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.