Lughnasadh 2025

August 1 marked the Celtic Lughnasadh in the Northern Hemisphere, the time when we celebrate the abundance of harvest. Most blooms are past their prime, transitioning into a different energy or a different stage of life. Where I am we are still contending with warm sun and hot cars, but we notice that the sun wakes later every day, and the days feel slightly shorter every evening. The cool air begins to flow through the open windows just a bit earlier than the day before. 

In this year, the time of celebration of abundance brings an incredible quiet for me—one that I haven’t known for over a year. After a bustling July filled with family visits, celebrations, and supporting my son’s performance in a children’s musical, I am grateful to welcome a slow-down into quiet alone time and a chance to catch up on banal tasks. I suppose it could be called a harvest of sorts. 

I’ve participated in cultivating relationships, familial love, and celebration of life in summer, and now I am reaping what I’ve sown—able to be alone and not feel lonely while I continue to glow from the love and blessings of being in relationship with humans in the world. Sometimes I forget the blessings while caught up in the grief and ugliness of human fear, hatred, and violence that we are reminded of more than ever these days. And yet we don’t need abundance in our actual lives to feel the energy of abundance. 

Abundance is a mindset cultivated by gratitude and belief in our planet’s inherent abundance. I know that’s hard to stomach with all the scarcity that we know or notice in the world, but I do believe that it’s true. I do believe (or maybe some days I have to believe) that believing and speaking words that support the mindset of abundance and the idea that the planet is abundant, that there is enough for everyone, will create more abundance in our world. I believe that the energy we cultivate with this mindset will influence the energy of the people and the planet.

Conversely, those who wish abundance only for themselves, as if abundance is meant for only a chosen few, will create more scarcity in the world. Although I’m speaking of the energetics of the mindset, we see starkly the direct human cause of scarcity in the current situation in Gaza. An abundance mindset doesn’t guarantee that we will be without scarcity or without struggle, but it can help create an energetic shift.

There’s an interesting book that speaks to this (I have read only part of it): Love Money, Money Loves You by Sarah McCrum. Having been inspired by guidance she received from the spirit or "energy of money,” McCrum seeded the idea of a "well-being economy,” where well-being is the “highest aspiration of businesses, communities and nations,” as stated on her web site. This economy is rooted in a belief in abundance and the idea that there can be enough (resources, money, etc.) in the world for everyone. It’s easy to be skeptical. I’ve often found myself saying, “yeah, right,” under my breath while trying to hold myself to believing in abundance on a smaller scale.

For me it is much easier to notice the abundance all around me as I sit outside listening to the wind in the trees, or when I take a walk in the forest or a trip to the local farm stand. Music and art channel and amplify abundance through creative energy that is often palpable when we experience it as listeners or viewers. And we ourselves can channel this abundance through our own creative acts, and perhaps share them with others.

While it might take practice, working with gratitude and appreciation in our lives, or just simply noticing the abundance of Nature or creativity as we experience it, can begin to re-attune our energy and influence the energy around us. This season of abundance could be a good time to try it.

Sending you the blessings of harvest, however you are noticing them this season 🌻✨

Warmly,
Kathryn