Greetings for Lammas, today’s cross-quarter point between summer solstice and autumn equinox, marking the high summer and first grain harvest.
It’s a time for gathering in and giving thanks for abundance and nourishment: one in which people would feast and offer gratitude for the grain that represents sustenance for the community, both immediately and through the winter. It also celebrates the gathering, within that harvest, of seeds for the next cycle – and promise of renewal and future nourishment therein.
Lammas is also a time of heat and intensity, and we, like many of you we’re sure, have been lit up by the energy of this season as well as deeply unsettled by the alarming recent heatwaves in Europe and beyond. We have been thinking about the importance of nourishment in these times, and recently spent some beautiful days exploring this with a small group near Gemma’s home on Dartmoor (see our recommendations of some Dartmoor-based practitioners below). We will also be slowing down a little for the rest of the summer, and hope you will too, so will keep this note short with an offering of some new audio encounters and a few glimmers of inspiration for you.
As always, thank you for being here, and we always love hearing from you if you have feedback, suggestions, or want to share something you are exploring this summer.
With love and hope,
Iris, Gemma, Hadeel, Jo and Lily
New Constellations
We have three new encounters for you to enjoy over summer – two from wise Icelanders: writer, documentary filmmaker and activist Andri Snær Magnason and artist and teacher Goddur Magnússon – and one recorded by Gemma as part of her experience with The Old Way. The Old Way is a year-long course that invites people to learn from our ancient past to help shape better futures, by exploring our ancestral blueprints, our own rewilding and how we can reconstitute the webs of connection that we have lost with the natural world.
Image: The River Dart in Hembury Wood, credit Adrian Colston
We were at New Frontiers in Funding a few weeks ago, which explored a huge range of powerful ideas around the role of philanthropy and investment in building the futures we need. Some of the key themes are explored by speakers (including Gemma) in this short film, and the conference’s Notion site is a treasure trove of resources.
Some more summer listening – we’ve recently discovered The Light Ahead: a speculative fiction podcast dreaming up better economic futures, you can hear Gemma in the next episode of the Building Belonging podcast, and The Acosta Institute (founded by Dr Angel Acosta) also has a new podcast.
We’re hoping to make it to London this summer to see Eternally Yours at Somerset House – a free exhibition exploring care, repair and healing (a subject we dove into in a recent journey), and to catch Our Time on Earth which is in its last few weeks at The Barbican. And if you’re lucky enough to make your way to Dartmoor some time as we recently did, our thanks to and heartfelt recommendations of Dartmoor’s Daughter, the School of Botanical Arts, Linda Lemieux and seed-to-plate chefs Donna and Sonny for wonderful and nourishing experiences of the moor’s many gifts.
Image: Stephan's Quintet, the largest image to date from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, credit NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.
Thank you for reading, wishing you gratitude and nourishment this Lammas.
New Constellations exists to help people imagine and create better futures; futures in which humanity and the planet flourish together. If you like what we’re doing, you can help us by:
