Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   Blessed Lughnasadh!   For this week’s Holiday Femme Fatale Friday, I will be looking at how embracing the Mother Archetype can aid us in connecting with the first Harvest Festival.   In my class, the Melusine Mysteries, I have aligned the Mother aspect of Melusine with Lughnasadh, even though we study that aspect in July.   I made this choice because Lughnasadh is the first Harvest Festival, and I have long thought of it as a very maternal time of year.

If we look at Spring being a time of planting seeds, sowing intentions, and the beginning of the growth cycle, we can think of Summer as the season of new growth.   So, when we think of Summer in this way, we can think of it being the time of Mother Nature being pregnant.   That leaves the time of Harvest to be a time of birth, as we reap what has been sown during the Spring months!

Lughnasadh is the last burst of Summery Solar Energy while the earliest Harvest is being reaped.   This is the first burst of picking the fruits of hard-won labor, and is ideal to think about what is being birthed into being.   This birth need not only be about the Mother bearing literal children.   It can be the birth of absolutely any intention or project that has been worked on diligently over the course of months.   We can tap into the Mother Archetype by nurturing the seeds of future blessings.   

The Mother Archetype is at her heart the energy of caring for others and nurturing the inspiration and intentions to aid them in coming into fruition.   This nurturance can be anything, from literally caring for another by cooking them food and cleaning for them, to showing support for a project that someone is working on, to being a shoulder to lean on during times of strife.   The nurturing via being a shoulder to lean on is something that we can think of as midwifing someone.   Spiritual midwifery is an important aspect of Priestessing.   Spiritual Midwifery can be holding space for someone who is going through a rough time, it can be literal midwifing of a new mother, or it can be midwifing someone who is dying.   This Death Doula type of midwifing is actually very much in line with the Mother Archetype, as it brings to light the Womb Tomb dichotomy!

The Womb and the Tomb have a link, as the Mother is how each of us is born, and it is to the Mother each of us will return when we die.   We can see this energy as Gaia in Greek Mythology, often literally described as Mother Earth, as she is the embodiment of the Earth made manifest and the ultimate Mother.   She is the one who birthed all of the Titans, with her son, Cronos, being the one to put an end to her unwanted union with his father, Ouranos.    Before Cronos defeated his father, all of his siblings were kept within Gaia’s body, which I view as a literal interpretation of the Womb and Tomb, as she birthed the children, but also housed them within her body.   Even though the children were not dead, being kept inside of Gaia is very much a form of being entombed!   In a darker interpretation, we can also look to the film Mother!, which is all about how we disrespect Mother Earth, with the titular character being a representation of Mother Nature and her husband a representation of God (likely the Christian God, as the film is full of religious allegory).   The film is a tough watch, but it really is an important film with a great message about abusing Nature.   We see the Womb and Tomb energy over the course of the film in rather brutal ways!   

Now, you may wonder exactly how we can embrace the Mother Archetype during Lughnasadh season.   To answer this question, I would say that deepening your bond with the energy of Motherhood is of top importance.   This means being a source of support for the loved ones in your life.  This can also mean spending more time with your own Mother, if that is possible.   If you cannot spend time with your own Mother, you can spend time in meditation with Mother Goddesses, and spend time reminiscing on memories you have about your Mother.   Another thing I recommend doing to get to know your connection to the Mother Archetype is to Journal about your relationship with your Mother, your relationship with Mother Goddesses, and your relationship with nurturing in general.    Getting down on paper your feelings surrounding Motherhood is something that will truly get you in touch with your connection to the Mother Archetype.   Now, I want to acknowledge that connecting with the Mother Archetype can be something that is painful for many people, especially if you have a strained relationship with your Mother.   However, if you have, or had, a strained relationship with your Mother, connecting to the Mother Archetype may be something that can help you heal some of the pain.   In this case, working with the Mother Archetype becomes a potent form of Shadow Work!   

I hope you have enjoyed reading about embracing the Mother Archetype for Lughnasadh.   What is your favorite way to connect with the Mother Archetype?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is an artwork of a pregnant Goddess.   I found the art on https://earth-beauty.com/moving-into-a-new-rite-of-passage-for-the-goddess/.   

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries 

Further Reading/Watching

• Llewellyn’s Sabbat Essentials: Lughnasadh
• Mythology by Edith Hamilton 
• Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
• https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Gaia.html
• Mother! (2017)