The Celtic Lughnasadh (LOO-nuh-suh): First Harvest
Jaime Meyer • August 5, 2025
The Celtic Lughnasadh (LOO-NUH-suh)
Though its commonly celebrated on August 1st or 2nd, August 7th is the actual astronomical “Lughnasadh” – the midpoint between summer solstice and fall equinox. This part of the wheel of the year is wonderfully paradoxical. It is the start of the harvest season, the celebration of the bounty of the earth. At the same time, it is the beginning of the death of the growing season. The plants give up their blossoms, fruits, and grains and then begin to die. The door to the west on the Wheel cracks open; the summer wanes, the transition to the dark encroaches.
Two Lughnasadh Ceremonies You Can Do
This is a powerful time to celebrate your successes, your own harvest. Many people have trouble with this! We often prefer to focus on the things we’ve failed at, haven’t yet succeeded at, or are wrestling with. We know in our minds that we “should” celebrate our completions and our skills, but there’s a resistance to that. “Oh, that’s bragging!”, we may say. But if you never celebrate your goodness, your achievements, your impact, bragging isn’t the problem, perhaps false modesty is, and that’s a roundabout form of arrogance (“I’m the most modest of anyone I know!”).
Remember that our skewed and twisted culture loves to implant the idea that most people are losers, and it conflates winning with money, social status and sexual appeal. These are the three main spiritual poisons according to many mystical traditions. They poison our authenticity and honesty, and our ability to commune fully with Spirit.
Your completions that you celebrate don’t have to be dramatic in an exterior way, or in any way that the culture approves of. Your skills and achievements that you recognize and celebrate can be invisible to the world. Being able to step away from self-criticism more often than a year ago is a great achievement. Having put together a nice small garden is something to celebrate. Being kinder to people, because you’ve wanted to bring more kindness into the world, is mammoth. So, take some time in the next few days to sink in to recognize your gifts, your talents and your successes. Certainly, muse on it privately, but it’s vey powerful to say these things out loud to someone you trust who is able to honor what you are doing with this Lughnasadh practice.
This is also a wonderful time to make offerings of gratitude to Mother Earth, who gives her body to us to eat. Find something harvested recently that is delicious or beautiful to you. (For me it is Colorado peaches, having just arrived in stores.) Make prayers of gratitude onto it and leave it outside on the ground (where no one will see it, preferably).
I leave you with a bit of “Beannacht / Blessing” by John O’Donohue:
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
