The Wheel of the Year. Pagan Holidays.
Lughnasadh (Lammas)
Elemental Powers In Nature
The basis of the old-school pagan tradition was centered around an unbreakable connection of man with the forces of nature. This sense of integrity made the consciousness, worldview, and as a consequence the body of man more sensitive towards the elemental changes and more supple towards them. The fact that the mind of today’s man forgot this skill doesn’t at all mean that the body forgot too. The body actually remembers it well, but being dependent on the higher strata of consciousness, it doesn’t have the capability to express this knowledge willfully.
All four elements during the calendar year (the Wheel of Year) go through the stages of falling asleep and awakening, thus forming eight fixed points – the points of power during which transition takes place, the elemental reconstruction of space.
The ritualistic tradition of the Slavs and the Celts was designed for the attuning of the human consciousness to the realm of natural forces during the moments of transition – and in this regard, they were able to perfect it. Ritualistic actions for people and magical rituals for the magi and druids carried within them the idea of agreement. The mind, merging into the changing vibration, was as if speaking to nature: I am a part of you, I am with you, I do not resist and I am, too, transitioning into a new state.
However, to feel the currents of Elemental forces that permeate space is not a skill everyone has. That which a magical consciousness can do may not always be achieved by a human consciousness. A mage can afford to rely on sensations, he may dissolve himself completely in the currents since he knows them and isn’t afraid. Whereas man must not only be able to sense but he must also understand.
A person can only approach reality with a greater degree of trust only in the case if he can apply reality’s manifestations onto himself, that is, to find analogies in his personal experience.
This feature of human consciousness serves as the primary reason why Myth appeared; Myth as the description of reality’s processes that explain its behavior from the viewpoint of human logic. For the forces of Mother-nature the form that these processes manifest in doesn’t matter, but man, alas, is tied to the form and therefore must understand the essence through the form. It is neither good nor bad, it is simply a feature of consciousness. It must be taken into account and while doing so it should not be relied on as the sole criterion of truth. We should keep in mind that form is just a specific case of meaning. The form helps understand essence but it isn’t one and it doesn’t replace it, either.
Pagan Holidays Calendar – The Wheel of the Year, pagan festivities, rites and rituals.