Join us on August 6th at the UU Church in Huntsville to celebrate Lughnasadh with a potluck social event filled with games, fun, and music! This is a family friendly event! There is a playground for children to play in, and a community room for eating, chatting, and playing games.

Items to bring with you:

• A dish to share - Lughnasadh is traditionally a feast and celebration of the first harvest of the year! So bring something the reminds you of the harvest, of celebration, and something that you want to share with the community. (If you have any dietary restrictions, be sure to bring something you can eat, as there is no guarantee that someone else will.)
  
• Games - Bring your board games, card games, yard games, heck even bring your video games as long as you have a way to play them and share them with the community! One of the themes of Lughnasadh is games of skill!
  
• Musical Instruments - Bring your drums, rattles, guitars, flutes, singing bowls, etc. We will have time, and space for some music, and may even bust out a drum circle while we're there!
  
• Tarot, Runes, Oracles, etc. - Bring your divination tools! Whether you are new, or skilled, there is something to be shared and learned at every gathering!
  
• Offerings for the Community Altar - Bring anything you would like to contribute to the community altar. This can be anything from crystals, coins, flowers, herbs, breads, cookies, etc. Whatever you feel called to bring will be acceptable. We will burn all offerings either in the firepit at the UUCH building, or in our ritual firepit at home. (If we take the offerings home to burn them, we will record a video of the burning and post it for the community to watch later.)

A little about Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh is the first of 4 traditional Gaelic harvest festivals. It is the honoring of the Sun God Lugh, who is the patron of craftsmen, scholars, artists, warriors, and magicians.

Traditionally, it is celebrated with a feast, and games of skill. Challenges were made to test each other in games of skill, strength, and mental acuity, and the winner of these events would be crowned the Sun King, who would take on the role of the Green Man in a theatrical ritual later that evening.

In Welsh tradition, The Green Man, also called John Barleycorn, sacrifices himself to preserve life for the people of earth by feeding them with the grains from his body. Half the grains would be baked into breads and pies, and the rest stored away to be used as seed in the coming year's planting, continuing the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Thus, Lughnasadh is also a time for reflection on sacrifice and transformation, and for considering the things we have sewn in our lives that are now ripened and ready for harvest.

Lughnasadh also marks the shift towards the dark half of the year, when the days become shorter, and the nights longer. It reminds us that while we must celebrate the ripened harvest, we also must take time to rest, and restore, and preserve our energy for the coming season of darkness.

Meditation Prompt:
What seeds did you sew this spring that are now ready for harvest?