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.

Sing, Muse, and we will dance for Terpsichore, Herself the Muse of the Dance. Beloved and honored She was during the Classical Age of Greece when the art reached its apogee in that land. Over two hundred different dances were performed in the theaters, temples and gymnasiums and to greater or lesser degrees, they were all danced in honor of the Gods.

The oldest known dances came from Crete. These were circular dances around a tree, altar or sacred icon and later, around a singer or musician. Cretan sculptures show dancers surrounding a lyre player, as well as sacred couple dances and close, swaying dances performed by a female chorus. The word "chorus" means both a dance and a song. The chorus was nearly always performed on a country threshing floor called the halos. Gradually the lyre accompaniment expanded to include flutes, instruments resembling modern mandolins, clarinets, and guitars, and drums, although drumming probably preceded these other instruments by thousands of years. From ancient Crete also comes the Hymn of the Kouretes (see The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries by Z. Budapest for a translation). The hymn calls for the Kouros or young lord, to "leap for full jars and fleecy flocks," so welcoming both the spring and the harvest.