Contents of Festival News

• About Lammas
• Lammas Celebrations
• Lammas poems
• Ideas to help you mark Lammas
• Advance notice of Autumn Equinox and Samhain celebrations
• Orchard Barn update (page being created)

Lammas is a time to celebrate our early achievements and recognise what we may have had to sacrifice in order to make them. The grain in the field is harvested in order that life can be sustained - but this can only be done when the life of the plants is taken. In death there is life and in life there is death. The cycle cannot exist forever in one mode. ..... Sarah

Lammas celebrations

Saturday 28th July Hearth 12 - 3pm 8 miles NW Ipswich, small gathering includes Heart-centred Council, Ceremony, shared lunch, no cost

Sunday 29th July 5 - 8pm Lammas larger community ceremony in beautiful meadow to honour the ripening grain, North Suffolk, shared supper, no cost, email Kaaren for more details

Kaaren writes ...... 'This Lammas ritual was created several years ago specifically for outdoor enactment.  It has previously happened in Brightlingsea UK, Connecticut USA, Cratfield UK and for the last two years at Fromus Valley in North Suffolk.  It brings out the aspect of first harvest, the honouring of Lugh as the spirit of the sun which is sacrificed for the earth, the continuity of the Earth Mother in her fertility and the sharing of the people and their harvest. The Lammas ritual is beautiful in words and symbolism.

Lammas, the time of first fruits, is also the time of sharing those fruits:  all our gifts and talents, some of the learning and experience we have gathered up until this point in the year's cycle.  It is when we can look back at the intention/s, seed/s sown in the dark of the year and see the beginning results coming to the fore.  Nice to be with friends at this time.'

Advance notice of festival celebrations

Autumn Equinox celebrations

Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd September Autumn Equinox Dance Journey Camp, in beautiful field in North Norfolk. A Shamanic Quest in Nature - 'Gathering your Harvest' - Sweat Lodge, dancing, creating ceremony and community, Wood Henge, 30' Teepee, Roundhouse. Weekend guided by Graham Joyce, Peta Jane, Sarah Partridge. Early bookings before 1st September £110/80 (bring own tent, food included)

Sunday 30th September afternoon community ceremony to celebrate Autumn Equinox, in beautiful meadow, North Suffolk, shared supper, no cost, email Kaaren for more details

About this festival .... 'The Autumn Equinox is a fuller receiving of the harvest of our endeavours.  We need to look closely at the abundance and acknowledge the whole harvest - the tasty crops and the troublesome weeds that inevitably are part of the process.  In this way we become clearer about what we will sow in the future.  It is all a matter of rejoicing because at least we are now conscious of what we do.' Kaaren

Samhain celebrations