Lammas Ritual

To prepare the self:

Bathe as usual and anoint with oil of an appropriate scent for the season. Wear fire-safe clothes in colors of yellow, orange, green, brown, or red. Wear magickal jewelry and flowers or a hair wreath made of plants of the season.

To prepare the circle:

Sweep. ¤ Lay out cord. ¤ Position altar with fall-colored or sunflower-themed cloth. ¤ Position God and Goddess candles. ¤ Position other God and Goddess representations. ¤ Add Earth bowl and salt at north. ¤ Add incense burner and incense. ¤ Add candleholder and yellow, orange, green, brown, or red candle at south. ¤ Add goblet and water at west. ¤ Put pentacle at north. ¤ Put wand at east. ¤ Put athame at south. ¤ Put chalice at west. ¤ Add bolline to south. ¤ Add matches to south. ¤ Add match holder to north. ¤ Add wet napkins to west. ¤ Add bell to west. ¤ Add libation bowl to north. ¤ Add any decorations for the season. ¤ Have indian corn and some black thread and a strong needle. ¤ Have some collected water from a stream, lake, ocean, or rainfall. ¤ Have your cauldron on the altar. ¤ Have a green candle in a holder behind the cauldron. ¤ Have handy some parchment paper and a pen to write things to be thankful for. ¤ Have materials for wish tree and the bloomed tree from Litha at the left of the altar, and blessing oil or other honoring oil. ¤ Put an apple on a plate on the right of the altar, and have handy cider, meadowsweet tea, or elderberry wine. ¤ Have yarn ready for finger-knitting. ¤ Complete with feasting foods of the season.

Begin ritual:

Cast the circle. Sit inside and focus, and invoke the God and Goddess.

Meditation (to seasonal music if desired):

The God begins His downfall, and the Goddess observes this with sorrow but is cheered by the fact that She carries His child, her future son, lover, and husband. Now She must prepare to witness His decline and live with less and less of Him until She becomes barren on the outside, but holding Her secret bounty within. The deities are now as powerful as they were on Beltane, but are weathered by time. We now give thanks for the blessings we are now reaping at the first harvest, and we remember the good times and reflect on our experiences. We praise the fruit and grain harvest and acknowledge our own eventual rebirth through recycling in the Crone’s cauldron. We relax at this time and become one with nature.¹

Opening Honor:

Pour naturally-collected water into the cauldron, and set it on the pentacle between the God and Goddess candles. Don’t fill it so high that a candle can’t be placed inside to burn. Place the green candle symbolizing the God into the cauldron. Carve a rune on the green candle to symbolize life’s transition and change; EIHWAZ does the trick. Light the green candle. In thanks for the bounty of the harvest, identify some things you are thankful for in your life, and write them on paper. As you think of each thing, tear off the piece of paper, light it with the flame of the green candle, and when the flame gets too near your fingers, throw it in the cauldron. Keep doing this until a sheet of paper is used up or you cannot think of anything else to be thankful for.²

Greet elementals and faeries with a gift of food and drink. This should be taken from your harvest, probably including home-baked bread, and given respectfully, placed outside after the ritual. Ask for their blessing and wish them luck on making it through the coming winter.

Pour a glass of a chosen toasting beverage and lift it to the green candle still burning in the cauldron. Ask for the harvest to carry us through the coming winter, offer to lend your strength to Mother Earth, and give thanks, deeply, for the bounty already bestowed. Drink to the God’s transition and pour a libation. Put out the green candle.

Lammas Activities:³

Wish Tree can be worked on now. Add withered-looking, closed-up flowers to the tree and anoint the branches or buds with blessing oil or other anointing oil; meditate on each wish as you do so and think about what wishes have come true.

Make a small corn dolly to occupy your decorative Lammas basket. Let it symbolize the piece of the harvest that the God can live in in spirit until He has the strength to return to this world and retain His position as King. Let it hold all the secrets only the God knows and a reminder of His love for the Goddess, to pass on to His next incarnation on Yule.

Take the pieces of corn off of a stick of indian corn and string the pieces together with black thread to make an indian corn necklace. Wear this the rest of the day, and when the day has passed, place it around the neck and body of your corn dolly.

You may remove the wedding gifts and seasonal flowers from your decorative corn goddess dolly, and give her seasonal fruits and sunflower decorations. You can put a nut under her dress to symbolize her pregnancy.

Ritual Core:

Ritually give back some seeds to the Earth. This can be sunflower seeds, fruit seeds, flower seeds, anything. Pick a mixture and give them to the cauldron’s water. Think deeply and meditate upon your thanks for this bountiful harvest, and ask for the blessings of abundance to carry you through the scarcity.

BANISH THE LITHA SEASON AND INVOKE THE LAMMAS SEASON with banishing and invoking pentagrams. Ring the bell and say “it is done” or “so mote it be.”

Follow-up:

Greet the new season with a toast and pour a libation. Now celebrate the God’s transition with a feast. Begin the feast by cutting the apple, separating the stem from the bottom, to see the five seeds inside arranged in a pentagram. Eat one bite from both sides, acknowledging your acceptance of both sides of life: Light and dark, male and female, life and death. Put the remainder of the apple in the libation bowl.⁴ Now begin the feast. Make sure to share everything you’ve eaten with the libation bowl.

Finger-knit and tie your rope to the previous years’ ever-growing rope. Meditate on the meaning of this weaving to symbolize the journey. Think about previous Lammases you might have celebrated, and what has transpired in your life since you finger-knitted for Litha.

Closing:

Thank the God and Goddess for coming and put out their candles with a pinch or a snuffer, and thank all elementals, then earth and close the circle. Put anything that was given in the cauldron into the libation bowl also, excluding the candle and its holder. When the circle is broken, the first thing you should do is go outside and bury the contents of the libation bowl, then commence cleaning up. Document anything important in your Book of Shadows. Change any decorations around your house that you have to reflect the new season.

Alternatives and Additions:

If you wish, you may leave goodies out for the little people, animals, or whatever you choose. You may dedicate this food to them before the ritual’s core.

This Sabbat is conducive to magickal workings having to do with spells for prosperity, abundance, good fortune, connectedness, career, health and financial gain. If magick is to be done, do it right before the feast.

If dancing, singing, or any other personal or individual merriment is scheduled, it can be done either after the feast and the core of the ritual, OR it can be done after the circle is broken.

Footnotes:

1--Groups can alternate speaking lines of this as a chant, and use “we” instead of “I.”
2--Of course, this is easy to do with groups; a larger fire (or single candle, it doesn’t matter) can light everyone’s wishes together, and the ashes can be buried with the sacrifice from the harvest.
3--With groups, it may be preferable to do these activities outside circle, or in such a way that the High Priest and Priestess lead and allow everyone else to contribute in a small way, so that it does not take up the entire ritual.
4--Working partners should each take a bite of the apple and then switch; in coven situations, just pass each piece around to make sure everyone gets a bite.