Lughnasadh 2026: Abundant counter-balance

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Greetings and blessings of the harvest! It is the time of Lughnasadh in the Northern Hemisphere, a time of the celebration of abundance. In the Southern Hemisphere, Imbolc brings a seeding of the dream of harvest. How are you welcoming abundance—its harvest or its dream—into your days?

I recently returned from a visit with extended family and friends that was full of faces I hadn’t seen in years, connections that were never severed despite the distance, and love that was readily expressed and received. I find myself trying to hold on to the sense of connection and belonging that came through so abundantly in those circles. 

Abundance expresses itself in a different, more subtle, way for me in my quiet island life—in the dance of the swallows, the ripening of the salal berries, the wind through the Douglas Fir, or in the opportunities for connecting with my son and forming new connections with new people. But on especially quiet days, I sometimes forget, and I end up sitting with (or sometimes drowning in) thoughts of scarcity. For any of us, it can feel difficult to accept abundance at a time when our world is experiencing great challenge, hardship, and lack of human understanding and connection.

How can we connect with a sense of abundance wherever we are in life, whatever the circumstances? If money is tight, how do we welcome in the possibility that it doesn’t have to be, that there is enough for everyone? If we feel lonely, how do we recognize that possibilities of friendship and connection are all around us and welcome those in? If our belief in our own worth is scarce, how do we remember the limitless expanse of our own love?

Last year I wrote about the importance of gratitude and mindset as a way of cultivating abundance. This can start with intentionally welcoming the external abundance of the universe—the countless stars that we can’t see, the ocean waves that flow in over and over again, the leaves that come out green in Spring after falling, the sun that some days feels relentless in its power and heat, the air that we receive and release with every breath. Or maybe we can look to more internal, abstract things—thoughts, emotions—that we carry in abundance, even if they are things we would rather not carry.

As I was considering abundance (or the lack of it) in my own life this Lughnasadh, I ended up turning towards the abundance of things I carry that I usually wish I didn’t—things like worry, doubt, responsibilities, grief. Strangely, acknowledging their abundance called to mind other things I carry in abundance—perhaps things that I must carry in order to create a counter-balance—hope, wonder, ideas, love, acceptance. And then I asked myself, where is the scarcity? I couldn’t find it any longer, and I felt grateful for the abundance of all things I carry, even that which I would rather not.

Gratitude for those things that could create suffering within me helped me remember all that lies dormant during those times of suffering—all that can be awakened when we acknowledge and even thank the weight we carry for whatever challenges and changes it eventually will bring. Seeing that weight for what it is, naming it as something we willingly carry in abundance, can show us that the universe is so abundant that there is also room within us for (an abundance of) its polarity. What a joyful discovery!

I hope that I can remember that full sense of abundance again at times when I get locked into a spiral of thought around what is lacking in my life, or in the world. Maybe you will have the chance to do the same ✨

I wish you blessings of abundant harvest, as well as the wisdom of rest and receiving throughout this eclipse month 🌎

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