The rites of late summer, it has been said, open the gates of the Mysteries. Both the Eleusinian Mysteries and those of Dionysus and the grape harvest occur in the Athenian month Boedromion, the month when the sun and moon conjunct in Virgo. Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus, as Gods of vegetation, represent a continuous cycle of life and death; this cycle culminates in the harvest of fall.

But the First Harvest on the eight-spoked Wheel of the Year, commonly known as Lammas, comes weeks earlier. Although the aforementioned harvest Deities are obviously at hand in early August, it is the Goddess Habondia Whom I feel is most closely linked with the Lammas sabbat.
Who is Habondia and why dedicate Lammas to Her? Like Kybele, She is a cross-cultural Goddess Whom Greece, Rome and much of Europe claim among their Pantheons. An aspect of the Great Mother, Habondia is personified as a cornucopia-bearing, richly bounteous and all-giving Lady. Her cornucopia is typically filled with fruit, and She may thus be One with the Roman Goddess Pomona, (and/or Fortuna). The very name Habondia sounds like "abundance," and it is fitting that She be invoked during this most abundant time of the year for Earth's produce.

Demeter is likewise a Goddess of abundance. It would seem natural to dedicate the Feast of Bread (Lammas, Loaf-mass) to this Deity of grain, a Deity Whose Roman name is Ceres, from which the word "cereal" is derived. However, there is a valid reason to invoke Habondia other than because of the obvious reluctance to assign the same Goddess to two sabbats in a row: for a portion of the year, Demeter becomes the Sorrowing Mother. Her wider breadth of experience, particularly the experience of loss, associates Her more closely with the Crone, making Demeter (and Persephone, as well) an esoteric link between summer and winter. Habondia has never experienced the grief of loss that Demeter has in losing Persephone. With the arrival of fall, the frost is soon in coming and darkness begins to prevail, but there is still lots of warmth and brightness left in the weeks following Lammas.

Who then would be the Greco-Roman God of Lammas? Dionysus? He is God of the upcoming grape harvest and is featured as "Iacchos" in the Elusinian Mysteries. Besides that, the winter season is brimming with festivals dedicated to Dionysus/Bacchus. The God I most associate with the Lammas feast is Adonis, a vegetation Deity, widely known in Greece and throughout the Middle East. Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Syrians, Phoenicians and Pagan Hebrews all called upon Him by slight variations of the same name, for example: "Adonai," meaning simply, Lord. There was a grove of trees planted for Him in Bethlehem (House of Bread) and Adonis Himself is mythically born from Myrrha, the myrrh tree.

Aphrodite, associated with the Middle Eastern Astarte, fell in love with Him and so did Persephone. The two Goddesses fought so bitterly over Him that Zeus intervened and decreed that Adonis spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third as he pleases.
Adonis is the personified growing field, the Green God Who lives on Earth for just a short time. At harvest end, Adonis goes to the dark depths of the Earth, where in the embrace of Persephone He is renewed.

You might want to grow your own "garden of Adonis" from some seeds of the fruit you eat this summer or of any annual flower or plant. Plant the seeds in a pot and if they sprout it means good fortune for you.

Traditionally you would then offer the products of these gardens to a stream, river or to the sea. Even Christian women of the Mediterranean continued this custom, placing their gardens of Adonis as offerings in their churches. They can make nice altar or window plants, short-lived perhaps, but lovely while they last.

The sowing of the seed is conception, the sprouting is birth. The plant grows to the fullness of maturity, is one day harvested and consumed in death, then its seeds are conceived again. The agricultural cycle is as that which links generations of humans and other animals. The time of Habondia, the culmination of summer ripeness and potency, is particularly a family festival, celebrated with reunions, family outings and marriages. At this feast of the summer harvest, Habondia's blessings be upon the ripe summer fruit. May She sustain us and fill us with joy!