The Nudge - Dispatch 22 | Lughnasa 2024
“The festival of Lughnasa speaks of fullness and bounty of richness and sacrifice. As cornfields ripple in the late summer breeze and whisper golden promises of the grain harvest to come, we know deep within our psyche that the darkness is but a heartbeat away.”
Carol Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers
Welcome to The Nudge | Lughnasa 2024
This seasonal care package has been especially prepared just for you by The Trailblazery team
Dear Friends,
Tá sceitimíní áthais orainn - we are excited to prepare The Nudge, our latest care package for you as we approach the great festival of Lughnasa on August 01. At The Trailblazery HQ, we are looking forward taking some time to rest, reflect and tune into the gifts (and challenges) of the season.
In the midst of these bewildering times on our planet, this gateway on the Wheel of the Year offers us an opportunity to take stock of everything. We are invited to enjoy the fruits of what was planted earlier in the year and we take inventory of what will be needed to sustain us for the long winter months ahead.
Lughnasa is the Irish word for August and marks the transition into the Harvest Season. It is one of the most joyous festivals and was a time of great celebration in Ireland, where our ancestors gathered to honour the cycle of life and give thanks for the bounty of the season. The energies of this time are about appreciation, gratitude, wildness, exuberance joy and celebration.
Lughnasa, which means the 'Assembly of Lugh,' is centred around the honouring of the great Celtic God, Lugh. He held a prominent role as the chief of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the supernatural Irish gods and goddesses. He was renowned as a great warrior and master craftsman, earning him the names Lugh Lámhfada (Lugh of the Long Arm) and Lugh Samildánach (skilled in all Arts). His expertise ranged from music and poetry to healing and magic. Lugh was a true polymath, celebrated as the patron of scholars, craftsmen, warriors, and magicians. In Star Wars, George Lucas morphed the Sword-of-Light carrying Celtic warrior Lugh into the light-saber-wielding hero Luke Skywalker.
The word dán in Samildánach has many meanings. It signifies art, poetry, gift, skill, destiny, fate, and faculty. Our dán is a unique soul-gift that each of us possess. It is a gift to be nurtured, and shared with the world.
Legend has it that Lugh established the celebration of Lughnasa in memory of his foster mother, Tailtiu, the “Great One of the Earth”. She symbolises the fertility, wildness and abundance of Nature: it is said that she cleared the trees from large areas of land so it could be tilled, planted and harvested. She passed from exhaustion after completing this great feat.
Lugh initiated the Tailteann Games; a two-week tribal assembly like the Greek's Olympics. The events tested champions in feats of strength, speed and skill - and continued in Co. Meath (home of the Hill of Tailtiu) until the Norman invasion.
'Horse-swimming' was a particularly notorious competition, where horse and rider raced across a lake or body of water. A less dangerous practice lives on today, where horses are raced on beaches like at Omey in Co. Galway.
During Lughnasa people celebrated the triumph of light over darkness and the abundance of the land. They also prepared for the descent into winter by resting before the intense work of the harvest began.
This season celebrates the social bonds of the meitheal, which means 'linked to the other’. This is an ancient Irish tradition where people come together with a common purpose, working for the greater good of all. This is a time of community togetherness and reciprocity with the gods, goddesses and spirits of the land.
Lughnasa invites us to celebrate the abundance of the harvest season within and without. As the Great Wheel turns, let the creative life force or neart of this ancient gateway guide and inspire us. May this care package bring you moments of respite and delight during this sacred time.
Some journal prompts to inspire you:
🌽 What are you noticing within and without as the season of Lughnasa approaches? What cues and clues are being offered to you by the wild world?
🌽 How can you integrate these insights to your own personal awareness and growth? How can you share these insights as an act of response-ability and kinship?
🌽 How is your Dán or soul-gift ripening and manifesting itself in your life? What lights you up? What turns you ON?
🌽 What’s ripe and ready to be harvested in your life? What resources will support you at this time?
🌽 What blessings - beannachtaí are you grateful for right now? Can you write a list of 108 things you are grateful for today? Notice how you feel when this practice is complete.
🌽 How do you cultivate and connect to JOY in your life? Where do you feel it in your body? Does it have a sensation, texture or colour?
🌽 Lughnasa is the first of 3 harvest seasons: what do you hope to reap between now and the final harvest at Samhain? Who will you be sharing the bounty of your harvest with?
🌽 Lughnasa is a time of community and Meitheal: who are the key allies in your life? How can you honour and thank your expanders for their support and companionship?
What’s happening at The Trailblazery:
Kathy has opened up some spaces for her creative mentorship pathway this Autumn. This is an initiatory process that is both personal and professional. It’s about slowing down and listening to the clues and cues that reveal to us who we are and who we have come here to be. This is soul work that connects us deeply to our dán or destiny code.
