Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Lammas inspiration

Lammas - Lughnasadh - loafmas is in a couple of days. I have always celebrated it the second of August.
How about you?
Do you celebrate Lammas or any other Sabbath at this time of the year? It's the First Day of Autumn.

I absolutely hate corn circles! I wish every idiot involved in making them would starve to death! But what do you think? Aliens? Fairies? Idiots?

Write a story based on corn circles and the people who make them. I think I would write about some idiots who get punished by Goddess and sidhe and nature spirits for ruining the crop.

Read about Lammas/Lughnasadh.

What would your ideal Lammas be? Create a family - of one, two, parents and children, or more generations, or households, and describe their Lammas celebration.

If you had to describe Lammas with only one word, what would that word be? Write a story about that word, or that expresses everything you associate with that word.

If you need more than one, write a story of all of them.

What does bread mean to you?

Write about cider, beer, ale, mead

"The Circle of Life"

Write a story about harvest festival

Write a story about a storyteller

Write a story with a rooster

It is Dog Days - Write a story

Write a story about a big dinner outside with family and friends

First week of August is the International Clown Week - Write a story about clowns or with a clown

Write a story about prosperity

Write a story about a corn festival

Write about sunflowers, poppies, cornflowers, chamomille, marigolds, heather
    "From time immemorial heather has been used for making besoms, a practice recorded in Buy Broom Buzzems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom_Buzzem)

    "Heather honey is a highly valued product in moorland and heathland areas, with many beehives being moved there in late summer. Not always as valued as it is today, it was dismissed as mel improbum by Dioscurides. Heather honey has a characteristic strong taste, and an unusual texture, for it is thixotropic, being a jelly until stirred, when it becomes a syrup like other honey, but then sets again to a jelly."
She sat on his thighs, her head against his breast, and her ivory-gleaming legs loosely apart, the fire glowing unequally upon them. Sitting with his head dropped, he looked at the folds of her body in the fire-glow, and at the fleece of soft brown hair that hung down to a point between her open thighs. He reached to the table behind, and took up her bunch of flowers, still so wet that drops of rain fell on to her.
‘Flowers stops out of doors all weathers,’ he said. ‘They have no houses.’
‘Not even a hut!’ she murmured.
With quiet fingers he threaded a few forget-me-not flowers in the fine brown fleece of the mound of Venus.
‘There!’ he said. ‘There’s forget-me-nots in the right place!’
She looked down at the milky odd little flowers among the brown maiden-hair at the lower tip of her body.
‘Doesn’t it look pretty!’ she said.
‘Pretty as life,’ he replied.
And he stuck a pink campion-bud among the hair.

D.H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover, chapter 15

Write a story with a phoenix

Write a story about a day at the lake in late summer

Write a story about the sights, scents, tastes, sensations and sounds of Lammas

Write about your favorite Lammas food, drink, activity, decoration - When was the first time you remember eating the food? Is there a story involved in the decoration?

Write a story about your favorite Lammas song (or a song that fits the themes of Lammas (or first day of Autumn, late Summer days...)

Write a Lammas song.

August is the National Literacy Month - Write a story about your favorite book

What is your favorite fruit bread? Write a story and give the recipe :-D

Write a story about your favorites berries, or berry picking

What is your favorite preserve? Jellies, jams, chutneys, pickles... Write a story about that :-D

Think about what immaterial things you have harvested this year and how you can preserve that; skills, knowledge, wisdom... Write a story about that too :-D

How about the negative things: what negative consequences of your choices, actions, words and deeds do you see in your life?

If you made New Year's promises or are participating in "100 things in 1001 days" or similar, now it's time to see how you are doing. Write a story about this.

Write a story about your biggest regrets in your life - or in the past year

Write a story about all the things you want to leave behind in your life, all the things you regret having in your life, all the things you want to get rid of, bad habits, addictions, thought patterns you are caught into, negativity, concerns, worries, troubles...

August is the International breastfeeding Month - Write a story to promote breastfeeding

Write a story with a corn dolly

Write an indigo story.

