instructions for Lughnasadh (Tialtiu's feast)

(this one’s for you)

remember when your world was made of wild potentialities? every meal required adventure, every comfort a matter of luck?

you are a child of the fire that fills these late summer skies - so wanted, and still too much. you can enact anything on which your radiant imagination alights. that fire in your mind, like the blackberry brambles and the fallow fields, offers a fickle and cutting wilderness in which to wander.

and so you wandered. shiningly meaningless unshackled meandering. and why not?

and then. and then you wanted something else. to cool your fire. to bring your journey home. to a hearth. you wanted dinner. reward. rest. the girl...

your mother, your foster, who knew you best, saw your bewilderment in the apparent chaos of the cosmos. she felt your fatigue at the perpetual mystery of fulfillment. she heard your hunger cries.

and though she was scholar
queen
warrior
lawmaker
friend of the forests
mother of many, and
tired as hell
she got down off her restful throne, stepped out of her chariot, slipped from her luscious and comforting bed

and cleared the wildnerness of ancient-placed forests
so your that crop could grow.

she taught you to quiet your fire long enough to till the soil and plant the seeds. she taught you to honour the shining times and the shadow times. she watched with some pride as you stood in awe of the ripening promise of harvest.

and when the first fruits could be gathered, so could her final rest.

today you have three tasks to complete, to remember and honour her who fostered you through your magificent wilderness:

– declare quite clearly the law of your land
– sing the song that began in your unshackled meandering
– and reap. reap what you’ve sown. reap what you’ve sown. reap what you sow.