throughout your entire life, how bounty how much harvest you have been on the receiving end of, how much you’ve already received and your gratitude and appreciation is a giving back. Feeling ungrateful is the energy of taking. If I’m not grateful, I’m taking energy. If I’m in resentment, it’s a taking. When I’m in gratitude, I am in an energy of giving. It is the energy of reciprocity where you are so deeply thankful, so deeply thankful each tomato for each person, for each human, for any energy exchange that comes your way. is so much to be thankful for. There’s so much to feel gratitude for. And the more you live in gratitude, the more you walk through the world in a frequency of giving, of being of service. And that service comes through love and honor and sacredness and acknowledgement. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, that is such a huge piece of reciprocity. And even if you’re in a city or in the country or wherever you are, there are so many ways that you can give back to Gaia, right? And that could be through a spiritual practice creating an altar out in the woods, expressing your gratitude in that way. But it can also be as simple as picking up trash in the park or on the sidewalk. It can be making a donation to an environmental organization that you believe in. It can be supporting your local co -op farm. There are so many ways that we can spin or weave gratitude to Gaia and this idea of reciprocity into our lives. And they don’t have to be complicated. They can work to fit your schedule, your lifestyle, your dreams, your desires, your value system, your time, all of that. The important part isn’t that you’re just like, I’m just going to throw money at it and donate to this.
It’s that as you’re making the donation or as you’re picking up that piece of trash or as you are buying organic fertilizer for the neighbors co -op, that you feel the gratitude, that you are really in that space of like, Gaia gives so much to me. She offers me and all of my loved ones and my community and the entire globe so much. So it is from my heart that I am making this donation. It is from my heart that I’m offering my time. It is from my heart that I am picking up this trash because I want Gaia to benefit from my love as much as I benefit from hers. Ooh, I love that.
Another way that you can really give back is by creating habitat. creating habitat for the birds and the bees and the pollinators. And even if you live in the city, if you have a small yard, there’s so many ways that you can have plants and environments, whether it’s like putting stones in your yard to create habitat for snakes and other creatures that are part of the eco – like look at the ecosystem around you. And even if you’re in a high -rise apartment in the middle of a big city, be a part of creating community gardens and creating native habitat in parks. Like, habitat is being lost, right? Like, this is a big part of what humans are doing, are taking away habitat from all of our bees and insects, all our pollinators, all of the beautiful ecosystems. So what are ways that you can be a part of giving back to the native ecosystems around you so that all that wildlife. If you have a porch, if you’re on a balcony, you can have so many potted plants and birdhouses and so many ways that you can feed and give back to nature, right? I love that so much. And you can also be generous with your neighbors, with your family, with your friends, with your local farmers market, right? So if you do have a local farmers market, shop there as much as you’re able Thank the farmers as you’re purchasing what you get. Let them know how much you appreciate their labor. Have a feast. Invite your friends and family over to really enjoy the bounty that is available and to really have a communal blessing of it. And so just really being in that space of celebration, gratitude, appreciation, and sharing that with others. beyond just the joy that you and your friends are going to experience together, that sends a ripple effect out into the world, right? And we need as much ripple effect of gratitude and appreciation and celebration as we can get right now.
Yeah. Gosh, as you were saying all that, it makes me think about, you know, from this place of gratitude versus resentment, scarcity, fear, so often people complain about the price of food and that’s an easy place where people can really get upset about high prices of food. And if you have never grown something, you may not realize the amount of labor that goes into bringing those.tomatoes, those beans, the beef, like everything to market. There is so much that is involved. And that’s why, you know, I sold at farmers markets for probably 20 years, you know, every weekend. And I can tell you the amount of work that it takes for that farmer to grow everything that they grew, to harvest, to bring it to the market, to set up at the market, all of that, there is so much time in there that is not accounted for. in any way that you can appreciate, like what you appreciate grows, right? And the more you can appreciate the labor and the efforts that went into every aspect of bringing that food to you, the more your own abundance grows and the more our appreciation for these food systems grow. And that really matters right now more than ever is appreciation for our local food system. Being aware of where you’re in resentment versus gratitude and appreciation.
And there are so many amazing people right now, farmers and ranchers, who are really radically shifting the literal landscape of agriculture and food production right now. And it’s not possible for all of us to contribute to that, because financially it does cost more. But if you can, that is such a valuable, or to the extent that you can, that is just such a valuable way to Gaya because it is hard to completely re -nutrientize. You probably have the word for that, Ina. But the regenerative practices, right? To regenerate.
Yeah, those regenerative practices are so important for Gaya right now. so any way that we can contribute to that is such an act of appreciation, gratitude, reciprocity.
So another way to really work with this time is tune into the Lions Gate, which happens on August 8th. The bigger portal is July 26th through August 12th. But, you know, depending on when you’re listening to this, realizing that in this place of appreciation, you’re also in this time of heightened psychic connection and heightened time of being able to manifest and create new ideas, new technologies. Let’s bring all this information together through this place of through this place of appreciation for being human, for having the honor of being in a human body at this amazing time on earth where our planet is transitioning. And you know, what are you, how are you showing up? How are you showing up for yourself? How are you showing up for the planet and honoring all that’s coming up? We also have that amazing Lions Gate activation.
So good. That you can take part in to support you in this ritual. And and we have a Lammas ritual, a free PDF to expand your personal harvest. We’ll put that in the show notes. Yeah. So these are always great times to create ritual and that in and of itself can be a form of appreciation. So if that lights you up, we encourage you to grab that free PDF.
And we also have a blog post on creating ritual and ceremony with the Lions Gate that will also be linked in the show notes. And you can always check out our last episode, which was harnessing the Lions Gate portal. So all of this is going to be a very complimentary energy to what we are talking about today. And as we’re moving even more deeply into this season of bounty, our next episode is on the economy of desire, which is going to be a very, very potent episode on how divinity works through you to create a whole new level of sacred economy within you. So we are excited. I’m so excited for that. We have a lot of great wealth information coming in. We’ve got a lot in the works.
Definitely check out the show note. Yeah. And each week we share cyclical wisdom and practical tools and insights for working with the seasons on this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. You can also follow Kairos Healers Academy on Instagram or any other social media channel. Like and subscribe. so appreciate speaking of gratitude. We so appreciate you. Thank you for supporting this podcast. Thank you for being here.
We are thrilled to share this experience with you. Yes, we have so much gratitude for each and every one of you who is listening into our podcast, who’s growing and shining from it and sharing. So thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Kairos Wisdom Keepers, where healers walk outside of time.
We’d like to thank our awesome podcast team, our producer Scott Hall, our project weaver Swati Stanley, our virtual sorceress Ramsey Wiles, and our social media goddess Stacey Atre. The content provided in this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.
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