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Post by potia on Jul 30, 2010 7:23:38 GMT -1
hi folks, A couple of us will be raising a triple toast on 1st August in honour of Lugus, the season and the tribe. As always it would be nice if others here decided to join in too  |
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Post by potia on Jul 6, 2011 15:25:02 GMT -1
I would imagine that this year like last year members of Brython will be raising a toast to Lugus on 1st August but what does this deity mean to us?
If he is of importance to us as a group then why is that so far he has not really figured in the short statements on perspectives and personal beliefs that some of us have written for the website? Is it simply that he is such a complex deity that we have trouble putting our thoughts about him into words? Or is it that we feel he is importance but have not as yet been able to make connections with him on a personal level?
What is Lugus to you? How should we honour him?
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Post by Lee on Jul 6, 2011 18:26:50 GMT -1
My answer? All of the above. Whilst there is plenty of indication of his association with crafts it just doesn’t feel that simple, in fact his pan-Celtic appearance suggests it is far more important than being a simple craftsman god. I think he is someone we have all been aware of in terms of the early August festival, but perhaps him and his relationship didn’t really 'fit'... he isn't a corn god or sun god so why him and why then? And for most of us the harvest holds a lot less meaning today if any at all compared to its proper meaning.
So yes, he is far more complex and evidently difficult to grasp for us I think. That said things might be clearing for a couple of us and at some point his place within our practices and within brython as a whole will probably become a lot clearer.
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Post by nellie on Jul 6, 2011 19:18:19 GMT -1
I find Lugus to be hugely complex but I think it's important to work on figuring it out. Lee will already know my thoughts from my comments on his blog. Along with Lee I'm slowly coming to see Lugus a little more clearly. In the dream I had, and posted here when I first joined, Lugus (for now I'm sure that is who it was!) was cultured. That's the best word for it. Quietly spoken, charming, eloquent, understated. He was interested in religion. Lately 'culture' is what I have come to see in Lugus. In this way it makes perfect sense that He is our champion. I'm coming to see Him as a deity that has helped us along, helped us to build our culture and the systems that maintain our culture. As to the why at harvest time, it's one of those questions I keep picking and picking at. What of Crom Dubh though, who is also assosiated with the same time in Ireland? Are Lugus and Crom Dubh one and the same? Crom Dubh seems to be linked to bull sacrifices at this time (somebody please correct me if I've got this wrong) and I think I remember that in I.E mythology bulls are often connected to the sun. If Crom Dubh is an older and different god then this is irrelevant, but if Crom Dubh is an older name for the same deity then it is food for thought (though I know nobody much currently thinks Lugus is likely to have solar attributes these days!  ) |
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Post by Heron on Jul 6, 2011 19:40:27 GMT -1
I also find Lugus complex. He hasn't spoken directly to me or, perhaps, I haven't found a way to approach him.
But that in itself is a chance to say something about our practice as polytheists. Yes we should honour him at whatever time is appropriate (and I must say Lughnasdadh on 1 Aug has never felt significant for me, and I would put Harvest later) but until we have seen a way to do it differently, yes we should raise a toast on 1 Aug.
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Post by Francis on Jul 6, 2011 23:07:55 GMT -1
(and I must say Lughnasdadh on 1 Aug has never felt significant for me, Nor me - I suspect because we both live in a pastoral landscape, and so there is nothing particularly significant happening at around this date? and I would put Harvest later) Though in the past harvest was earlier than it is now (for corn - although now that we're americans I suppose I ought to give up and call it wheat!) There has been a lot of selection for higher yielding varieties of wheat - this has partly been acheived by selecting for a later ripening date, that way you have a crop that has absorbed more energy from the sun over a longer season and so produced more starch. This wasn't possible in the pass but we now have much more sophisticated fungicides that can keep the 'problems' at bay for longer. |
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Post by Francis on Jul 6, 2011 23:15:59 GMT -1
For what it's worth I'll just mention that I'm taking my first steps working with arable land - the poor harvest of last year (and probably this year too) has put the price grain for animal feed up so high that many farms in our Valley are trying a field or two of wheat, oats or barley for the first time in several decades- it's interesting...