Some of us are hearing the gentle whispers and persistent nudges of our soul calling us to participate in the inner journey of transformation. Some of us are discovering that our soul is calling us into being of service to something bigger than ourselves. We are all being invited to remember why we are here. After all, we are the tiny acorn who intuitively knows how to become a mighty oak...
Kathy shares:
“We are living in wild initiatory times. We have all been experiencing contractions and expansions as one world slowly dies and another waits to be born. I believe we are being called now as ancestors-in-training to midwife the future. We are being nudged to wake up, rise up and show up as agents of evolution. We are being asked to stand up and show our souls. We have all signed up for this moment of planetary awakening but will we accept and incarnate our soul’s calling?”
If you feel the call or are simply a little curious to find out more, you can set-up a free discovery call with Kathy by contacting hello@thetrailblazery.com. You can find out more about Kathy’s bespoke mentorship services here on our website
Homecoming
A rewilding retreat in Wicklow, Ireland
with Kathy Scott & special guest Ajeet
Sunday August 25 - Friday August 20
We’re delighted to be welcoming people from all over the world for our Homecoming retreat in Wicklow this summer. Together we will journey to come home to ourselves, each other and the healing powers of the wild world during the luminous season of Lughnasa. We will create time & space for creative explorations that weave rewilding with ritual & rest.
* This retreat is fully subscribed. If you’re interested in attending future seasonal retreats with Kathy, you can sign up here to join the waitlist and be the first to know when we make announcements.
Recommended Resources
Here are a few reading, watching and listening pieces to nourish your senses in the days ahead:
♪ Listen: For your ears
Enjoy this Lughnasa gift of a mytho-sensory wonder voyage recorded by Kathy to mark Féile Lughnasa. As the Great Wheel turns and Lughnasa approaches, w have a special gift for you. To mark this high holy day, w're giving you an exclusive wild Immram experience that will transport you to a realm of wonder and joy.
Find a tranquil and comfortable space to lie down, enabling you to fully embrace the sounds and insights that await you. Let go of tensions as you become one with the harmonious flow of this immersive sound journey. Let this enchanting soundscape lead you into a state of deep relaxation and appreciation for the bounty of this Harvest Festival.
✦ Smell: For your nose
Lughnasa is a festival for the senses. Herbs and plant allies of Lughnasa include:
Meadowsweet ~ Airgead luachra.
Also known as Queen-Of-The-Meadow, Bridewort and Bride of the Meadow, this sweet smelling flower was one of the most sacred herbs of the Druids, this was a traditional herb for wedding circlets and bouquets at this time of year. Also used for love spells and can be strewn to promote peace, and its heady scent cheers the heart.
Mint ~ Mismín arbhair
Mint is another of the three most revered herbs of the Druids (vervain being the third, according to Grieve). Its magical properties are both protection and healing, and at this stage in the year, its properties of drawing abundance and prosperity, are most appropriate.
Calendula ~ Lus buí Albanach
Little suns, pure joy, in all their shades from deep orange to pale yellow. They carry a sweet and delicate herbal smell.
Yarrow ~ Athair thalún
Yarrow has taken on different meanings and symbolism throughout the centuries. It’s been known to be a herb that casts away evil spells and hexes. People believe that stringing it across the doorway will prevent evil spirits from entering their home. Its fragrance is distinctively sweet and rather soapy, like chrysanthemums.
✯ Watch: For your eyes
Kneecap in Cinemas
In this fiercely original sex, drugs, and hip-hop biopic, KNEECAP play themselves with Academy Award Nominee Michael Fassbender in tow, laying down a global rallying cry for the defence of native cultures. Following an award-winning debut at Sundance Film Festival, KNEECAP opens in Ireland on Thursday, August 8. Find out more here
❤ Read: For your heart
This Lughnasa inspired journal, edited by the wonderful Lucy O’Hagan and Denise Conroy, features several pieces that explore the theme of queerness (or Aiteach as Gaeilge) in our wild world. This issue of Airmid’s journal invites you to rewild and rekindle your sense of kinship with this wonderfully queer world and the many species we share it with. 10% of profits from this issue will go to support @transharmreduction
✬ Connect: For your Soul
This beautiful Lughnasa poetry-film by eco-poet Grace Wells is the perfect way to tune into the energies of the season.
✬ Touch: For your pleasure
The following Essential Oils are often used for anointing oil blends at Lughnasa: Cedar, Frankincense, Juniper, Myrrh, Pine, Sage, Sandalwood, and Thyme. To honour the season and set your space, you can create your own blend of these or follow this recipe here.
EnJOY these days - may the gleaming light be yours.
Thank you for walking this path with us,
Beannachtaí,
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery