Autumn has long been my favorite season when the fruits of the Earth and harvested, the colorful leaves paint the landscape and the air is literally permeated with magic. Now that we are entering this most special of seasons, I thought we could discuss another important fall festival: Mabon or Harvest Home. We have previously mentioned, Lammas, which falls of August 1st and is a celebration of the early Harvest. Mabon is the second of the three…
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I attended elementary school and high school in Amherst, Massachusetts where there is a large Cambodian community and every April we would have a school celebration for Cambodian New Year where students would perform traditional Cambodian dances. My favorite was always the Monkey Dance in which the participants would fly acrobatically through the air imitating monkeys. We would also eat Cambodian foods and listen to Khmer folktales. Years later, when I was working as a 5th grade…
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With July drawing to a close, summer is half over and we are fast approaching my favorite season: Fall! So, today I thought we could discuss the subject of harvest festivals and Lammas or Lughnasadh in particular which falls of the 1st of August. This is the first of three Sabbaths observed by Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans that celebrate the beginning of the Harvest and the end to the growing season. Lammas/Lughnasadh is the early harvest festival,…
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We find ourselves again in the middle of spring, at least those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Where I live the sun is setting later and later, the trees are in full bloom and the first fruits of the season, mainly strawberries, are starting to come in by the bucket load. Admittedly my favorite season is autumn with its colors, cool breezes that are fragrant with the scent of drying leaves and abundant harvests, but as…
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One February morning many years ago, I walked into my first grade classroom to find it decked out with a plethora of red, ornately decorated glowing lanterns. As morning meeting got underway, our teacher explained that it was the Chinese Lantern Festival which marked the first full moon of the traditional Chinese calendar and was the culmination of the Chinese New Year festivities bringing a glorious end to fifteen days of feasting and celebration. As we listened,…
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