Lughnasadh: Harvesting the Wisdom of Your Dreams
Art work by Laura Smith-Riva
One of the ways I feel connected to the natural world is through the honoring of the seasonal shifts. As a practicing Druid and Natural Dreamwork Practitioner, I often think about how my druid life intersects with my dream life. So now is the time of Lughnasadh. Lughnasadh, also known as Llammas, is a Gaelic festival which marks the first harvest—a threshold between the fullness of summer and the gradual turning toward autumn. Traditionally, it is a time of gathering what has ripened through months of care and attention. We celebrate the grain, the fruit, the flowers, and the gifts of the earth. But of course there is another harvest available to us as well: the one unfolding within.
If you've been practicing Natural Dreamwork, even in small ways, you know that dreams are not random stories. They emerge from the same living intelligence that shapes seasons, ecosystems, and our own bodies. Dreams reveal what is growing, what is asking for attention, and what is ready to be integrated into our waking lives.
During this time of Lughnasadh, perhaps ask yourself the question “What is ready to be harvested from my inner life?” The farmer doesn't harvest seeds the day they're planted, so perhaps we can understand that dreamwork reminds us that inner growth follows its own rhythms, timing, seasons. An image we've carried for months may reveal its fruit only after we've lived with it patiently. In Natural Dreamwork, we contemplate images, allowing them to ripen within us slowly and in their own time.
If connecting more deeply to the natural world is of interest to you, go out into nature! But you can also be with your dreams, approaching them as part of your relationship with the more-than-human world. The animals, weather, landscapes, plants, and elements that appear in our dreams are not simply symbols to decode. They are living presences that invite relationship, we often say when we are teaching, “When lion comes in the dream it is not the symbol of a lion that comes, it’s an actual lion!” So, as the outer world reaches abundance, we might notice what images have become abundant in our dream life. Which dream figures keep returning? Which landscapes feel familiar now? What conversations remain unfinished? Where does a particular tension live in you?
Lughnasadh is less about achieving completion than about recognizing what has matured enough to nourish us now.
In a recent dream, I am a little girl high above the ocean. I saw a line in the water and was curious about it, as my perspective began to shift closer, I saw a second line and understood they were perhaps dolphins or large fish. They appeared to be playing with each other. I felt excited. My perception shifted to hover just above the water. At this point, I became fearful they were sharks. They were swimming very close and I could see their fins. Part of my body was in the water and I tried to pull my feet out when I became afraid. I was trying to hold my body just above the surface of the water.
The dream helps me feel into how my curiosity brings me closer and how my fear keeps me above. The tension I feel in the dream of holding myself above the surface is excruciating, requiring significant energy. The dream isn’t about completion, but I can feel what is ripening, what might be harvested in that understanding of the tension between curiosity and fear, in holding oneself in this kind of liminal moment. Is my intuition of dolphin stronger than my fear of shark? There are many reasons to fear the sharks as we all have them swimming in the waters of our lives, but there is equal understanding of the playful dolphins. Choosing our path requires first understanding our dilemma. The dream offers the felt sense of that.
When we truly receive a dream, when we allow it to shape our choices, soften our assumptions, or deepen our relationship with ourselves and the living world, we've harvested its gift. And, like any good harvest, the gift doesn't end with the harvest. It becomes nourishment for our relationships, our communities, and the all ways we meet the world.
A Simple Lughnasadh Dream Ritual
You'll need:
A candle (optional)
A small piece of bread or seasonal fruit
Your dream journal
A quiet place outdoors or near an open window if possible
Begin by taking a few moments to notice the season. Feel the warmth, listen for birds or insects, notice the scent of the air. Recognize that you are part of this turning of the year.
Light your candle if you're using one.
Hold the bread or fruit in your hands and reflect:
What in my life has come to fruition?
What dream, insight, or way of being is ready to nourish my waking life?
What am I grateful to have cultivated, even if it arrived in unexpected ways?
Now open your journal and reread one dream that has stayed with you over the past few months.
Simply notice:
What still feels alive?
Which image seems most vibrant today?
What invitation is this dream extending now that it wasn't before?
Laura Smith-Riva is a certified Natural Dreamwork practitioner and member of the Green Mountain Druid Order in Vermont. She lives between Vermont and Italy where she works remotely with dreamers from many parts of the globe. In her personal work, she is interested in the connection to the natural world through dreams and vision work and offers expressions of her journey using art, poetry and prose.