Astrological analysis

The first of August goes under many names: Lammas, the Festival of First Fruits, Lughnasadh, and more. It marks the start of harvest. What used to happen is that the first ripe grain was cut, ground, and baked into a loaf which was then blessed in church. In earlier times there seem to have been gatherings on hill-tops and celebrations to go with them. All in all it seems to have been a jolly time.

This reason for all this merrymaking is that this is one of the days which divide the year into four; the others are at the beginnings of February, May and November, and we usually know the last of these as Hallowe'en. These days fall half-way between an equinox and a solstice. In this case it is between the summer solstice (June 21) and Autumn Equinox (September 23). So we are now far enough away from midsummer to start looking towards autumn; we start noticing that the evenings are not quite as light so late as they were, nor the sun so hot.

Near where I live, on an old road which joins two towns, there is a pub called the Half Way Inn. It is, of course, half way between the two towns, and in the days before cars it would have been a good place to rest. In the journey of the year, we are now well into the final stages of summer. Lammas is therefore a good time to take a little rest (older readers will remember the times when the August Bank Holiday was at the start of August instead of the end), to enjoy the fruits of our efforts, and to start thinking about the next stage of our journey.

A Good Week for a Barbecue...
Adam Smith writes: Venus in Leo is following the Sun very closely in his path this week, catching up slowly before springing a slick overtaking move later in the month. We may describe somebody as a 'people person', well, Venus is a 'people planet' and the best thing is that under her sociable influence, charm and good times are the norm. Expect to hear a lot about peace in the coming week, too.