Lammas. Lunasadgh. First Harvest.

I didn’t write yet for first harvest this year. I didn’t have ritual this year either. Ritual is something that has come into my life on a more regular basis. Ironically, as prone as I am to the “Deep Dive” I have gone shallow for ritual…5 or 10 minutes daily. My teacher says I need to revisit that, go deeper, and I’m surprised at the fact that I haven’t been doing that already. I seek information, and I get it….I get it at an astonishing rate…so fast that I’m downloading it and storing it without processing it. I need to process. I need to stop this almost BitTorrent pace, and instead replay in slow motion…listen to the commentaries….translate the dreams, the omens, whatever it is I’ve been given.

I’ve been given a great many lovely things, a giant tiger cowrie shell slightly smaller than a football, symbols for my hands and head, flowers for my body and crown. Dreams in which my sense of self literally balances on a pinpoint, and moving through my own history can throw me off balance. I’ve heard the voices of my ancestors (and it’s one thing to hear your own ancestors because that’s a total conversation in your own head that you can write off as “talking to myself” at any time) but I’ve heard the voices of OTHER people’s ancestors with very specific details, and when I’ve pulled that out of the air and given it to them and they respond with shock and surprise that I know something so PERSONAL…I just have to accept that something is happening, something I don’t understand, something that will someday have an explanation but right now is just an experience. I have accepted it at experience level. My teacher says I should go deeper. I feel waist deep already. Balls deep, as they say. I’m wandering through swamp up to my hips. Gods know what the hell is below my sight line.

This is the nature of the First Harvest. You can look at the work you’re doing, see what bears fruit. You can see which things are possibly just not going to make it this year. You can use this point to evaluate, to focus your energy on the things that are coming up for you, and to stop tending to dying harvests. Everything doesn’t always blossom. Sometimes the dirt is too hard or dry. Sometimes the sunlight is too strong, or not strong enough. Sometimes we just have to let things go.

I’m evaluating my harvests. I want to know that what I’m doing is more than just enough to sustain me. I want to know that what I am growing is nutritious and bountiful, that it will nurture me AND others. It is not enough for me to just survive anymore. I have to thrive. I DESERVE to thrive. I am good and kind, I work hard, I help others when I can, I sustain myself without much assistance. It is not enough. I want my life to be motion and dance, electricity and flashing neon, and the quiet darkness of contentment.

First harvest. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, “…The Creation Mother is always also the Death Mother and vice versa. Because of this dual nature, or double-tasking, the great work before us is to learn to understand what around and about us and what within us must live, and what must die…” As women, it is our nature to care for other things before we take care of ourselves. That’s why we have breasts. It’s in our DNA. It is not in our nature to just allow something to die.”

I want. I want many things. First harvest gives me an idea of what is possible and what is not. I wish you blessings on your harvest. I wish you keen sight to see what is actually in front of you, as opposed to what you wish were there. I wish you strength to let things go. I wish you perseverance to hold onto the things you wish to keep. Harvest is a time of work, and there are two more harvests to go. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

I wish you good and true sight. Make your decisions. Your second harvest depends on it.