Celebrating Abundance At The Lammas Festival

When I started visualizing the contents for this particularly special blogpost, I wasn't sure if I wrote it because I signed up for the Tarot Bloghop and the 'Lammas' celebration was the topic du jour, or was I magically guided by the universe to express my genuine gratitude today, of all days, for the abundance I've received especially with my journey with the tarot cards.

So below is my blogpost on the topic of celebrating the harvest festival called 'Lammas'. And I would encourage you to read the blogpost of my Tarot Bloghop neighbor, Jordan Hoggard, who posted his blog on the same topic before me at http://jordanhoggard.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/tarot-lammas-pentacles-a-magnetic-fruit




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I learn new things from the tarot community everyday. 2 months ago I had learnt the significance of the Midsummer Solstice. This month, I learnt about the celebration of 'Lammas'. The word ‘Lammas’ is derived from an old Saxon phrase 'hlaf maesse' or ‘loaf mass’. It is a harvest festival, a celebration of the Earth’s bounty which traditionally was held at the time of the cutting of the first corn crop. In Ireland it is known as Lughnassah, the name being derived from the old Celtic Sun-God Lugh. Lugh presided over the harvest, skills of any endeavor, distribution of talents, success and victory.

Lammas is celebrated on 1st August. The pagans celebrate Lammas with music, dancing and lighting bonfires. I am a Roman Catholic and interestingly, I found out that it is a Roman Catholic tradition to bless the farmers' fields on this date.

Incidentally, 1st August is also my birthday. And this birthday is like a coming of age for me because it marks the year of new beginnings and new opportunities. Moreover, with these new beginnings brought by the new opportunities that I was blessed with, I felt like a farmer cutting his first corn crop, reaping the harvest he had so diligently cultivated and worked for.

So the Ace of Pentacles is naturally the card I would pick to meditate upon, during the Lammas celebrations.

Using my Radiant Rider Waite deck, the Ace of Pentacles has an image of a hand extended out of the cloud holding a pentacle in its palm, with a lush, green landscape spread throughout the bottom of the card - a picture of abundance. The Ace of Pentacles from my Goddess deck is also beautiful, showing a tree bearing a huge pentacle as a fruit, amidst a lush and green landscape - again, a picture of abundance.

The I of Spheres from the Lost Tarot of Nostradamus is even more special to me. The image on the card depict the great symbols of the church, together with the book of wisdom and the vessel containing the holy oil with which Christians were baptized and monarchs blessed. Above it is an image of the rising sun. This, again is a picture of abundance and success. It's special to me because this deck was a birthday gift from my otherwise skeptical husband who spent months thinking that my days and nights spent playing with my tarot cards was a sign that I was on a work stress-induced path heading towards the looney bin. This gift is much treasured as I see it as his acceptance of my gifts and his acknowledgement that I was using my gifts to touch so many people in my life. Truly blessed.

The Ace of Pentacles for me, is a symbol of the energies behind all my new inspirations, new ideas, the new beginnings, and all the new experiences particularly as I had walked up an unexpected path as a professional tarot reader since the start of this year. It is a card manifesting my goals that I had hoped to achieve with the skills I had attained. And that was, my goal to mentor fellow tarot readers, who like me before, are currently at the start of their journey with their tarot cards.

My personal journey with my tarot cards, led to the creation of Sun Goddess Tarot this year, and consequently my meeting so many new friends who are fellow tarot readers, as well as countless clients whom I have come to forge strong emotional connections with. I had also been blessed with the opportunity to use my tarot reading skills to contribute to the less fortunate, like the beneficiaries of the Children's Cancer Foundation.

Having attained my CPTR qualification and being a reader for the Free Tarot Network also had provided me new opportunities to better hone my reading skills, enhance my intuitive capabilities and increase my confidence. Months have passed, seeing me gradually building my tarot reading skills, and it had opened up opportunities to share these skills with tarot enthusiasts at the beginning of their journey.

I am truly humbled by the deep trust my clients and proteges have placed in me, hence the Ace of Pentacles is advising me to continue my journey of learning and hard work to better my skills. Indeed the day I picked up my tarot deck, I realized I had stepped into a world of lifelong learning that would be bringing me a fantastic sense of fulfillment along the way.

The Ace of Pentacles, as my hero card to celebrate the Lammas festival, advised me to open my heart and mind to the many opportunities that the universe has put at my feet. It is up to me to see it through, keep it going, and turn these opportunities into a wonderful potential that allows me to pay it forward in my bid to thank the universe for the abundance it has given me.

Now that you've read my musings on the significance of the Ace of Pentacles for me today, I would like to invite you to read the blogpost of my next Tarot Bloghop neighbor Christiane Hayes, at http://news.cosmictarot.co.uk/2012/08/pentacles-fruits-of-harvest.html

And to read all the wonderful blogs participating in this Tarot Bloghop, do visit
http://kareenatarot.blogspot.in/2012/07/tarot-blog-hop-master-list-for-aug-1.html


About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA). A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also endorsed as a reader for the Free Tarot Network and is a mentor for the ATA.

She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com