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Post by redraven on Jul 7, 2011 6:25:59 GMT -1
For what it's worth I'll just mention that I'm taking my first steps working with arable land - the poor harvest of last year (and probably this year too) has put the price grain for animal feed up so high that many farms in our Valley are trying a field or two of wheat, oats or barley for the first time in several decades- it's interesting... Forgive my ignorance here, but is the quality of grain for animals lower than for human consumption, thus allowing people in poorer arable areas the opportunity to produce grain for animal feed? RR |
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Post by Francis on Jul 7, 2011 8:22:37 GMT -1
Forgive my ignorance here, but is the quality of grain for animals lower than for human consumption, thus allowing people in poorer arable areas the opportunity to produce grain for animal feed? The quality of grain for animal feed needn't be as high as that selected for human consumption (in terms of size and 'fill' of the individual grains - although usually no less edible for humans - and of course I'm talking about Westerners "requirements/desires" here). Britain isn't ideal for growing wheat compared to say the Russian Steppes or Midwest of America - we only just get enough sun and usually it's a bit too humid (not the same factor as rainfall)- we manage nowadays because of all the fungicide sprays etc.) The West and North traditionally grew oats or barley which are inately more suitable here. The reason landscapes like mine don't grow grain much these days is simply that they're hilly. You can't use a big combine harvester on any sort of ground that isn't pretty level and unbumpy. Using equipment pulled by a tractor would take so much longer that it wouldn't be economic, and so you couldn't compete with the price of combine harvester harvested grain. (A combine cuts and threshes in one huge wide pass - a tractor would take several passes just to cut, it would then need collecting and threshing) Farms around here don't have the equipment to thresh grain anymore, and so the grain growing this year will be made into 'whole crop silage'. Essentially the stalk and leaf as well as the seed head will all be shredded together and 'pickled' in its own juice. making a very nutritious winter feed for sheep or cattle. Many farms around here did harvest and thresh into grain until the 1950s/early 1960s, but then the absolute economic advantage of combine harvesters on large flat fields in less hilly areas made this unviable. |
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Post by Francis on Jul 7, 2011 9:24:44 GMT -1
Although as I say most of the grain my neighbours are growing will become a kind of silage I intend to garvest enough oats for some porrage and enough wheat for some bread.
I believe working with these fields, even though the grain is destined for animal consumption in the first instance, is no different than if the expectation of the harvest to become bread. The animals they feed will still be consumed by humans....
The relationship I'm working with is of course quite alien. In the past a crop of grain was grown using some of the grain saved from the previous harvest. This happened year after year, generation after generation. Each farm almost had a 'strain' of grain subtlely genetically unique to itself - and effectively selected to suit that farm. (those individual plants which grew best on a farm produced more bigger vaible seed - and so after many cycles of harvest came to dominate the crop. Those plants unsuitable either didn't produce any seed or just a few and so were gradually elimated)
Anyway the point is that each farm had a realtionship with its crop. The farm and the grain developed / evolved together. And the grain itself had a relationship with the land of that farm and its people. In a very similar way to a hefted flock of hill sheep.
The grain growing in the fields around me now is some anonymous variety developed commercially that has no affinity or conection with the fields it's growing in. It needs to be pampered with several applications of fertiliser (including a balance of micronutrients adjusted for the soil of each field), many differesnt fungicides, many different insecticides etc. etc. If left on its own to grow then the crop would fail.
Once upon a time the yield was much lower, but the crops grew in Their fields by themselves - an ancient very specific and very local relationship between humans land and the grain itself.
Nowadays you've got a lonely bloke on his own in the cab of a combine harvester in a huge field eating sandwiches made from bread made from different wheat grown somewhere else (on land he's never walked on, harvested by people he doesn't know) and baked miles away in a factory by people he's never met. Hard to feel the dance between people, wheat and land that the harvest once was...
The more I've worked with these grain fields this year the more I've mourned the passing of these "farm specific" lineages/strains of wheat and the relationship and stories they held within them. The power they held of life ,and a local dance of self-reliance for both people and the form of the land.
Nowadays the growing of wheat is inextricably linked to oil. Diesel, fetilizer and all the other agricultural sprays require vast amounts of oil for their manufacture. The local dance of land, grain and people, and their internal self reliance is lost, and I think it will be much harder to breath life back into it than that of livestock, land and people. More often the value of farm specific/adapted bloodlines of livestock has been recognised and preserved than that of grains.
Of course as ever we have to balance everything against the fact that somehow we have 65+ million people flouncing about on these islands of ours, and they all want feeding every day!
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Post by Lee on Jul 7, 2011 9:35:27 GMT -1
are there any 'older' varieties that could be viable? i am thinking of things like emmer for instance which are ore likely to be more hardy and not so 'big and fluffy' like modern varieties.
Funnily enough growing something like wheat is something i have had in mind with Nichola to have a go at making some of our own flour and then bread - small scale but nevertheless an attempt.
