02/08/2025
For pagans, the wheel of the Year turns again, and over the weekend of August 1st to 3rd, many wiccans, druids, pagans and followers of nature based religions will be marking the agricultural festival of Lammas, sometimes known as Lughnasadh, particularly in Ireland where the festival was linked with the sun god Lugh. Glastonbury's pagan bookstore, Goddess and the Green Man at 17 High Street, publishes some of its guidance to the festival of Lammas and the later summer, pointing out that as the first grain harvests come in, so the power of the sun is gradually waning over the land and that the darker days of winter and introspection are drawing closer. For earth based religions, and indeed, in some of the core beliefs of other faiths as well, there is no contradiction between the life giving summer and the barren winter: both are two sides of the same cycle of life and death that governs all of existence on the planet. We send our greetings to all LGBTQIA pagans and other followers of nature based religions on this special weekend.
