Friday, July 31, 2009

Lughnasadh 2009

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Here's your challenge: Find a pantheon that does not have a deity associated with farming or harvesting. Find a faith path that does not celebrate the bringing in of sheaves. If you do, our operators are standing by to take your call.

Both of my grandfathers were farmers who moved into white collar jobs at a fairly young age. My maternal grandfather (Granddad Jerk) couldn't wait to get off the farm and move into a fancy house. My dad's father (Granddad Hero) never owned any property except his 75 acres of Appalachian farmland, upon which stood a house with no running water. He rented modest houses in town but always returned to the farmland when he could. In his last years he lived there nine months out of the year.

Granddad Hero fretted about the weather his whole life. He was an industrial inventor, a patent holder, high in the management of a synthetic fabric company. And yet he fretted about the weather. At any time, on any day, he could go to the grocery store and buy food. And yet he fretted about the weather. If it was dry, he scanned the skies for rain. If it rained too much, he worried about rot.

We teased him about it, all this fretting over the weather. How silly of us.

Only two generations removed from the land, I had lost touch with the anxieties inherent in farming. Too little rain, you starve. Too much rain, you starve. Starve, as in not enough food. Starve, as in no money to buy shoes, coats, coffee. That was the youth my Granddad Hero.

Doesn't it make sense to pray for rain? Doesn't it give you some solace to feel a deity is intervening in the cycle of the land? Doesn't it make ultimate sense to thank that deity, or those deities, for your harvest?

Thank you, Danu and Bile. Thank you, Lugh. The corn is ripe, the crops are coming in. And then we'll plant our fields again.

5 comments:

Aquila ka Hecate said...

...and, unaccountably, it's raining this Imbolc morning in Johannesburg.

That's pretty wierd for this time of year -but I've also seen the early return of migrational birds, just yesterday.

Want some rain? Have some of ours!

Love,
Terri in Joburg

Theo Huffman said...

When I lived in northern California, my mother in Germany could never understand why all winter my letters to her would include running accounts of how much snow had accumulated in the Sierra Nevada mountains. If you live in the country in California, the Sierra snow pack can become a serious obsession, because that'll be your water source for eight months. Weird place, California.

Hecate said...

Find a faith path that does not celebrate the bringing in of sheaves

I adore you, but I hate this xian term: faith path.

I don't belong to a "faith" -- my religion has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with experience. The term deliberately excludes Pagans.

Meanwhile, here's wishing you and yours a Blessed First Harvest

yellowdoggranny said...

Texas is screwed this year...drought all over..crops are gone, no feed for cattle and they are selling off livestock cause they cant feed them..your grandpa was right to worry..

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. I feel included in the term faith path. I am a Witch and a pagan and totally include faith in my practice. FWIW.