Make a loose incense blend for Lammas to toss in a ritual bonfire, burn in your cauldron or scatter around the home for a summer blessing.
This blend includes dried sunflowers, lavender oil, cedar, and other natural, seasonal ingredients. to celebrate the spirit of Lughnasadh and rejoice in the abundance of the first harvest festival.
Lammas Loose Incense Recipe
Things You Will Need:
-4 parts dried cedar or juniper leaf (or sub rosemary)
-1 part dried sunflowers or calendula flowers
-2 parts dried basil
-sprinkle of juniper berries
-whole dried lavender flowers
-sprinkle of frankincense or myrrh resin
-4 drops lavender essential oil
Step 1
Blend together cedar leaf, sunflowers, basil, juniper berries, dried lavender and frankincense or myrrh.
Step 2
Top with lavender essential oil. Store in a clean glass jar for up to 3 months.
Magical Correspondences
The ingredients in this blend are wholesome, natural, and specific to the season of Lammas. Understanding what each specific ingredient means in the context of your practice is an important part of staying connected to your tools and your magic. Here’s what they mean for the season of Lughnasadh:
Cedar
While cedar is traditionally associated with winter holidays like Yule and Imbolc, we include the leaf and berries of this tree for its purifying properties.
In addition, the berries symbolize abundance, which is a key theme in all the harvest festivals.
Sunflowers
Of course, sunflowers are the ultimate sun symbol of the summer garden. Radiant and glorious, the sunflower is in full bloom during the season of Lammas, towering over nearly all the other garden flowers.
Sunflowers represent courage and the force of will materializing.
Basil
A culinary gem, basil is a common ingredient in summer kitchen witch recipes.
Prized for its tendency to promote clairvoyance and mental clarity, basil is a perfect addition to meditation salves and flying ointments.
We include it in Lammas recipes and rituals to represent the transition of summer to fall and the majesty of the sun in full glory.
Lavender
Lavender and bees have a notorious kinship. Most lavender farmers also keep bees, and the honey that they produce from this flower is especially precious.
We include lavender to honor this symbiotic relationship between the animal kingdom and the plant world. The link between the two is critical to the harvest and the turning of the Wheel.
Frankincense
Like cedar, we more often associate frankincense with the winter season.
However, in the context of summer, it is abundant in solar energy. I like to call it “frozen sunlight.”
It gives this blend a rich, earthy fragrance and balances the more floral energies.
How to Use Your Lammas Loose Incense
After you whip up a batch, you may be wondering what to do with it! Here are a few ideas:
-Write a wish for what you hope to “harvest” from your hard work during the coming harvest season. Bury the paper in your sacred garden or near the roots of a strong tree along with a pinch of Lammas incense.
-Toss a handful of this blend into a bonfire to empower a Lughnasadh ritual.
-Burn it in a fire-safe bowl or cauldron on a charcoal dish during your Lammas solitary ritual
Interested in learning more about developing your magical practice? Check out Moody Moon’s introductory course, Magic 101.
