Lammas crafts
LAMMAS DAY ‒ In English-speaking countries, August 1 is Lammas Day ("loaf-mass day"), the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. In Wiccan traditions, the name Lammas is used for one of the sabbats, The festival is also known as Lughnasadh, a feast to commemorate the funeral games (Tailtean Games) of Tailtiu, foster-mother of the Irish sun-god Lugh. Lammas is a cross-quarter occurring ¼ of a year after Beltane. Lughnasadh was one of the four main festivals of the medieval Irish calendar: Imbolc at the beginning of February, Beltane on the first of May, Lughnasadh in August and Samhain in November.
The early Celtic calendar was based on the lunar, solar, and vegetative cycles, so the actual calendar date in ancient times may have varied. Lughnasadh marked the beginning of the harvest season, the ripening of first fruits, and was traditionally a time of community gatherings, market festivals, horse races and reunions with distant family and friends. Among the Irish it was a favored time for handfastings ‒ trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of ending the contract before the new year, or later formalizing it as a more permanent marriage.
In Christian tradition on this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits".
Now is a great time of year to work on honing your own talents. Learn a new craft, or get better at an old one. Put on a play, write a story or poem, take up a musical instrument, start getting crafty, or sing a song. Whatever you choose to do, this is the right season for rebirth and renewal, so set August 1 as the day to share your new skill with your friends and family.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum
The ICELANDIC PHALLOLOGICAL MUSEUM opened in Iceland; Located in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Phallological Museum houses the world's largest display of penises and penile parts. The collection of 280 specimens from 93 species of animals includes 55 penises taken from whales, 36 from seals and 118 from land mammals, allegedly including Huldufolk (Icelandic elves) and trolls. In July 2011, the museum obtained its first human penis, one of four promised by would-be donors. Its detachment from the donor's body did not go according to plan and it was reduced to a greyish-brown shrivelled mass pickled in a jar of formalin. The museum continues to search for "a younger and a bigger and better one."
Founded in 1997 by retired teacher Sigurour Hjartarson and now run by his son Hjörtur Gísli Sigurosson, the museum grew out of an interest in penises that began during Sigurður's childhood when he was given a cattle whip made from a bull’s penis. He obtained the organs of Icelandic animals from sources around the country, with acquisitions ranging from the 170 cm (67”) front tip of a blue whale’s penis to the 2 mm (0.08”) penis bone of a hamster, which can only be seen with a magnifying glass. The museum claims that its collection includes the penises of elves and trolls, though, as Icelandic folklore portrays such creatures as being invisible, they cannot be seen. The collection also features phallic art and crafts such as lampshades made from the scrotums of bulls.
The museum has become a popular tourist attraction with thousands of visitors a year — 60% of them women — and has received international media attention, including a Canadian documentary film called The Final Member, which covers the museum's quest to obtain a human penis. According to its mission statement, the museum aims to enable "individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion." The museum's guest book includes comments such as, "I've never seen so many penises–and I went to boarding school!" (from a New Zealand visitor), "They're bigger in the USA," (from someone from Wisconsin) and "Is there a vagina museum?"(On this point, Sigurður has said, "I'm only collecting the male organ. Somebody else has to do the other job. I'd be interested in how they would preserve it. I think vaginas are better alive.")
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| Koans for Troubled Times | ||
How
do we as Buddhists meet the challenges of our time? Joan Sutherland
shares the history of koans, which were created to deal with a difficult
period in Chinese history.
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