NMR ISSUE 26

An Urban Wicca
Astrological Forecast 26
Belief and Magic
Chain Letters
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Editorial 26
Letters 26
Love and Magic
Memories of a Friend
Missing You
Pagan Bibliophiles
Seeing the Goddess in your Home
Should I do It while I'm Sick
Solitary Talk
Stone Banishing Ritual
Teaching the Magical Arts
The Magic of Chocolate
The Solitary Path
The Ugly Witch Figure
The Wiccan Spirit
Three Magical Waters
Two Wiccan Rites
Where Eagles Cry
Why I'm Not a Witch
Wiccan and Magical Games

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An Urban Wicca: Lammas

Alex Miller-Mignone

Hot town, Lammas in the city?

City slicker Wiccans? You bet. Unfortunately not all of us on the path have the luxury of the country life; no thirty foot circles with skyclad celebrants here (well, there was that rain-drenched Summer Solstice in a remote area of Fairmount Park?). But what the city lacks in settings it more than makes up for in resources (like easy access to a wide variety of Wiccan publications, such as New Moon Rising). It is possible to have a satisfying, if somewhat subdued, celebration of the turning Wheel of the Year, even in the heart of modern Man's industrial centers.

We were fortunate indeed to find a simple setting with a lot of potential: a row home on a quiet side street that included a rundown postage-stamp backyard with a two trunk white birch set in a brick-lined S-curve bed. The first thing we did was have the realtor repair the teetering seven foot wood fence that surrounded the property, and we were in business. Nearly seven years later the yard has become a sanctuary of the God and Goddess, with a working herb garden, several small shrines dedicated to the mysteries of Birth, Time and Consciousness, and a tubbed pair of hollies to represent the Lady and Her Consort. It has become a haven, as well, for a variety of small birds, stray cats, and even a family of squirrels (who, I must admit, wreak havoc with the dried corn decorations at Samhain).

There is a large round table in the center of the garden, an old industrial spool that we found discarded on the sidewalk, which serves as an outdoor altar, ringed each Sabbat with eight glass-encased candles of appropriate color. Calling the Directions and casting the circle occurs about its four-foot diameter, and there is room for four or five celebrants to move freely about. Invocations are of necessity performed in tones less ringing than those from the nearby Sunday pulpits, but the yard is screened with more than birch leaves, and we've never had any negative attention paid us. (I regularly caulk the seams in the now weathered fence with magenta light of sealing and protection, which envelops the entire property.)

Lammas, the beginning of the celebration of the Harvest, is a special time in the garden, which is at its height as the lazy, hazy days of August commence. Blue and white balloon flowers, a hearty and unique perennial, compete with trailing vines of day-blooming morning glories and white night-blooming moonflowers. The herbs are spilling their beds, as usual, and the lone patio tomato (we had to have one love apple for Aphrodite) sports an abundance of ripening, cherry-sized fruits.

Bushy marigolds are just coming into their own, while potted geraniums (which have never been more vigorous) are full of magenta and peach blooms. Large pots of sunflowers, sacred to the God, and planted three to a tub to remind us of the Triple Goddess, stand as golden sentinels beside the porch steps. There are even a few pumpkin vines, trailing from their planting beneath the birch to fill in the edges and corners of the fence-line (we have yet to see a harvest from these, because the sunlight is limited, but the blooms are prolific, large and golden and delicious when stuffed and fried). It's hard to imagine we're just a few blocks from City Hall and the Liberty Bell.

Despite the heat and humidity, as July wanes we turn our minds to preparations for the colder seasons to come, of which Lammas is the first harbinger. Though we commonly won't have a killing frost in our sheltered garden until nearly Yule, the time has come to detach from the growing abundance about us and plan for the harvest.

One of the things we do to celebrate this Harvest of Grains is prepare a feast from fruits of the season, complete with decorations redolent of the time at hand. Sabbat candles of orange and yellow adorn the altar, which doubles as the feast table, and is centered with masses of daylilies in flame and gold. The candles we will light in a ceremony on Lammas eve and allow them to burn until they gutter in their glass sleeves sometime the day after the feast.

The centerpiece of the indoor preparations occurs on Lammas eve as well: we remove the golden sun figure which has kept the honored place above our dining table since Oimelc, and hang in its place the first symbol of the Harvest—a solar disk of four or eight small cobs of Indian corn mounted on a round straw or rattan mat, their frilled husks twined about the rim of the circle, the ears radiating inward to the center. We borrowed this idea from one of Pauline Campanelli's books (her works, The Wheel of the Year, Ancient Ways, and Circles, Groves and Sanctuaries, are a must for the serious Pagan); sometime in mid-July we retrieve a few perfect specimens of dried corn from last Autumn's store (kept secured in our cellar from the prying teeth of squirrels) and mount them on the wicker wheel, tying them tightly with lengths of bronze thread.

At the same time, we purchase ears of fresh corn, pluck the pegs or kernels from the cob, and string them on long strands of the same thread, hanging them for three to four weeks to dry in the kitchen. These will be worn in the Lammas ceremonies or used to decorate porch and tree. Shells, sacred to the Goddess and redolent of summers at the seashore, we will place carefully in the rocky nooks of the herb garden and use as place markers for the feast—each shell cradling, oyster-like, a small stone of magickal significance as a token of remembrance for the celebrants. Sometimes we are moved, in the haze of a Lammas sunset, to walk the quarter mile to the abutments on the bridge across the Schuylkill River, and return these gifts to the waters.

One of the advantages to life in the city is the availability of exotic grocery items that might not be as readily attainable in the wildwood. The feast at Lammas centers on the fruits of the season: a sun-dried tomato and cream cheese spread is spiced with our own herbs and garlic and served with a variety of whole grain crackers; corn, red pepper and wild rice chowder forms the main course, and is rounded out with a salad including our own nasturtium and impatiens petals, more herbs and cherry tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, and an assortment of braided or squared loaves from a local brick-oven bakery. Dessert might be a raspberry tart or peach pie with sugary nougat filling, a secret family recipe for generations.

By Lammas eve we have made most of the preparations, and the garden is aglow with strings of tiny white lights, some of them shielded with small plastic representations of fireflies, whose real-life referents commingle with the massed flowers and perennials under the birch tree. The celebrants gather at dusk—not an official coven, but rather a more or less permanent selection of like-minded friends. We take turns devising the ritual, which is based on our common understanding of what the season represents.

What we say varies yearly and will not be repeated here; such ritual should be private and personal—to use someone else's words at a time so sacred, or to relay them to others afterward, would be to deny the God and Goddess the intimacy, immediacy and anonymity which is their due. But the underlying basis evokes the Vegetative God in His aspect as sacrifice, and the Earth Mother Goddess in Her aspect as mistress of the harvest. Lammas originally commemorated the Sun's arrival at the 15th degree of Leo, a Cross-Quarter day and the Gate of Power which marks the height of the summer season (the actual astrological event now occurs almost a week later, and will be duly commemorated). Lammas' position in the Wheel of the Year (where each of the eight solar Sabbats can be related to one of eight lunar phases (the New Year/New Moon phase commencing with Yule)) places this early Harvest festival in Disseminating phase, a time of giving back to others from the wealth of our own experience, and this energy we will address tonight as we light the altar candles to inaugurate the Lammas fast which precedes the feast.

Cooking on an empty stomach can be a torturous experience, so we prepare in advance as much of the following night's Lammas Feast as we can. The day of Lammas we spend in quiet contemplation and review of the previous night's ritual and the previous season's bounty and blessings. All share in the last minute activities on the late afternoon of the feast day. And again at dusk the celebrants assemble in the garden, the candles still burning, though we cast no fresh circle as we set the altar for our feast—last night's circle is still open in honor of the holiness of the day. Dinner conversation revolves around the topics of our meditations that day and plans for the seasons and years to come. We pour a quiet libation to the God and the Goddess following our repast, and close the circle.

Treading the path on asphalt and concrete may not be to everyone's taste, and surely contact with the great open spaces is a treat for the eye and the soul whenever possible, but Sabbats in the city need not be any less beautiful or meaningful. A deep and sincere desire to honor the Old Ones, in whatever way we deem most appropriate, is the only prerequisite for a special Sabbat, whatever the season.