You have been invited to a fire festival.

Catherine Wheel
"A ceremony performed at Lammas. A large wagon wheel would be taken to a hilltop, covered in tar, set afire and sent rolling down the hill."


Herb harvest. What is your favorite herb?

Write a story with a gryphon

July is the National Blueberry and Blackberry month - Write a story about blue- and blackberries

    Fishing wasn’t the only summer fun. Some July evening Father would say:

      “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Tomorrow we’ll go berrying.”

      Almanzo didn’t say anything, but inside he was all one joyful yell.

      Before dawn next day they were all riding away in the lumber-wagon, wearing their oldest clothes and taking pails and bushel baskets and a big picnic lunch. They drove far into the mountains near Lake Chateaugay, where the wild huckleberries and blueberries grew.

      The woods were full of other wagons, and other families berrying. They laughed and sang, and all among the trees you could hear their talking. Every year they all met friends here, that they didn’t see at any other time. But all of them were busily picking berries; they talked while they worked.

      The leafy low bushes covered the ground in open spaces among the trees. Blue-black berries clustered thickly under the leaves, and there was a syrupy smell in the hot, still sunshine.

      Birds had come to feast in the berry-patches; the air was aflutter with wings, and angry blue jays flew scolding at the heads of the pickers. Once two blue jays attacked Alice’s sunbonnet, and Almanzo had to beat them off. And once he was picking by himself, and behind a cedar tree he met a black bear.

      The bear was standing on his hind legs, stuffing berries into his mouth with both furry paws. Almanzo stood stock still, and so did the bear. Almanzo stared, and the bear stared back at him with little, scared eyes above his motionless paws. Then the bear dropped on all fours and ran waddling away into the woods.

      At noon the picnic baskets were opened by a spring, and all around in the cool shade people ate and talked. Then they drank at the spring and went back to the berry-patches.

      Early in the afternoon the bushel baskets and all the pails were full, and Father drove home. They were all a little sleepy, soaked in sunshine and breathing the fruity smell of berries.

      For days Mother and the girls made jellies and jams and preserves, and for every meal there was huckleberry pie or blueberry pudding.

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Farmer Boy

Baking day

August is the National Napping Month - Write a story about the joys of napping :-D

Write a story about a legend of "Sleepers", like king Arthur (July 27th is "seven sleepers" http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/seven_sleepers.html)

Write a story about a craft festival or Maker Faire

Write a story involving a wheat field

Write a story about thunder

Write a story about horses

Write a story about riding a hobby horse (or a broom ;))

First week of August is the National Smile Week - Write a story about smiling and smiles

You and your friends are going to watch a game. What game? What is your favorite sport and sports team?

Write a story inspired by sun

Write a story inspired by the legend of Lugh

Write a story with or inspired by lions

Write a story about the Tarot card "Wheel of Fortune"

First week of August is Simplify your life week - which 50 items you couldn't / wouldn't want to live without :-D Write about a hoarder and how she/he manages to turn her/his life around and declutter, and what happens then

Write a story about pop corn.

August is the Pooh Friendship Month - Write a story about Winnie the Pooh and his friends :)

Write a story with elder and elderberries

Write a story about Demeter or Ceres

Write a story with full moon, Harvest Moon

Write a story with peridots, citrines and yellow diamonds

August is the "Admit you're happy" month - Write a story about 5 things in your life that make you happy :)

August 1st 2010 is the Friendship Day :) Write a story to honor your friends :)

Write a story inspired by cereals, grain, corn

Write a story inspired by fire

Write a story about St. Catherine and St. Laurentius (Corn Goddess and God in a Christian form ;))

Write a story with your favorite fictional parents

Write about a kitchen

Write about late summer, early autumn... about the changes in weather, that makes the air a bit chilly at night, but the days are still as warm as ever... about the subtle reminders of that summer is about to end. About the promise of autumn and harvest days ahead.

Write a story about John Barleycorn
http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/robert-burns.html

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