Celebrating Lammas

by Kayce Stevens Hughlett

Where Do You Find Wonder?

As a person who resides in the Pacific Northwest where summer doesn’t hit her stride until the beginning of August, it can be challenging to wrap my mind around the idea of harvest and gathering crops. As a follower of metaphor and magic, the notion of harvest is considerably easier. Journal Prompts: ▪ What do I want to harvest today? ▪ What shall I gather and bring more of into my life? ▪ Where have I planted seeds that are now coming to fruition? I’m a ponderer by nature and find that many of my answers are better served by paying attention to the question rather than focusing on end results. A question I’ve been considering in this season of Lammas is “where do I find wonder?” Where do you find wonder?

I find wonder in impromptu barefoot ceremonies and poems that emerge out of thin air. I find wonder when I have the presence of mind to listen to what is calling me in the moment; one day it was a quartz crystal that I had pulled from my drawer weeks before and lay on the altar in honor of a loved one. This day the call invited me to carry the crystal outside along with a stick of incense and past-their-prime petals that had fallen off the stem and landed on the word TRUST. Each day, I slowly make my way through this world, tending to what lies before me — petals and ash, a single word, TRUST, layered atop another, FEEL. It is my task to feel all the feels, to notice the muted quality of an overcast morning, the prick of rose bush thorn as I lay the simple offerings at her base. I find wonder in slow ceremony, especially ones that create themselves. Ceremony can emerge in bare feet on cool stone, music blaring from a passerby’s radio, a golden cat’s purr, veriditas—the greening of soul. Wonder is in the slow dance of being alive. Deep noticing. Deep listening. Deep trust.

Ceremonial Practice for Today

Create Your Slow Ceremony Today, I invite you to create your own slow ceremony. Begin with a few deep breaths, eyes open or closed, whichever feels more luscious. Tune into your senses—what do you hear, feel, smell, taste, see, intuit? Allow an object, texture, or sound to pull you into a simple ceremony of being. Perhaps listening to a single song is your ceremony for today. Or maybe you’re invited to take a stroll outside and feel the ground beneath your feet. An object might want to move with you. Allow it to happen. Follow the wonder.* Take these few moments and honor them as ceremony. Offer gratitude in closing. Repeat the practice throughout the day, week, season as often as possible. *gratitude to Stacy Maskell and Vanessa Sage for bringing this lovely phrase into my awareness Originally shared here.