what goes up, must come down

We just passed Lammas, the cross –quarter holiday between Summer Solstice and Equinox. I’ve marked this sabbat for well over twenty years, and have planned and attended countless public rituals celebrating it. Lammas is also known as Lughnasadh, in honor of the Celtic sun god, Lugh, who began his descent after the solstice. It’s said to be both his wake and his wedding day, depending on which resource you go to. Lammas was a time in which the beginning of the harvest season was celebrated, and grain and bread were especially honored. In Reclaiming, we’ve usually focused on the sacrifice and death of the god of the grain, relating this also to Lugh, the Sun God, and how both die, only to be reborn, again and again.

This year Lammas found me trying to get my feet back on the ground after the intoxicating high of both falling in love and being at witchcamp. I came back from witchcamp and not only had a full week of work to focus on, but the return of my son from his adventures in New Mexico. Happily, he weathered the fundamentalist Christian camp quite well. My son is no martyr. They lost him when they played Romans and Christians, and expected him to admit he was a Christian before being thrown to the lions. When asked if he was a Christian, he replied “Hell, no!” It reminded me of when he was five and I talked to his kindergarten. At that time, he was proud to be a witch and wanted me there talking about it. However, after I’d quizzed the kids and got them to say all their negative images of what a witch is, I said I was a witch and then turned to Casey and asked him if he was too. “Not today!” he replied. My son’s nature is to deny his faith if it means lions or the stake. As a mother, I can’t say I’m against this.

I’ve always loved the title of Jack Kornfield’s book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”. This Lammas was all about the laundry, of cleaning up after the ecstasy of the last month or so. It’s meant attending to my son, who I haven’t seen in a month and is angry with me, of returning the more than twenty calls a day left on my voice mail, many due to my dropping balls that were in spin while immersing myself in a luscious love affair and then flying to the east coast to be between the worlds. I started in on the monumental stack of laundry over two days ago. It’s still not all done.

When the sun was at its zenith, everything seemed so possible, everything was so expansive. This Lammas, I’m tuning in to the reality that everything does have its price, of the limitations of life and of love, to the truth that intoxication often leads to a hangover. Maybe by equinox I will have a better handle on things, will have established a balance between the laundry and the ecstasy. Maybe someday I’ll be more prepared when what went up, comes down. Tonight I ate a tomato that just ripened from my garden on the deck. I’m celebrating the harvest and pondering on the rise and fall of all things, and somehow, before I go back down and bring up yet another load of things to put away, trying to have faith that what goes down, will really truly go right back up. It’s the way of all things, isn’t it?