HAPPY LAMMAS/LUGHNASADH PART II

LUGHNASADH by Nadi Spencer

(See more information on this painting below)

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I almost forgot that today, August 1, is the Feast of Lammas/Lughnasadh, the old British/Irish/Celtic festival of the first fruits of the harvest. I only remembered because I was looking at my Feedjit feed today and saw how many people were searching the words Lammas, Lammas Poem and Lughnasadh. There were a lot!

Being too darn lazy this Saturday morning to write a new post about Lammastide, I instead found some new images, and am giving links to the posts I wrote the last couple of years. (I thought they were pretty good posts, and I've written about all I can on the subject, so why re-invent the wheel, LOL?). Here they are:

1. Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh: http://celticanamcara.blogspot.com/2008/07/happy-lammaslughnasadh.html.

2. Lammastide: http://celticanamcara.blogspot.com/2007/08/lammastide.html

3. Lammas Poem:

http://celticanamcara.blogspot.com/2007/08/lammas-poem.html.

It was fun to see the artwork I've previously used, and to note how "oppresively hot and humid" it was in 2007. Not so this year!)

Looking at this Lughnasadh Blessings banner above makes me think of fall. Certainly we are seeing these first fruits of the harvest at the Farmers Markets all over town. And this morning I saw my first yellow leaf.

My blogging friend Leanne in England is predicting an early fall there, and I am wondering if we might be having one too. It has been an unusually cool and wet summer here. Yesterday and the day before, the last two days of July, mind you, it has only gotten into the 60s F. That's chilly for us - it should be in the 90s!

LUGHNASAD by Sharon McLeod

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Our local weather forecaster says it's because the jet stream is dipping below us instead of rising up into Canada. He says there are hot days ahead. But I repeat, it has been an unusual summer, one that has seen:

1. Snow in June in Dickinson, ND.

2. The prairie, usually dry yellows and browns by now, still emerald green into August.

3. No lawn sprinklers going.

4. Lawn mowers going all the time.

5. No air conditioners going.

6. Bismarck already reaching the average precipitation for the year, with FIVE months to go.

I mentioned before that I only remembered that it was Lammas/Lughnasadh today because of my Feedjit widget. It's a fun (and free) thing to have. At first I was just thrilled at how many people were coming to my site, from every country imaginable. Wow, that's heady. And then I realized that most people weren't coming to visit me, they had just Googled images or words and phrases. Oh, well, it's still fun. It's interesting to see what people are Googling. For me, these are the most-searched topics:

1. Pixies, fairies, moon fairies, brownies, elves, sprites, selkies and the like (also fairy painters like Arthur Rackham and Cicely Mary Barker).

2. "The most beautiful words in the English language."

3. "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams" (lines from a Yeats poem).

4. "Count your blessings" Celtic poem.

5. Hollyhock dolls.

6. "Oh, to be in England now that spring is here". (Which is incorrect. I can't believe how many searchers get this wrong! This Robert Browning poem begins, "Oh to be in England now that April's there").

Take a look at that list for a moment. Am I really that airy fairy? And are there so many people in the world like me? I suppose there are as many people searching for websites on serial killers, alien abductions, global warming, the tanking of the economy, genocide, war, human trafficking, etc. etc. They just aren't finding them on my blog. And I hope that the people who innocently land on this blog like this airy fairy place of beautiful words, art and pictures, lines from poems, memories of childhood and the realm of imagination.

Oops, I wandered off the subject a bit. Back to Lammas/Lughnasadh:

The painting shown at the top of this blog is digital art by Nadi Spencer. To see how she created it, visit her website at http://www.nadispencer.com/. Nadi used the painting for her line of recipe greeting cards that she sells in her Etsy shop at http://www.Cafepress.com/NadiSpencer/6466808 (scroll down to Nadi's Table).

Does anyone live near Three Rivers, CA? Nadi's having an open house at her studio today, with a real Lammas "first fruits" luncheon of potato soup, blueberry scones with Irish whisky spread and blueberry ice tea. Can't go? Too bad, I can't go either. But, if you go to yet another of her sites, Nadi's Table (her cooking blog) you can find the recipe for her blueberry scones and spread: http://www.nadistable.com/ for Thursday, July 23.

Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh to you!