First Harvest

Can you feel the shift?

High summer has come to a close with the arrival of Lughnasadh (loo-nah-sah).  Named after the Celtic sun god, Lugh, it's time to reap the bounty of fields and gardens.

Farmer's markets are brimming with corn, zucchini and greens.  Bouquets of flowers grace our kitchen tables and window sills.

Lughnasadh falls mid-way between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox on the wheel of the year.  How are you feeling as the days grow shorter?   Have you noticed the summer stars shifting in the sky?

I set intentions on the winter solstice, seeding them in my awareness during the dark days of winter. I felt my ideas germinating through the early spring.  I nurtured them with practical steps until they burst through -- from fertile ground into tender seedlings.  Actual evidence this might work! During the long days of summer, I've  been tending my plans the same way I tend my plants, doing what I need to do to help my ideas thrive.  I'm weeding out what doesn't fit in with my evolving vision.

I had the idea of teaching energy medicine.  I mulled it over during the long winter.  I began to envision it.  I talked it over with a trusted mentor. Friends offered to help.

Bringing this idea into reality required action on my part.  Dreaming about it was not going to make it happen.  I placed ads in local publications.  I drafted copy, solidifying my ideas.  I pulled out my calendar and chose seven weekends over the next year, with consideration to the phase of the moon, of course. For on-line advertising, I was asked to convert a word document into a JPEG.  How to do this? I had no idea! But I learned.  Lo and behold, there was my ad, in The Door Opener e-blast -- it looked good!  I posted my offering, Opening the Channel:  Introduction to Energy Medicine, here on the blog.

At the time of this first harvest I have two students paid in full.  

Still many blessings of the summer to treasure -- Meredith, our oldest daughter, will be married this month!  All our planning will culminate in that day of joy for our families.  

Yet as the Earth turns toward autumn, so do we. Earlier evenings, pulling out the tea pot, resuming our Monday night meditation circle -- I look forward to these familiar rituals of fall.  But I'm not in a hurry to have them yet.

Instead, I'm savoring the bounty of the earth using fresh ingredients straight from my modest garden. Herbs sprinkled into salad.  Wondering what to do with lemon balm.  Our current favorite is blueberry zucchini cake with lemon buttercream. (http://iambaker.net/blueberry-zucchini-cake-with-lemon-buttercream/)

I hope you savor whatever you are in the process of creating in your home, business, career, relationship and spiritual life.  My friend Mary is nurturing her relationship with her precious first grandchild; Kathy is piecing together an art quilt to take your breath away, and Michela is seriously considering retirement to make room for her many talents as a healer.

And don't forget to weed!  That painful relationship?  Is is time to let it go?  That situation that's always fraught with drama?  How can you step away from it? Or shift your perspective so it no longer triggers you?  Has some illusion shattered?  Embrace clarity.  

Just as the garden is even more vivid after a good rain shower, so is the inner landscape more vibrant after being tended to in ways like these.

If you haven't been consciously aware of this creation cycle that began on the winter solstice, it's not to late to set your intentions now.  Today is the last day of the current lunar cycle -- the balsamic phase -- the exact time for going inward and reflecting on your dreams, goals and priorities. Tomorrow, August 2nd, is the new moon -- the exact time for setting your intentions for this lunar cycle.  Use the power of the shorter lunar cycle to jump into the larger solar cycle of creation.  Aligning with these cycles within cycles  attunes you to the powerful rhythms of the the great forces of the cosmos.  Navigating with these energies puts you in the flow of creation.


Why paddle upstream when you can have the wind at your back?

May your first harvest be as delightful as a pint of freshly-picked strawberries -- bursting with flavor, nurtured by light, and tenderly harvested by your very own loving hands.


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