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| "Humpback alaska jumping" by Larry D. Moore. |
I am going on a vacation to Alaska! Place your orders now to get your stuff before I leave. Orders received by the end of Friday, July 31st, will be processed and shipped before I go, and then I will resume processing orders on August 22nd, in the order they are received. While you can still place orders Aug 1-21, I will not be able to ship them until I get back home. Thanks for your patience! I am very excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity!
I may well come back having made contact (at least visually) with animals that may then inform new formulations in the Spirit Guide line. Seal? Caribou? Moose? Whale? Elk? If any of you have been wanting a formulation that could bring your closer to a Spirit Guide animal that dwells in the northern climes, let me know and I will try to make this adventure a spiritual fact-finding pilgrimage as well.
In other news we are heading towards a Blue Moon on July 31st. It is a Friday so the circumstances could not be better for special petitions and Love magick! I will also be whipping up a lot of the long-awaited Blue Moon oil that day. I have marked it in-stock on the website so that you can order it before I go to Alaska. Remember, order by July 31st, or you'll have to wait for your shipment till I get back to Austin.
Lammas, also known as Lughnasadh (pronounced LUH-nu-sah or loo-Nah-sah)is celebrated on August 1st, 2nd or 3rd. I am offering a sale on Lammas oil and Lammas incense for your celebration. Order by July 28th to make sure you get it by August 1st.
Lughnasadh is most often celebrated as a first harvest holiday, focusing on harvest of grains. This is a “Cross-Quarter Day” midway between a Solstice and and Equinox. Lammas is a time of races, contests and games of physical skill. The landscape is a village harvest of the grain fields. This is a time of celebration (at least, if the harvest is successful and bountiful) and all the village is at work to get the harvest in. It is said that the contests begin with who can harvest the most grain. Then it was said that the laborers would leave the last sheaf of grain standing and the contestants would try to be the first to cut it down by throwing their harvesting sickles at it. The fields are now clear, and there is all this open space which is available. Footraces, horse races, team sports, all have an open arena. This becomes a sort of Pagan Olympics, and celebration of the vigor and strength of young adulthood.
For those less athletic, Lugh is also the patron of grain fermentation, so beer brewing and beer drinking are other ways to celebrate!
Another fascinating motif for this Sabbat is a confessional and atonement ritual. The aforementioned last sheaf, or a Corn Dolly, or a Corn Man (the first loaf baked from the freshly harvested grain) represented John Barleycorn, a god or hero who represented the sacrifice that the Grain God made for the community’s survival. He will be mourned and buried (sometimes burned/cremated) but there is an opportunity before he is committed to the final resting place. He is passed around to the participants (playing the old folk song "John Barleycorn Must Die" in the background of course) who can then whisper a confession, or some secret that John Barleycorn will take to the grave with him. They are thus absolved of guilt, and no other living being need know the offense.
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Natural Magick Shop
July 21, 2015
"Humpback alaska jumping" by Larry D. Moore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Humpback_alaska_jumping.jpg#/media/File:Humpback_alaska_jumping.jpg
