You reap what you sow right?
That's a big part of what the Lammas Sabbat represents. Harvesting the seeds you've sown in the past seasons. Physical seeds and spiritual ones.
I haven't done much of anything besides work over the past year. My garden is abysmal and neglected, due to some major renovations, my house looks like a bombsite and my spiritual side has been fairly absent. I've barely written, except for when I was bored in lockdown and most of that has stayed on my laptop and not gone anywhere else.
I noticed late last year that I had lost a big part of myself and I wasn't sure where it went. I went from being that outspoken friend who will stand up for you when you can't do it yourself to being a complete doormat. I lost my fire. I lost my confidence and ability to do what's right. I feel that I lost my sense of integrity in there too.
I have overthought myself into wanting the approval of some hideously toxic people and saying nothing when others who didn't deserve it were being set up to take some major falls. I found myself a weapon in someone else's war and then a casualty in another. I found myself just wanting to be still and silent and unnoticed when stuff was happening that normally I'd speak out about.
A lot of this has manifested into a physical injury. An old injury that has flared up into something that has made me live in constant pain and unable to physically do much at all.
Today, however, is Lammas. It is the first harvest and I find myself getting involved. I am speaking out again over the past week. I am also finding myself incredibly introspective.
If I may digress a little.
A man I know and worked with used to be quite high up in corporate banking. He spent years living in Dubai and London and being sent all over the world for his bank. Then, stuff happened, he lost his job, his marriage was falling apart and he wanted to sell his house, but it wouldn't sell because of what was happening in a neighbouring property.
He started drinking and took matters into his own hands out of sheer frustration.
When I worked with him, I found him lovely. He was always cheerful and friendly and keen to help out. We had some marvelous conversations about all sorts of things, working manual labour gives you those kind of opportunities. I was quite happy to regard him as a friend. There were rumours about his drinking, but I knew that he was diabetic and had a bowel condition and he never seemed drunk to me, so I mostly dismissed the rumours. I believed that his water bottle contained water and that he had genuine health issues that led to all the times he went home early and that his falls down the stairs were unlucky and clumsy.
I feel rather naive about it now.
The work we were doing was seasonal and on fixed terms. When each season finished and our fixed term would end, the company would pick and choose who they wanted to keep for the next part of the job. Not everyone was invited back. When it came to one, he wasn't invited back for the next contract. The story went around that he rang and said he wanted to come back for the next part. He was told no thank you. So he turned up to speak to the manager. The manager wasn't present at the time and he became quite abusive and threatening to the people who were present. He came back when the manager was there and she found him intimidating and I'm told had to threaten him with Police removal if he didn't leave. I initially found the story hard to believe and thought it had perhaps been blown out of proportion, but I have since heard it directly from several of the people who were there when he turned up both times and they had no reason to lie or embellish it. They were just as stunned seeing it happen as I was hearing it.
A few months later, he was all over the news for having taken matters into his own hands regarding that neighbouring property mentioned earlier. He had pleaded guilty and been sentenced for it. Part of that sentence was alcohol rehabilitation.
I bumped into him a few months after that. He'd not long gotten out of rehab and was getting his life sorted. He had a new job and was quite proud of his time in rehab. He was bubbly and friendly and seemed to be doing just fine. I've bumped into him a few times since and wondered if he was drinking again, but never been sure. I saw him go into the wine section of the supermarket, but didn't want to make any assumptions that he was actually buying.
Then what he did to take matters into his own hands happened again last week. I couldn't see him being the cause of it this time, he didn't have the reasons he did the first time but I worried that he'd be the low hanging fruit, the easy target to take the blame.
And he was.
I found out today that he is the person who was arrested and charged. He hasn't had his day in court yet, but it is coming.
I find myself indescribably sad about his whole situation. How does one go from being well-off, top of your game, with property valued in the millions to an alcoholic diabetic renting a room (not even the whole house) on a benefit in a few short years? How does one go from being a successful man approaching what is looking to be a comfortable retirement to being almost homeless, relying on others to get you to appointments?
So much of his story has affected me today. I said I was feeling introspective. I feel like I want to stand up for him and say ... something? I don't know what that something is. I know there will be people crowing over it and saying how they always knew he was <dangerous/crazy/insert whatever other adjective fits here>. I believe he should absolutely face the consequences of what he has done (if he actually did it this time) and if that means prison time, then so be it. I don't want people who don't know anything about him to be judging him but at the same time I'm aware that this happens all the time, everywhere and there's not a damn thing I can do to prevent it. Part of me wants to reach out to him and offer him help and support (that I know he wouldn't accept anyway) and part of me wants to just sit back and watch sadly. It's not really my problem or responsibility.
I don't know what the right thing to do is in this situation. And that makes me even more sad. Is my agony of indecision a part of this harvest? Have I spent the past year working myself into this overthinking but underdoing mess?
In other situations over the past couple of days, I have found myself stepping up. I am filling my space and not caring who notices. I am not shrinking myself in order for the storms to pass over me. My fire is starting to smoulder again. I only really noticed it today.
I don't really know what I have sown in the past year, but today has been a day of epiphanies and thought-provoking moments.
I seem to have a first harvest of introspection
