Farewell Magic, At Lammas

There’s nothing like the full moon to make a witch feel inspired! I was tasked with writing these song notes a whole moon ago.

This song, At Lammas, is a Great Work. Quite a bit of magic went into getting this one onto our latest album, Seasons: A Pagan Journey Around the Wheel. Back in the spring of 2018, Alane (our producer) told me the Crow Women were going to put together a 3rd album, and asked if I would like to be part of it. Heck yeah! The catch? I live over 2,000 miles away in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Most of the rest of my Sisters live in out West. Fortunately, Alane is particularly brilliant at making things happen.

Alane put together practice CD’s for those of us far away to listen and practice our own parts with, learning these songs long distance. Okay, done. Those of us who had flown the nest had to find our way back in order to put in actual studio time. Magically (hee hee), my family and I were able to arrange a timely late fall vacation to the Colorado mountains. This made it possible for me to be in the studio at Eagle Sound in Durango Colorado for one single day to sing and record my part on half a dozen songs.

So now we have Time and Travel magic. Ha ha, Time Travel, truly, since we needed to travel back in time a bit, and contact the Spirit World, to record At Lammas. You see, my beautiful friend, Donna Pauline, and Alane had worked on this song one day in the Fall of 2017, decided they really liked it, and made a quick recording on a little handheld recorder so they wouldn’t forget what they had put together. Donna Pauline traveled far away to the Summerland the following January. Little did they know it would be the last recording of Donna we would have.

That informal recording is the one I received to listen and practice with. The day I listened to it was the first I had heard Donna’s voice in quite some time. I listened to it over and over before I tried practicing, just to hear her singing. Fast forward to the studio….. It was time to record.

At Lammas is a beautiful song, and I was really looking forward to singing my part. During the recording process, all the singers wear headphones that allow them to adjust what each singer hears, usually their own voice. I put my headphones on. Others had recorded before me, so I heard all our wonderful voices together. One definitely stood out. Donna’s voice filling my ears was emotionally overwhelming, and the grief of losing her poured through me again. Did you know it’s hard to sing when your throat is closed and choking on grief? Fortunately, after needing to stop for a bit, I was able to go back and finish recording. It wasn’t easy, especially keeping the tears from breaking through my voice. Donna was with us in spirit through the recording, her energy filling us, staying long enough to make one more song.

Here are the lyrics:
In your vines, oh Father God, we rejoice.
From your fields, oh Mother God, we are fed.
In your arms, oh Father God, we are safe  
By your hands, oh Mother God, we are healed
Laid over that is the repeating chant:
At Lammas, what we’ve sown, now we harvest 

Okay, switching gears. At Lammas, what does it mean, and how can we incorporate it into our spiritual practice? One thing that really stands out is the honoring of both the Mother and the Father. Sometimes in pagan spiritual practice we get too caught up in recognizing only the Mother Goddess. In some animal species, parthogenesis occurs and females can produce young without the need for a male, and female is the default gender. These populations are not sustainable and some new genetic input is necessary. For most other animal populations (like humans), both male and female are necessary to produce young and support a sustainable population. I believe that as pagans we need both Mother and Father to produce and sustain a healthy spiritual practice that includes all the members of our spiritual community, male through female.

At Lammas, like almost anything Pagan, can be interpreted both literally and figuratively. Mother God – Earth, Gaia – feeds us from her fields. She feeds us literal food, and feeds our souls when we ground ourselves, putting down our spiritual roots, seeking Her tremendous well of energy to feed our Growth. Like our own mothers, we seek Her out when we need healing. When we get hurt, we tend to go find our Mom (or the person who filled that role) to get a band-aid or a hug and kiss to make it all better.

For balance in all things, we need our Father, too. The Sun is necessary to produce the food that grows in the Earth. She cannot provide for us by herself. When we bury ourselves in too much dirt, hiding from the sky, we will wither. We need heat and light to survive. Vitamin D is produced in our bodies when exposed to sunlight on our skin. There’s nothing like a sunny day (or 10!) to chase away the winter blues.

Play At Lammas during times when you need to good reminder about spiritual balance. Put in your earbuds, and listen to it when you are digging up those root vegetables in the Fall, reminding yourself of the amount of heat and light energy that was necessary to produce that food. Of course, it is especially useful for rituals for the pagan holiday of Lammas!

At the time of this writing we are inches away from releasing the album Seasons: A Pagan Journey Around the Wheel, which includes the song At Lammas. It will be available directly from the Crow Women