When the First Harvest includes the final straw.

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 Blessed Lughnasa, everyone!

I've written about this cross-quarter day on the Pagan Wheel of the Year several times over the years. The Irish god Lugh decreed that this day would be observed in honor of his foster mother, Tailtiu, who died from exhaustion after plowing all of Ireland's fields for planting. But Lughnasa was never meant to be a solemn memorial; instead, Lugh ordered that it become a harvest festival, including many games. 

So here we are today, beginning the 17th month of coping with COVID-19. This was supposed to be the summer of reopenings. We were supposed to have beaten this thing back so that as long as you were vaccinated, your life could just about go back to normal. And then the Delta variant happened. 

I could blog about how the unvaccinated have ruined the summer for everyone else (in fact, I kind of did, about a month ago). But Lughnasa is a harvest festival, and as alert hearth/myth readers know, Pagans tend to be all about improving themselves. So could we be reaping, as individuals, at this First Harvest?

One day, a couple of months back, I found myself wanting to cry for no reason. Life was actually going fine for me at that point; I should have been relaxed and enjoying life, but instead I had this desire to, you know, sit down and have a good cry. So I started shopping for a new place to live. That's how I found the condo I'm moving into in a couple of weeks. But I recognized that house-hunting is a lousy long-term strategy for coping with the blues. I made a mental note to sit down with myself, once the dust cleared, and figure out what was going on.

Then a couple of days ago, I saw a thing on Facebook -- a tweet string from @gwensnyderphl, who I don't follow on Twitter -- and shared it. You can click here and read her tweets for yourself, but here's what she said in the first couple of tweets: "You just went through 1.5 years of a profound ongoing threat to your health/wellbeing/life, social isolation, aggressive disinformation, political turmoil, and financial uncertainty. OF COURSE you are not functioning at your peak. OF COURSE you are stressed out, burned out, unproductive, disconnected, anxious, depressed, exhausted, aching, and/or sad. YOU ARE TRAUMATIZED. This is what trauma does to the human mind, to the human body, to human relationships." And she went on to say that we shouldn't feel pressured into going back to normal, just like that: "Give yourself permission to not be okay."

That was my light bulb moment. Of course I felt like crying, as soon as I had a minute to catch my breath. The reaction I thought was weird and inexplicable was completely understandable. We've been through hell. We thought we were out of it, but now we're not. It's exhausting. 

Anyway, as I said, I shared the string of tweets, and immediately somebody piped up in the comments and said, basically, "Not everybody's exhausted. We're doing just fine here." 

I mean, there's one in every crowd, right? 

The thing is, trauma's impact -- on the body and on the psyche -- is cumulative. You may be the sort of person who can live through one horrible thing after another and weather it all okay, but then one day, you may have one more horrible thing happen and you snap. It might even be a tiny horrible thing, but it still becomes the straw that broke the camel's back.

You can keep pushing yourself, ignoring the burden you're carrying until you break -- until you die from exhaustion, as Tailtiu did. Or you can acknowledge the burden and cut yourself some slack, as Simone Biles did this past week at the Tokyo Olympics. She bumbled a vault and realized she was at a breaking point. So she has pulled out of the other events she was scheduled to compete in, except one (she's still undecided about the balance beam, which is coming up on Tuesday). She has taken a lot of heat for her decision, much of it from people who appear to believe she owes her country a bunch of gold medals, no matter what the effort costs her personally. But she's also had a lot of support, and it's coming from those of us who have also reached our breaking point this year.

Good for her for recognizing she needed to take care of herself first. If the rest of us could do the same, we'd have a very respectable First Harvest this year.

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These moments of bloggy unburdening have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed! And have a good cry whenever you think you need one.

First harvest's in.

Yesterday was Lughnasa, one of the big Neopagan holidays. Legend has it that August 1st was set aside by Lugh Lámhfhada (or Lugh of the Long Hand) as a day to honor His foster mother, Tailtiu. There were to be games and feasting to mark the occasion. In addition, the festival celebrates the first harvest: wheat and other grains, as well as the first apples.

Lugh is an interesting fellow. His father was Cian, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann -- in other words, the ancient Irish gods -- and His mother was Ethniu, daughter of a Fomorian chieftain named Balor. He was sent out to foster with Tailtiu, who was of the Fir Bolg -- and that rounds out the three tribes or ethnic groups that were vying for control of Ireland at that time.

When Lugh first came to Tara, the seat of the high kings of Ireland, the guard at the gate wouldn't let Him in. Our multi-talented hero offered his services, one after the other, to the gatekeeper, as recounted by Lady Gregory in Gods and Fighting Men. (Tara is spelled Teamhair in the original, but I'm using the modern spelling. Also, grammer nerds, please excuse the lack of paragraph breaks between speakers -- it's the original text, not me!)

"What are you skilled in?" said the door-keeper; "for no one without an art comes into Tara." "Question me," said Lugh; "I am a carpenter." "We do not want you; we have a carpenter ourselves, Luchtar, son of Luachaid." "Then I am a smith." "We have a smith ourselves, Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New Ways." "Then I am a champion." "That is no use to us; we have a champion before, Ogma, brother to the king." "Question me again," he said; "I am a harper." "That is no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, Abhean, son of Bicelmos, that the Men of the Three Gods brought from the hills." "I am a poet," he said then, "and a teller of tales." "That is no use to us; we have a teller of tales ourselves, Erc, son of Ethaman." "And I am a magician." "That is no use to us; we have plenty of magicians and people of power." "I am a physician," he said. "That is no use; we have Diancecht for our physician." "Let me be a cup-bearer," he said. "We do not want you; we have nine cup-bearers ourselves. "I am a good worker in brass." "We have a worker in brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd."

