Part of being pagan and of working magick is grounding our energetic work in the real world. Most pagans honor the earth and its seasons, working with embodied energy. Part of our way of making the magick real is creating physical spaces for our gods and spirits -- altars and shrines.
This need to make physical comes up for me particularly at this season, when I begin to consider my year's harvest. Lammas, Lughnasadh and the related holidays are old European feasts of first fruits, in which earlier people would sacrifice some of the first foods to come to table to ask the deities to bless those still to come. Other traditions have parallel festivals. To work with food ritually is to truly make your rite physical; when we make and eat a ritual meal, we intake our working bodily. It feeds us both literally and energetically.
The table that carries that ritual meal is the altar of a ritual feast. Sacrificing first fruits animal and vegetable is an essential part of Lammas, and tables of sacrifice were among the first known altars.
We have three stories this issue on this theme of altars and shrines -- besides Erika's on the cover and mine on page 4, Freya also shares how a witch can work with feng shui altars. Catherine takes up her continuing meditation on ritual work with food, telling us how to set up a winter garden. Lisa talks about retrieving your soul through travel, and George writes on the part that place takes in building community. Bestia has a different, darker meditation on place and community -- the sacrifice of a tree as part of a town's creation. We bring you also Thea's stars of the season and Genevieve's roundup of music for your Lammas hoedowns.
May your harvest be abundant, this year and always.