Wheel of Wonder July 31, 2016

Happy Lughnasadh.  It is the time of the first harvest of summer and the sacrifice of the god of the grain, the oak king.  What wisdom do you feel you can harvest from your experiences this year?  Have you felt the need to sacrifice anything for the greater good of yourself or your community? Or
do you just love running around in the sun and eating wild berries?  Many people experience this time of Lammas differently.  In a way perhaps its all a first harvest, a harvest of experiences and memories.  What are people but their memories within their physical bodies anyway?
Lughnasadh is also a celebration of the bread and the death of John Barleycorn symbolized in the scything or harvesting of the grain.  "John Barleycorn must die!" is so true if we are to see him as an embodiment of all the edible plants we need to harvest or transform into food so we can live.  That's what John Barleycorn (An aspect of the god figure, the Green Man) sacrifices himself for, the continuance of Human life.

After he dies he heads to the dark underworld, to face his challenges, his kingdom, or pact, he made with the goddess before he can be born again.  The underworld has oft been described in tales as the prison for the dead.  Today on the Lughnasadh show of Wheel of Wonder we talk with a Druid by name of Moss, who works in prison Ministry.  A clear and present darkness, or some may say "self-induced lease to the underworld,"  prison, where people must meet and defeat their personal demons to learn and rehabilitate before being born again.  It seems an appropriate situation from which to see and learn the meaning of the Lughnasadh season.  I am thankful to Moss who chose to sit and talk with me about his efforts, insights and victories as a person in Pagan Prison Ministry.  Happy Lughnasadh!