05/02/2026
☀️ The high summer gatherings of the past held in honour of the Celtic God, Lugh, were far more than seasonal harvest celebrations.
Lugh, as a god of many skills, embodied right order, excellence, and fair exchange. His festival reinforced the understanding that prosperity depended on co-operation, honour, and the keeping of one’s word.
⚔️ Lughnasadh was a time when tribes came together under truce to set laws, arrange marriages, forge alliances, and renew agreements. These assemblies were marked by athletic games, skill contests, feasting, and storytelling. Sabbats and holy day festivals created neutral ground where relationship took precedence over conflict, and disputes could be settled.
🤝 High summer was a sacred time for weaving social bonds and the recognition that community, like food, must be tended if it is to sustain the people.
🍞 Lughnasadh is not a festival of taking. It is a festival of offering. The first harvest was never kept solely for oneself, it was brought into the circle, gifted to community, and used to strengthen the bonds between people. It was through this generosity of spirit that agreements were renewed. Not through dominance; but through reciprocity, recompense and belief in restoring harmony.
🇳🇿 In Aotearoa, this ancient rhythm finds a striking alignment with Waitangi Day, when we are asked to collectively reflect on the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Like the high summer gatherings of Lughnasadh, Te Tiriti was intended as a moment of agreement, relationship, and shared future: a meeting of peoples, laws, and worldviews, grounded in the wellbeing of the land and those who live upon it. It was never meant to be a single historical event, but a living covenant.
📜 Te Tiriti, at its heart, is about relationship. Te Tiriti stands for sovereignty, respect, and coexistence negotiated in good faith. The pain and living crises we carry in Aotearoa today does not come from the idea of the agreement itself, but from its repeated breaking, misunderstanding, and denial.
Te Tiriti is not a threat to belonging, but a framework...
a threshold...
a doorway through which Tangata Tiriti and Tangata Whenua can step into right relationship.
⚓️ For many of us of European descent, particularly those drawn to pagan and witchy ways, this offers a meaningful pathway forward and a way to anchor our wairua.
Paganism, at its root, is about belief in country lore.
Paganism is about place-based wisdom, the lore of the land and the practise of nature-honouring spirituality.
Witchcraft, and the right to practice spirituality our own way, has always been political.
Understanding Te Tiriti can be one of the most authentic and practical ways that people of ALL cultures can connect to this whenua, the people, the laws, and the living lores of Aotearoa.
🌳 For those of us who are tau iwi (Tangata Tiriti) this season offers a powerful invitation.
Honouring our roots honestly means acknowledging where our ancestors came from, including the systems, beliefs, and power structures they carried with them. It means letting go of defensiveness and instead leaning into humility, listening, and learning.
Our ancestors who crossed oceans to settle here were not only agents of empire; many were also people of courage, desperation, hope, and fierce spirit. They carried with them old seasonal rhythms, folk lore, seeds of hope and a reverence for land, sea and sky that was shaped by generations.
By embracing the common threads between our cultures, the division begins to fade and relationship starts to shine.
As the first fruits ripen and the sun still burns bright, may we all choose to walk with love, understanding, and the courage of our ancestors.
They crossed oceans. We can cross the threshold.
May we honour both the agreements of this land and the wisdom of our own ancestral traditions by being people who keep our word.
🖤🤍❤️
Aroha nui naa,
Dawny
