The Celts celebrate this festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and call it Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice. The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. The first sheaf of wheat is ceremonially reaped, threshed, milled and baked into a loaf. The grain dies so that the people might live. Eating this bread, the bread of the Gods, gives us life. If all this sounds vaguely Christian, it is. In the sacrament of Communion, bread is blessed, becomes the body of God and is eaten to nourish the faithful. This Christian Mystery echoes the pagan Mystery of the Grain God.

Grain has always been associated with Gods who are killed and dismembered and then resurrected from the Underworld by the Goddess-Gods like Tammuz, Osiris and Adonis. The story of Demeter and Persephone is a story about the cycle of death and rebirth associated with grain. Demeter, the fertility Goddess, will not allow anything to grow until she finds her daughter who has been carried off to the Underworld. The Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated around the Autumn Equinox, culminated in the revelation of a single ear of corn, a symbol to the initiate of the cyclical nature of life, for the corn is both seed and fruit, promise and fulfillment.

You can adapt the themes of Lughnasad and Lammas to create your own ceremony for honoring the passing of the light and the reaping of the grain.

Honoring the Grain God or Goddess

Bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you've never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on the mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you've harvested--herbs or onion or corn--to your bread. If you don't feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread. Or gingerbread people. Or popcorn. What's most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

Shape the dough in the figure of a man or a woman and give your grain-person a name. If he's a man, you could call him Lugh, the Sun-King, or John Barleycorn, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or Adonis or Osiris or Tammuz. Pauline Campanelli in The Wheel of the Year suggests names for female figures: She of the Corn, She of the Threshing Floor, She of the Seed, She of the Great Loaf (these come from the Cyclades where they are the names of fertility figures), Freya (the Anglo-Saxon and Norse fertility Goddess who is, also called the Lady and the Giver of the Loaf), the Bride (Celtic) and Ziva or Siva (the Grain Goddess of, the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).

Feast

Like all holidays, Lammas calls for a feast. When your dough figure is baked and ready to eat, tear him or her apart with your fingers. You might want to start the feast with the Lord's Prayer, emphasizing the words "Give us this day our daily bread." The next part of the ceremony is best done with others. Feed each other hunks of bread (or gingerbread people or popcorn), putting the food in the other person's mouth with words like "May you never go hungry," "May you always be nourished," "Eat of the bread of life" or "May you live forever." Offer each other drinks of water or wine with similar words. As if you were at a wake, make toasts to the passing summer, recalling the best moments of the year so far.

Corn Dolly

Another way to honor the Grain Goddess is to make a corn doll. This is a fun project to do with kids. Take dried-out corn husks and tie them together in the shape of a woman. She's your visual representation of the harvest. As you work on her, think about what you harvested this year. Give your corn dolly a name, perhaps one of the names of the Grain Goddess or one that symbolizes your personal harvest. Dress her in a skirt, apron and bonnet and give her a special place in your house. She is all yours till the spring when you will plant her with the new corn, returning to the Earth that which She has given to you.

Food for Thought

Lammas is a festival of regrets and farewells, of harvest and preserves. Reflect on these topics alone in the privacy of your journal or share them with others around a fire. Lughnasad is one of the great Celtic fire-festivals, so if at all possible, have your feast around a bonfire. While you're sitting around the fire, you might want to tell stories. Look up the myths of any of the grain Gods and Goddesses mentioned above and try re-telling them in your own words.

Regrets: Think of the things you meant to do this summer or this year that are not coming to fruition. You can project your regrets onto natural objects like pine cones and throw them into the fire, releasing them. Or you can write them on dried corn husks (as suggested by Nancy Brady Cunningham in Feeding the Spirit) or on a piece of paper and burn them.

Farewells: What is passing from your life? What is over? Say good-bye to it. As with regrets, you can find visual symbols and throw them into the fire, the lake or the ocean. You can also bury them in the ground, perhaps in the form of bulbs which will manifest in a new form in spring.

