In the Agricultural Cycle
of the Wheel of the Year, we hit mid-Harvest, also called Second Harvest, in
the wee hours of this approaching Monday. That is if
we are calculating this Holy Day in conjunction with the timing of the Autumn
Equinox. Personally, I don’t think many
are going to get upset if you decide to celebrate on Sunday if the day is more
convenient. Afterall, if you have been tending
your harvest, you know it is a season and determining the point exactly in the
middle is more about the weather and growth of your crops and less about a predetermined
point in time.
In popular lore, Contemporary
Pagans, in the US anyway, like to describe this Sabbat as a kind of Pagan
Thanksgiving. In many ways, this is spot
on. Thanksgiving as a holiday was
adopted because when the powers that be were looking for a singular harvest
holiday to add to the national calendar it was one of many various harvest days
observed across the US and it fell at a time that was the most convenient for
the most folks, so both are all about the harvest and the celebration of
such. Sadly though, too many like to
stop their understanding of our Sabbat there.
With all of that said, I
was thinking about a few practices, and the associated lore, of this holiday
and thought I would share them as a short list of things that could potentially
make your Second Harvest a more meaningful one.
One – Winnowing
Winnowing is the process of
separating the chaff, and other unwanted parts, from the grain once it has been
harvested but before it is milled or otherwise stored for later use. Typically, the harvesting of wheat begins in early August and is wrapping up in mid-September, which is right about now. This means that by this point in the harvest,
there sure has been a lot of winnowing going on.
Back at First Harvest, at
the beginning of August, the first grains of the yield were being made into
fresh bread as we sacrificed stalk upon stalk of wheat. In the crossroads of the Sacred King Cycle
and Agricultural Cycle, these stalks are the symbolic sacrifice of Our Lord for
the good of the tribe. It’s that whole “the
King is dead, long live the King thing.”
Well, He is dead now and
the grain harvest is in. Time to separate
our chaff from the fruit of our labor before we being our journey to the
Underworld. You see, He is our example
in the turning of the Wheel and the symbology of the Harvest is really talking
all about us, which means that now that Second Harvest is upon us it is time to
get to work winnowing.
What Harvest have you been
working on in life? What do you need to separate
from your grain? How will you winnow such?
Two – Shrouding
We are all going to
die. One day it will be our bodies that
are the harvest of the universe. This is
just the way of the turning of the Wheel of Life and Death, which is really all
the Wheel of the Year is telling a story about, the Cycle of Death and Rebirth
or Living and Dying, they are the same story from different points. At this point, death has already arrived and
we are shrouded in the mysteries of that Final Initiation. This is what the lore tells us anyway.
There is a practice here also,
the practice of shrouding. When you light
the candles upon your altar this Feast Day, snuff His and wrap Him in a
shroud. He is still there, just like we
are all still there even in death. For
you see, that’s you sitting upon the altar wearing your burial clothes. It, however, is only symbolic of our worldly
death, the death of our body, and the death of only one of our Selves. It is not the Self that travels to dwell in
the hearth of the ancestors or the Self that reincarnates and is the thread
throughout all of our lives.
This Holy Day is also
about the embracing of our own morality and wearing that truth as our burial
clothes turned divine mantle.
When was the last time you
thought about the harvest that your own death would yield? The time is upon us, and remember it is never
too late/early to begin preparing the fields for the future.
Three – Descending
Another tendency that is
common amongst Contemporary Pagans is to allocate all things related to the
Underworld to Samhain, also called Third Harvest. The lore of the thinning veil and communing
with one’s ancestors certainly makes this an easy association. Samhain, however, is all about things that
have already made it to the Underworld. Now
is the time of things descending across that threshold unto the
Underworld. If you have been thinking
about doing an Underworld journey, now is the time to do that.
Even in this Descent there
is a Harvest, as we know from Her later descent at Samhain to join Him, there
are gates that one must pass—Seven
gates. I like to think of them
like passing the gates of the Wandering Stars to the point where the two conjoin—the
flame betwixt the horns. Take that as
you will. The point is that if you are
to strip away and cut free to reveal that which is eternal, you are going to have to give
a few things up. Sacrifices are needing
to be made as a toll on the road to the next phase.
Second Harvest is an
excellent time for this kind of Witchcraft.
What sacrifices are you going to make so that you may feast at the table?
Boidh Se,
-SM
“Lost is a thicket,
bare-foot upon a thorn path.”