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Post by Francis on Jul 7, 2011 9:40:16 GMT -1
Although as I say most of the grain my neighbours are growing will become a kind of silage I intend to garvest enough oats for some porrage and enough wheat for some bread. quote] Ah yes. The ancient now redundant verb "Garvest". Sort of a cross between to harvest and to gather. Still used today by those of a woolly minded disposition and the easily confused! |
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Post by Francis on Jul 7, 2011 9:57:03 GMT -1
are there any 'older' varieties that could be viable? i am thinking of things like emmer for instance which are ore likely to be more hardy and not so 'big and fluffy' like modern varieties.. Yes there are many older varieties still available. Daft legislation means they are only legal for sale as souvenirs or ornamentals and not for growing. Prince Charles (sorry I'm no nationalist but I can't call him the Prince of Wales!) has been campaigning against this and regularly breaks the law by growing these varieties on his Estates to try and get publicity about these well intended but poorly thought out laws. Most of the older varieties are much taller (bred shorter nowadays to be less damaged by high winds) and look more like barley with long whiskers. I was talking more myself about the very specific selection that takes place within a 'variety' through many generations on a specific farm. There's genetic variation within a variety and this variation over many generations on one farm will get skewed to that favoured by the particular conditions of that very specific bit of land. But if you're after some old varieties you can get "squareheads master" and "April bearded" from Emorsgate seeds - but they're only allowed to sell you these to be grown as ornamentals not for consumption - but obviously you can. I believe the thing would be to grow them year after year saving from the previous harvest- allowing genetic change to take place (obviously not necesarily adaptive change on this scale) but still to build the conection and history between a particular piece of land a 'particular family lineage of wheat' and yourself. Funnily enough growing something like wheat is something i have had in mind with Nichola to have a go at making some of our own flour and then bread - small scale but nevertheless an attempt. Do it! Do it! It typically takes about 2 square meters of an older variety of wheat to make a small loaf -600g ish. But you'll probably need to grow more than that as the edge usually takes a battering and is less productive |
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Post by Lee on Jul 7, 2011 10:10:45 GMT -1
yeah i got your meaning, I was thinking you could go back to the drawing board somewhat and makes efforts to start that grain-land relationship again from somewhere near the beginning. though selective retention for next years planting will do the job - incredibly exciting experiment, even from an intellectual point of view - you can never predict truly what might crop up (no pun intended).
it's things like that which make me admire Charles a lot more, he at least seems t be trying to make an effort to make changes (organic etc) and promote them than sit back and enjoy his privilege with no thought to anyone else.
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Post by redraven on Jul 7, 2011 10:22:44 GMT -1
Francis, I think you describe very well how the connection nowadays between harvest celebrations for earlier generations and now has been lost through "standardization" of crops and methods. A very specific relationship appears to have been sacrificed on the altar of commercialism. I suspect this may be playing a part as to why members here have little "connection" with either harvest or Lugus. Most people from earlier times would have had some form of interactive relationships with home grown crops as food production by this method was common place then to prevent starvation.
How much of your livestocks winter intake are you hoping to facilitate through this experiment ideally? Your posts suggest that you may well be using this method long term and I understand your objectives through your posting, but have you noticed any different dynamic between arable and pastorial productions where you live?
RR
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Post by potia on Jul 8, 2011 15:35:46 GMT -1
Fascinating information on grain production thanks Francis. I have had a brief experience with Lugus but I'm still getting to know him. I think for me the link between Lugus and harvests is connected to the wide range of skills demonstrated in getting to a harvest and then making the most of your harvest. Practical skills of all types as well as the knowledge of how to use them would seem to be part of his portfolio. I think also there are links to communicating these skills to others and other forms of communication such as trade, barter, agreements and contracts of all types. And again I think much of this would have been demonstrated at harvest times as people bartered their skills in return for a share of the harvest. I feel as if we should be doing more to honour him but at the moment I don't know what and it looks as if I'm not the only one |
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Post by nellie on Jul 8, 2011 19:48:17 GMT -1
Eee I may be about to go too far. We'll see.
If Lugus is concerned with culture and skill then since he was known to the iron age celts the connotations of this role have changed. So where culture, skill and commerce were once central to agriculture these days that isn't strictly the case. If Lugus IS concerned with these things, as a few of us think, then the next logical question would be if agriculture is not central to these concerns then what is? What elements of 21st century living does Lugus take an interest in maybe? It is clear that Lugus is a very important god and equally as clear that people just don't have the same ties to agriculture which is preventing us from coming closer to Him. If ever there was a time for reconnection as opposed to reconstruction I guess this could be it.
Disclaimer - it's been a bloody long day and I'm stupidly tired. I may read this comment tomorrow and think that I'm talking bollocks.
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Post by Heron on Jul 8, 2011 22:20:21 GMT -1
I wonder if we are on the right track thinking too specifically about Harvest. In spite of the date of Lughnasad, I don't recall that any of the Irish stories about Lugh specifically link him to the harvest. Our main Brythonic source is the story of Lleu in the Fourth Branch of Y Mabinogi so I re-read that earlier and, following a brief meditation, came up with these words of summary which might help us focus on some aspects of what the story tells us: Lleu Your childhood was wrought by wizards
Your name was gained by craft
Your arms by deception
And your wife conjured out of flowers
that faded as Spring passed
with the beat of an owl's wing at twilight.
You sat as a dying eagle
in the oak,
Your life falling away
with the Summer.
But in Autumn your strength returned
Your spear piercing the stone
And the heart of your enemy;
Your land secure again before Winter.
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Post by nellie on Jul 9, 2011 5:38:32 GMT -1
Thankyou for that Heron, I find those words very beautiful.
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