Lughnasadh, also called Lammas or Harvest Festival, is one of the passages of the Celtic wheel of the year and marks the beginning of the harvest season. Celebrating it symbolizes thanks to the Earth for its gifts.
This Sabbat is the first of three dedicated to the harvest: the work we do during Spring and Summer finally pays off with the first harvest of the year. This is known as the time when plants ripen and release their fruit and seeds for our consumption.
Lughnasadh represented a moment of great intensity for the peoples who lived off agriculture; it was the moment of the wheat harvest that determined abundance or famine for the coming year.
With Autumn just around the corner, the Sun God begins to age. Symbolically it loses some of its strength just as in the same way the Sun rises more and more to the South and the night begins to increase its duration. It is the time of the year when the days visibly begin to shorten and the fields begin to ripen. This period of the year is celebrated by honoring the summer: heat, growth, abundance, work, and play that obviously accompanies all these elements.
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Long hours of daylight, lush gardens, fruits of the crop, vegetables, herbs, conservation. Summer is celebrated while we keep an eye on the winter to come. The celebration of this Sabbat is a time to relax and open up to the changes of the season, so as to be one with the energies of the Earth and get what you want.
As you can tell, this type of energy is connected with specific colors able to honor and celebrate this special time of the year.
Traditional Lammas colors
| Color | Symbolism and Meaning |
|---|---|
| Yellow | Abundance, harvest, prosperity |
| Gold | Sun energy, wealth, abundance |
| Orange | Warmth, creativity, transformation |
| Brown | Earth connection, grounding, stability |
| Green | Growth, fertility, nature |
Honoring and celebrating Mabon with yellow and gold
Yellow and gold are the main colors to celebrate and honor this day as they are the colors of wheat, the symbol of this festival, but also of abundance and wealth. You can also add a touch of brown or deep orange as a way to create a connection, a bridge between the summer and the fall season.
This will be a great way to represent transition and transformation from one season to another.
Related:
An Enchanting Prayer for Lughnasadh [5 Min Chant]
An Enchanting Prayer for Autumn [5 Min Chant]
Here’s How to Prepare an Altar for Pagan Festivities (DIY Tips)
Practical use of these colors
Decorate your altar
No festival can truly be celebrated without an altar. Create an altar with summer and harvest symbols, such as ears of corn, bread and cereals. Place the yellow candle that you have previously decorated in the center of the altar and also place your intertwined ear near the candle.
Dress a yellow candle
Make sure you have a yellow candle (alternatively white is fine too) and use cinnamon essential oil. For the dressing: wet your hands in the essential oil and pass them from the two ends of the candle to the center.
During the dressing, focus your mind on the abundance you want. Think beyond material wants like money and focus on the things you would like to buy so that the Universe itself gives them to you in a creative way.
Thinking of objects rather than money itself, the effect of magic is greater. After greasing it, you can decorate it as you like: you can stick a few ears of corn on your candle or draw something with special markers for candles. Decorate it with things that remind you of the harvest.
Also read:
Here’s How to Dress a Candle for Money [+ A Homemade Oil]
How to Dress a Candle For a Love Spell? [With Special Tips]
Cook your own bread to honor gold
Prepare bread with your own two hands. Breadmaking has become traditional for Lammas over time. You can cook simple loaves or give life to symbolic shapes; a solar disc; a male member; a braid and so on.
You can use a combination of wheat and corn flour, add seeds to the mixture (poppy and sunflower are particularly symbolic!), or fragrant herbs such as Rosemary to create truly special bread, which manifests the abundance and magic of this time of the year.
Immerse yourself in the green
Lammas is a perfect time to immerse yourself in nature. Organize a day outdoors, alone or with friends, and walk consciously along pastures, woods, rivers, or parks, carefully observing the abundance that is revealed in every corner. Take advantage of it to collect small gifts from nature to decorate your Altar or for your practices. Remember to thank and leave a small donation for each gift received!
Prepare a colorful offering
Collect flowering stems of wild cereals and red poppies; once at home, place them in a jar and dedicate the bouquet to the deities of abundance, growth, harvest. This could be the God of Wheat, Demeter, Ceres, or many others.
Create a prosperity bottle
Use a bottle or a jar with a lid and fill them with symbolic objects that attract the energies of this period. To fill the bottle, you can use pieces of wheat, cereal and sunflower seeds, coins, pieces of paper or yellow or golden ribbons, frankincense grains, bay leaves, mint, nutmeg, dried ginger, small hyaline quartz crystals, tiger eye, moss agate, aventurine, malachite – and these are just suggestions!
Corresponding Elements and Energies
| Color | Element | Associated Energies |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Air | Mental clarity, communication, inspiration |
| Gold | Fire | Vitality, passion, transformation |
| Orange | Fire | Creativity, enthusiasm, joy |
| Brown | Earth | Grounding, stability, practicality |
| Green | Earth | Healing, abundance, growth |