Finally, Lugh said, "Go and ask the king if he has any one man that can do all these things, and if he has, I will not ask to come into Tara." So the guard went in and delivered the message to Nuada, who suggested that the guard try Lugh at chess. When Lugh won every game, Nuada relented at last and let Him in. Later, Lugh became high king himself and ruled for forty years -- and fulfilled a prophecy by killing Balor, His grandfather, in battle.

Lugh is sometimes referred to as the Irish sun god, but He's not. Belenus, or maybe the Dagda, hold that honor. No, Lugh is the god of light -- as well as the patron of all the other things He told that gatekeeper He was good at: smithcraft, music, poetry and storytelling, medicine, and all the rest.

When men came at last to Ireland, the Tuatha took their royal court and retreated "under the hill" -- and Lugh of the Long Hand, the god who could do anything, shrunk in both stature and importance. Today, He's known as the leprechaun.

Neopagans celebrate Lughnasa -- or as it's also known, Lammas -- by baking bread or oatcakes, and by taking stock of their own personal harvests. Alert readers of hearth/myth know that my own harvest this year is spotty: I haven't yet made a permanent move to Colorado, but I've finished the ten-book Pipe Woman Chronicles cycle with the publication of Dragon's Web and Firebird's Snare this spring. I'm planning one more book before I let Naomi and her family alone for a while, but it won't be a novel. Instead, it will be a companion volume to the series, consisting of information on each of the gods and goddesses who have appeared in the story. (This post gives you a taste of what readers might find in such a book.)

Aside from that, I'm planning to write one more novel this year. It will probably be magic realism, although I don't know the plot yet. Or any of the characters. But I've never let that stop me before -- why stop now?

A blessed Lughnasa to you all! Next week, hearth/myth will be on hiatus; I'm going to West Virginia to unplug for a few days. See you here in two weeks!

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These moments of multi-talented blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell

Fruits of the First Harvest.

In this week's news wrapup:

• The Seized trailer was featured this weekend at Indies Unlimited. I hope you've had a chance to stop by and see it -- and to see the new blog setup.  The Evil Mastermind put the blog through an upgrade this week; we're still working out the kinks, but it's coming along.
• If you haven't yet picked up your free e-book copies of Seized and SwanSong at Smashwords, time's a-wastin'!  The sitewide Summer/Winter promotion ends Tuesday.  Hie thee to Smashwords and pick up some good reads (not just mine!) to see you through the end of the season.  
• In case you need an extra impetus to get those free downloads now, prices for the e-book editions of both Seized and SwanSong will be going up next week, once the Smashwords promotion is over.

Speaking of the end of the season, it may not seem like it yet, here in the US, but summer's on the wane.  This coming Wednesday is Lughnasa, the cross-quarter day named for the Celtic god Lugh.

Lugh of the Long Hand is often mistakenly called a sun god.  He's not; he's the Celtic god of light.  (The Celts' sun god was Belenos, for whom Beltane is named.)  Lugh is also associated with lightning, and is sometimes called their storm god.

But don't think Lugh's a slacker just because he's not a god of the sun.  Far from it!  It's clear from the tale told of his arrival at Tara, the court of the Tuatha de Danann.  Lugh approached the gate guard while the Tuatha were inside, feasting, and asked to be let in.  He might have thought he would have no trouble being admitted, seeing as he was the son of Cian, one of the Tuatha, and Ethlinn, the daughter of the king of the Fomorians.  But the gate guard told him he could come in only if he had a skill with which to serve the king, who was Nuada at that time.  Lugh said he was a carpenter; the guard said they had one already.  Well, said Lugh, he was a smith; no, they had a smith already, too.  Lugh then said he was a champion, but they had one of those as well.  He then asked after a string of other jobs:  harper (no), poet (nope), magician (uh-uh), physician (sorry, no), cup-bearer (we have nine!), and a worker in brass (negative).  Finally, Lugh told the guard to go and ask the king whether he had one man who could do all those things.  When Nuada heard the guard's report, he told him to try the kid at chess -- and Lugh won every game.  Then Nuada let him in.  Later, when Nuada was wounded, the Tuatha made Lugh their king.

As pleasant (and competent!) a god as Lugh was, you didn't want to cross him.  The three sons of Tuireann learned this to their sorrow when, on impulse, they killed Lugh's father Cian.  When Lugh heard of it, he called the three men before him and bade them pay for their misdeed by bringing him nine precious things from all around the world -- things which they would have to steal, because their owners would likely not part from them otherwise.  Lugh assumed the brothers would be killed on their quest.

So the brothers embarked on their journey, and with a mixture of pleading, chicanery, and magical help, they managed to procure eight of the nine precious things.  For the final item, the brothers were to give three shouts on the Hill of Miochaoin in Lochlann (probably either Norway or northern Scotland).  The hill's owner sent his three sons to fight them, for no one was allowed to shout upon the hill.  The sons of Tuireann killed the other three, but were mortally wounded themselves.  They sailed back to Ireland on the brink of death, and bade their father to ask Lugh for healing.  But Lugh refused.  So the sons died of their wounds, and their father died of grief.

(The tale of the sons of Tuireann is one of the three great Irish tragedies.  The story upon which SwanSong is based is another, and the third is the tale of Deirdre of the Sorrows.)

After Lugh's foster mother Tailtiu died (she had taken it upon herself to clear the land for crops, and died of exhaustion), he set August 1 as the day of her funeral feast and a series of games and sporting events -- a celebration that became an annual tradition.  Today, Neopagans also mark the season with games, and with mourning the passing of summer as the first crops are harvested.  Bread made from new grain is often served, and Lugh's blessing may be asked that the rest of the harvest not be ruined.

May Lugh bless you and grant you a fine First Harvest this year.  Happy Lughnasa!
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I'm Lynne Cantwell, and I approve this blog post.