Welcome to all the new subscribers who found your way here through a Substack note I wrote that went viral. That was a huge surprise to me! It tells me that people are hungry for stories of empathy and compassion. I’m grateful that my post about the kindness of a stranger brightened so many people’s days.
Dear Ones,
Can you feel the shift in the air? A crackling of dry leaves, sweat on the brow, bundles of lavender hanging up to dry, sweetgrass ready to braid, zucchini taking over the garden, eyes stinging from wildfire smoke.
The shift from Midsummer to the First Harvest is always so bittersweet. Even though August is likely to be the hottest, driest time of the year, the days are suddenly shorter. Yellow leaves drift downstream. The sky is hazy. Autumn, it seems, is on its way.
I recognize this tension every summer, and yet it always comes as a bit of a surprise. One day I’m reveling in collective joy at a folk music festival, centered in the present moment. The next, I’m offering up prayers for a friend undergoing heart surgery, furious about current headlines, and admonishing myself to get back on schedule with work plans.
I find myself relishing sweet local corn and berries, all too aware their season will soon be over.
The festival of Lammas, or Lughnasadh, honors the First Harvest at the beginning of August. We remember the tale of John Barleycorn, whose body of grain was cut down and transformed into bread and ale to nourish the people. We consider the place of sacrifice and transformation in our own lives. We come into sharp awareness of the passing of time.
The core message of Lammas is this:
We must weed, thin, cut away, and prioritize, to ensure the abundance of the full harvest to come at Autumn Equinox.
We release and say farewell to that which is passing.
We offer up the first fruits of our personal harvest to our Holy Helpers and the Great Mystery.
We recognize ourselves as both the reaper and the harvested grain.
For those of you who are new to my work, the following blessing and artwork above are part of a project I’ve been working on for a few years. In it, I compare the eight holy-days of the Wheel of the Year and the eight lunar phases to life stages. An archetype or “Numinous Being” presides over each of the eight seasons. I taught a course based on this material twice called “Walking the Sacred Wheel” in 2022 and 2023. I share excerpts from this work-in-progess regularly in this Substack.
The Reaper cuts away all that no longer serves her innate wholeness. She is fierce in service to the land, to soul, to the collective.
Her season is Summer-Turning-to-Fall, her holy day Lammas, her lunar phase the Disseminating Moon (just past Full), her life stage late midlife (50s and 60s). The seasonal change marks a shift on the Wheel of Life from the peak of fullness at midlife to a sharpening, a winnowing, and a take-no-sh*t attitude as one enters their late midlife years.
You’ll find her in the scent of pungent hops under a sweating sun, in dirt-encrusted fingernails, and in the scratches left on her skin by blackberry thorns and motherwort. She harvests, she sorts, she threshes, she grinds. She is the baker and the bread, the brewer and the beer.
No matter our chronological age, we each have an inner Reaper, standing ready to swing the scythe.
(You may want to read the following piece aloud to yourself. Take a deep breath, sit back, and receive …)
May the blessing of Discernment be upon you.
May you spiral down into the heart of your story, following its twists and turns.
May you sort grain from chaff, keeping one, releasing the other.
May you bake bread from grain of the first harvest, flavoring it with rosemary and longing.
May you cut away anything and anyone that does not support your wholeness.
May you know that when your physical fertility begins to wane, your soulful fertility begins to flourish.
I bless you with golden fields ready for harvest, and shooting stars that blaze like diamonds in the velvet night sky.
I bless you with a feast of wild salmon, who gave their life that yours might be sustained.
I bless you with an unshakeable sense of your own beauty and worth.
I am the Reaper.
I make the story sharp and lean.
Go now, head down the hill, and remember me.
When the moon begins to wane just past the peak of fullness, remember me.
When you hang onions and garlic from the rafters to dry, remember me.
When you lay ripe blackberries on the altar of change, remember me.
When you savor fresh corn, all the sweeter because its season is short, remember me.
When you give up something you love in favor of something else you love, remember me.
Go now, and know we shall be one.
Today, tonight, and forevermore.
— by JPC, from the Sacred Wheel Oracle, a work-in-progress
Call upon the Reaper to guide you with her wisdom. Pull a tarot or oracle card for inspiration in answering the following questions, or just start writing. Your choice.
1. How might you acknowledge your sadness and grief over losses in your life?
2. What offering of your personal “first harvest” might you make to your Holy Helpers and the Great Mystery?
3. Swing your scythe. What in your life does not support your wholeness?
Consider: things, attitudes, beliefs, activities, relationships. What would it look or feel like to cut those away?
(Post your responses in the comments, if you like.)
These two powerhouses together!
Many of you know I’m a huge Allison Russell fan … I’ve shared several songs recently from her new album “In the Hour of Chaos.” I love her collaborations with other artists, and especially this one with Norah Jones.
Where’s your way-back-true-fact-really-real-one?
Who’s gonna be your shelter from the storm?
And … bonus! Norah interviewed Allison on her podcast, Norah Jones Is Playing Along (with Allison Russell). (Season 2 Episode 40)
Thank you for reading. I hope my words, photos, and artwork have moved or inspired you in some way. Every Sunday I post about seasonal practices, tarot wisdom, the practice of pausing for beauty, and more. Once a month paid subscribers gather online in a Wisdom Circle to support and encourage each other. We have a new Community Prayer Support feature too. Join us?
I appreciate your support in my elder years more than I can say.
As always, if a paid subscription is out of your reach, just email me at joanna at joannapowellcolbert dot com, and I’ll comp you a subscription, no questions asked. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, as always, for being part of my community and my circle.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, Libro.fm, or my website shop.
About me: I’m Joanna Powell Colbert, creator of the Gaian Tarot and the Pentimento Tarot, and co-creator of the Herbcrafter’s Tarot. I write and teach about tarot for inner work, earth-centered spirituality, seasonal & lunar lore, and aging & elderhood. I share art & writing from my works-in-progress too. You can also connect with me on Instagram.
The writing, art, and photos in this post are 100% human-created.
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