Harvest: What have you harvested this year? What seeds have your planted that are sprouting? Find a visual way to represent these, perhaps creating a decoration in your house or altar which represents the harvest to you. Or you could make a corn dolly or learn to weave wheat. Look for classes in your area which can teach you how to weave wheat into wall pieces, which were made by early grain farmers as a resting place for the harvest spirits.

Preserves: This is also a good time for making preserves, either literally or symbolically. As you turn the summer's fruit into jams, jellies and chutneys for winter, think about the fruits that you have gathered this year and how you can hold onto them. How can you keep them sweet in the store of your memory?

Uses of Bread and Salt

The following are excerpts from "The Magical Household" by Scott Cunningham and David Harrington. 

The first things brought into the new house are of magical importance. Several items in particular are thought to bring good luck. Some people bring salt and bread before anything else. With the salt representing  wealth and the bread food, the new household should never know hunger or lack of money. Anciently, this was an offering to the Lares - the family household spirits of Roman times.

August 1 marks an ancient harvest festival date, but this date was often  changed to coincide with the actual reaping schedule. Lughnasadh, or Lammas (as the Catholics renamed it in an attempt to Christianize the old Pagan festivals), was a festival of bread; thus bread-making is traditional at this time of the year. 

A jar of salt on the hearth comes in handy in times of argument, tension or danger of any kind. Simply throw a pinch on the flames, and its cleansing powers, when released by the flames, bless your home. In setting the table, put the salt on first, and take it off last thing after the meal. The salt will guard the food and the diners. While dining with others, pass the salt with a smile.

To purify the body, spirit and soul, simply add salt to a bath and soak  for a few minutes. The salt neutralizes and eliminates negativity. Salt is also added to baths to aid in healing and to lend strength to the body.

Doorways can easily be warded to keep intruders or negativity out. When you ward doorways, it's like setting up a magickal alarm system. If anyone or thing tries to enter that wasn't invited or doesn't belong, the wards above the doorways are supposed to give the owner of the home a little tweak. This can be as subtle as a vague discomfort or pulling sensation at your solar plexus, or it may be an all-out adrenaline rush of warning, not to mention the uncomfortable effect it has on the unwanted guest who enters uninvited. Here are a few quick ideas for wards that you can make yourself and then add over the doorways of your home. 

Create a swag out of dried flowers and herbs to create a magickal archway over the inside of your door. In many craft stores they have basic unadorned eucalyptus swags and lots of dried flowers available for arranging. Eucalyptus is a good base to start with, as it symbolizes health and protection. Now roll up your sleeves, break out the glue gun, and prepare to get creatively Witchy with this basic swag. 

Here is a list of common dried magickal flowers often found at the arts and crafts store. Take a look at this Witch's dozen of dried supplies and see what you would like to incorporate into this warding swag for your doorway. Note that you may refer to this list when scouting out herbal supplies for your Witchy wreaths and garlands as well.

amaranth/globe flower: protection

baby's breath: a pure heart and happiness

feverfew: health and protection

lunaria (honesty): money and repels monsters, according to folklore

lavender: dispels bad luck and is protective; smells wonderful too!

larkspur: friends are welcome

lotus pods: good luck and blessings

roses: love

thistle: protection

sunflowers: loyalty and admiration

Queen Anne's lace: safe house and return home

wheat: fertility and prosperity

yarrow: all-purpose, the wise woman's herb

Don't be afraid to add ribbons to coordinate with your room or to employ a bit of color magick. Once you have finished with your swag, you'll need to enchant it for protection and then put it up in place to create your ward. Try repeating this warding charm as you prepare to attach the swag over the inside of the main entrance to your home.

Magickal herbs, flowers, and ribbons make up this warding spell,

Alert me to danger and protect my home that's loved so well.

By the magick of plants, I ask to be given a tweak,

May this warding spell hold true, day to day and week to week.

Attach the swag over your door. Straighten and adjust as necessary. Close the warding charm up by saying: 

For the good of all, with harm to none, 

By flower and leaf, this spell is done!