WITCH IN THE CITY

Remembering Demeter on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel  Every year, on the sixteenth day of July, church bells ring across the Mediterranean in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Villages carry statues of the Virgin through narrow streets lined with flowers. Farmers ask for blessings upon their vineyards and fields. Families gather to give thanks for another season of growth, placing themselves beneath the mantle of the Mother who watches over both land and people. For many, it is simply another feast of the Church. Yet beneath these celebrations lies a much older rhythm, one that reaches back thousands of years to a time when another mother received prayers at the height of summer.  Long before chapels crowned Sicily’s hills and Marian shrines overlooked fields of wheat, these same landscapes belonged to Demeter, the Great Mother of Grain and Queen Goddess of the Earth. She was not merely the goddess of agriculture, but the divine teacher who gave humanity bread, agricu...

On August 1 st the ancient people of the Mediterranean celebrated Cornucopia, the ancient festival in honor of  Ceres/Demeter. During this sacred observance the Goddess Ceres/Demeter was honored as the Great Mother of the Harvest . In the Celtic Traditions, this sacred time is known as Lammas or Lughnasadh. Lammas is one of three Greater Sabbats which welcomes in the first harvest celebration of the Witches Yearly Calendar. It is the time of harvesting corn and grain, grapes and wine, and is therefore greatly associated with bread, as grains are the first crop to be harvested. During this time many cast and project spells focused on abundance, growth, new beginnings, and prosperity in all things. The following recipe can be employed during any Cornucopia or Lammas rite to attract abundance, wealth, and clear roads. WITCHES LAMMAS ABUNDANCE INCENSE one teaspoon barley one teaspoon oak bark one teaspoon vervain one teaspoon apple peel one teaspoon b...