Bread of Life (1)

Even on the streets of our cities, even on consecrated lands, within the distinctly un-pagan precepts of our churches, when we 'scratch the surface' we find that the Lughnasadh tradition and its equivalents, have made their way directly into the Harvest Thanksgiving ceremonies which are celebrated in many Christian churches, as Summer draws to a close.

When religion began to develop, the pagan love of the land and all that it provided, was incorporated into the new religious rituals. Bread, made from flour, ground from harvest-wheat, became a symbol of life. In both religious and non-religious contexts, bread represents Creation’s sacred life-force, giving life to us and through the life-giving earth, sustaining us. Across the Judeo-Christian world, bread has iconic importance. From the era of the Old Testament, right up to today, bread is eaten at the Feast of Passover by Jews everywhere. It was this ritual of the Passover that inspired Jesus to use bread at The Last Supper, making it the most potent symbol in the history of western culture. In the unleavened bread of the sacrament of Communion, which is celebrated every day in the churches of Christendom, we can trace the distant echoes, back through the millennia, of the pagan world beyond.
Blessings on your table!


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Dancing at Lughnasa

Lughnasadh was another ancient pagan festival which celebrated nature's bounty, whose resonances still live on today and were explored in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa. Lugh was the solar deity, the god of music and light and of the harvest, honoured at Summer’s end, when the crop was gathered in and thanks were given for the earth’s abundance. Remnants of this tradition still live within the ancestral memory of the people and in many communities there are still celebrations when the harvest is brought in. As Friel has commented ‘if you scratch the surface in Ireland, you find the pagan underneath’ and while these words may seem to be less true on the streets of Dublin than they are in the hills of Donegal, it is, in my view, only a question of how deep below the surface you have to scratch.

Blessings on your table!

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Earth Goddess

In Ireland, Brigit was our Demeter, our ancient, pre-Christian earth goddess, honoured at Imbolc, the pagan fire festival which celebrated the start of Spring. Honouring Brigit, marked the return of the harvest season after the barren Winter, when the crops of the fields would grow once more. Christianity then used this pagan template to create ‘Saint Brigid’, whose feast day is the first day of February, coinciding with Imbolc. When I was a child, I remember making a Saint Brigid’s cross out of reeds and hanging it inside our hall door ‘to bring blessings’ to our family. The cross had obvious Christian associations, but its ancient meaning was to represent the Wheel of the Year, with its seasonal cycles of growth and fertility. Today, children in Ireland still weave Saint Brigid’s crosses and there is even something of a renewal in the honouring of Brigit as a nature goddess. It seems that her power is still alive, even after all the centuries of Christianity, bringing to mind J.G. Frazer’s lovely description of Saint Brigid as 'an old heathen goddess of fertility disguised in a thread-bare Christian cloak!'


Blessings on your table!

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