Tag Archives: food

Sabbats: Lughnasadh (Lammas)

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Lughnasadh (the three most common pronunciations are; loo-NAS-suh, LOO-nah-sod, or loo-NESS-uh) takes place on August 1st in the northern hemisphere and February 1st in the southern hemisphere.  This is my explanation of this holiday.  It may or may not work for you and your path.  There are a number of things that this Sabbat usually celebrates: 

  •  Fertility (in plants, animals, and humans)
  • The first harvest
  • Honor the God Lugh
  • Honor any other deities related to the harvest (there are many)

Some ways of celebrating culturally are:

  •  Creating a feast with harvest foods
  • Baking bread
  • Making jelly or jam
  • Making tomato sauce
  • Preserving food (canning, jarring, etc.)
  • Going on a picnic
  • Going for a hike
  • Singing
  • Playing games, especially outdoor games
  • Plan a BBQ with seasonal foods
  • Make crafts using corn and corn husks

Some ritual ideas are:

  • Imbibe food with intention or energy and eat it
  • Make sacrifices to the local land wights, fae, or whatever else you believe in
  • Gratitude for things that have come to fruition
  • Fire magic
  • Fertility

Imbolc With My Family

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As I think I have stated before, we are trying to celebrate the Pagan sabbats (holidays) more as cultural holidays. For Imbolc, we planned to do a thorough cleaning of the house, to purify it, and have a dinner with my family with Imbolc-appropriate foods. My husband and I spent the first half of the day dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping our house. Even though there were still several areas that needed work, the areas that had been attended to (clothes, books, and papers) were starting to be happy areas amid the rest of the chaos. I was actually starting to be happy with how our house was looking!

Afterwards, we all went to go see two houses that were for sale in our area in our price range. Our price range was low and everything was in a “fixer-upper” category. We’ll see how the process goes!

We got back later than expected. I was going to make cheese pull-apart bread and my husband was going to make sugar-free brownies. He was also going to make homemade cheese curds for poutine (french fries with gravy and cheese curds). He did make the fries from scratch though. They were delicious! Everyone but me had iced cream for dessert.

In talking over the holiday with my mom and step-dad, they seemed to think that there should be something more to the holiday than they saw. Not being Pagan, I expected them to just want to eat dinner with us. However, I guess they wanted some weird Pagany stuff. I told them that divination was common and I could get out my tarot cards if they wanted (I’m really very bad at them, but I’m working to get better). Luckily for me they declined. Lighting candles is a big part of Imbolc, but I couldn’t figure out what we were going to do after those candles were lit! Although at the end of the evening, I realized story telling was also a good idea, so maybe we will try that next year!

I Think I’m A Compulsive Overeater

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I have been thinking a lot lately about my eating behaviors and how I have struggled time and again to follow an eating plan — any eating plan. It wasn’t that big a deal before. I blamed hypothyroidism and having a baby. To be fair, both contributed greatly to my current weight. Even so, I thought about how finding sweets, especially chocolate, to snack on almost seemed like a need. With my cholesterol how it is, following a diet may literally be the difference between life and death and I couldn’t even stick with it for two weeks. That’s when I realized that I had a problem.

My specific abnormal food behaviors are as follows:
– I eat when I’m not hungry
– There are times when I eat so much that I feel sick
– I have feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment over the way I eat and the way I look
– I eat sensibly in front of others and make up for it when I’m alone
– My eating is affecting my health
– My eating behaviors are making me unhappy
– I have tried fasting or severely restricting my food to try and lose weight
– I have eaten food that was very stale
– There are certain foods that I can’t stop eating after I have the first bite
– I have lost weight by following a diet, only to gain it all back by binge eating
– I spend too much time thinking about food and planning my next diet

After some internet searches, I found the Overeaters Anonymous website. I took their quiz and found that I had about half of the abnormal food behaviors on the list. I looked for some meetings in my area. The closest ones were 40 minutes away and happened at 10am on two weekdays a week. Wtf, do they expect only housewives to have this problem!? I found an online meeting group and an online support group. I posted there, explained that I was new, told them about my problem, and asked for advice. The advice was to get some of the literature, attend a meeting, and find a temporary sponsor.

The book and workbook came in and I found a Pagan sponsor! I was excited about this because it’s tough to trust in a higher power when I believe in so many. I was hoping since she understood the nature of Paganism, she would be able to help me with this when the time was right. I read the first two chapters of the book and really related with a lot of it. My sponsor asked me a lot of questions. I was surprised at the answers to some of them. One of them was that I was scared to start. After a lot of thinking and soul-searching on the topic, I discovered that I was afraid to give up sugar. i was afraid of never tasting it again. And that never tasting some of the foods that I really loved saddened me. I realized then that must be how an alcoholic feels about taking a drink. I understood in that moment that I truly am an addict — to sugar.

Over the holidays, we visited a number of people and I watched myself closely. My son is starting to notice these patterns and behaviors in me. My mom had a bowl of mini-m&ms set out. I kept going back for handful after handful. Every time I did, my son would hear my hand in the bowl and ran over asking for “more”. He’s learning my eating behaviors from me by watching me. I tried to control myself for his sake and failed. I kept going back for more and more m&ms. She must have kept refilling them because the bowl was never empty. I had a similar issue at my mother-in-law’s house with my favorite cookies.

Because of this, my sponsor and I decided that I should start by abstaining from sugary foods. Out of the four days I tried, I succeeded one. I suppose that was a huge success, but I felt like a failure. I am feeling a little lost in the process at the moment.