This is the Sky’s Moon, lasting from July 28th to August 27th.
I always think of this as the holiday Moon.
It brings Lammas, a Christian festival which is derived from Lughnasad, a pagan commemoration of the death of the King Ludd or Lugh and the first harvest.
In the pagan tradition, where the two consorts of the Earth mother goddess battle it out, year after year, this is the point where the Corn / Oak king Lugh is sacrificed to save his people. This is the triumph of the god of the waning year, who begins to rise in his destructive power.
The death of King Ludd also represented to working people their champion, protecting them, hence the ‘Luddites’ who fought to protect jobs threatened by innovations in machinery and industrial organisation. At the Lammas fairs individuals had to present themselves for hire, and employers would look over the workers standing waiting to be hired. These were called Hiring Fairs. Thomas Hardy wrote about these country practices. Once hired the labourer was under contract for the year. Lammas was always on the 1st and second of August.
The Wheel of the year turns and the year begins to wane. The Anglo Saxons called this moon ‘Weodmonath’ or moon of weeds. I call it Sky’s moon as this moon is dominated by the skyfather, whose tree is the Holly. He is variously named as Tue, Tiw, Tyr, and other god names seem similar such as Dieu, Deus, Zeus. Ju-piter means Sky-father. It therefore seems appropriate to spend time in the outdoors, with campfires and outdoor cooking presided over by fathers. On August the 14th Saturn is very close to us, and fully lit by the sun.
The Jewish ‘Tisha B’av‘ which is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar takes place on the 6th of August. For Christians there is an emphasis on Glory, as the Transfiguration is celebrated, then the Assumption of Mary to heaven on the 15th. Orthodox Christians celebrate the latter as the Dormition, or falling asleep.
On the full moon, which is still very close to the earth in its orbit, so called once again a ‘Supermoon’, the Japanese festival of Obon begins. This is about the commemoration of ancestors.
Rahksha Bandhan is a Brahmin Hindu festival on the last quarter of this moon.
