Author Archives: John Cutrone

Aug 01 2015
1 Comment
Book of Days Calendar

Your August Book of Days

August15Corn

August is a time of abundance of the summery sort: peaches and plums, raspberries and sweet corn. It is a month of small celebrations and the August edition of the Convivio Book of Days Calendar is here to help you mark them all. The month begins today with Lammas, the celebration of the first harvest, our escort toward autumn. It is, in Italy, the time of Ferragosto, when folks leave the cities and head for the sea. It’s a tradition that dates back to Ancient Rome, and it matters not how much it confounds tourists to Italy (good luck finding open restaurants should you visit at Ferragosto).

In Maine on the 6th, at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community, it is their celebration of the Arrival of the Shakers in America: one of their most important celebrations. Seth and I were privileged to share in that celebration once when I was a print intern there with Brother Arnold Hadd. It was one of the most magical evenings I have known, sitting there in the 1794 Shaker Meetinghouse and joining them in reflection and song as the sun set over the village. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I swear the Shakers through the ages were present in that room with us.

It is the time of Obon in Japan, the beautiful outdoor festival celebrating and honoring the dead with street fairs, bon odori dances, and at the festival’s conclusion, thousands and thousands of illuminated lanterns set on the water, each carrying the spirit of an ancestor off to the other shore until next year’s return.

And for us printers and book artists, it is the month we honor St. Bartholomew, a patron saint of bookbinders and book artists and it is in his honor that the traditional printers’ Wayzgoose celebration comes, marking the day each waning summer when printers typically began setting type by lamplight and candlelight once again, for sunlight was no longer enough. Lammas, at the start of the month, reminds us that summer is ripening all around us; the Wayzgoose brings a more concrete reminder of the approach of winter.

This month’s calendar is, as usual, a printable PDF document designed for standard US letter size paper, 8 1/2″ x 11″, easy to print, easy to pin to a bulletin board, a nice accompaniment to the Convivio Book of Days blog. Enjoy.

 

Jul 31 2015
4 Comments
Lammas, Lughnasadh

First Harvest

Sommer

July comes to a close and August begins: this is Lammastide, an old holiday few will recognize, yet one very valuable, Lammas helps us begin our gradual transition from summer to fall. Indeed, it is the start of the autumnal season in traditional reckoning of time, for here in the Northern Hemisphere we are now halfway between the summer solstice of June and the autumnal equinox of September. This makes Lammas one of the cross-quarter days, like Imbolc at the start of February, which brings the start of spring to a winter-weary world.

Lammas is perhaps more bittersweet, for it is more difficult to be weary of such a gentle season as summer. But in the spiraling circular nature of time, everything is in flux, and each day since Midsummer in June has brought us increasing darkness. The days will continue to grow shorter and shorter until Midwinter’s solstice in December. The weather may lag behind somewhat, but there is no question that summer is ripening and growing old. In the fields, the grain is ripening, and the first harvest traditionally took place right about now. This is the origin of Lammas. The name comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon Hlafmass, or “Loaf-mass,” and at Lammastide, the first loaf of bread would be baked from the newly harvested grain and brought to the church to be blessed. All labor would cease and there would be community gatherings, perhaps the precursors of our contemporary county fairs that begin to pop up this time of year and which also, at their heart, celebrate agriculture and the harvest.

Grain yields not just bread but also whisky and ale, and all of these things play a part in Lammastide celebrations. If you are celebrating with us, Lammastide begins tonight with Lammas Eve and continues on to Lammas tomorrow, the First of August. The needs for a proper celebration are simple: a good loaf of bread and a festive beverage should be your table’s focal point. Some bakers make elaborately shaped breads just for Lammas, but simple is good, too. Never underestimate the power of simplicity.

Lammas was a big deal in Elizabethan England, and William Shakespeare brought some of the symbolism of Lammas into his tragedy Romeo and Juliet, symbolism that perhaps escapes our modern sensibilities. The play takes place in the heat of July, just before Lammas. Juliet’s nursemaid in Act I describes the fair Juliet and tells us, “On Lammas-Eve at night shall she be fourteen.” English majors like me who love to find connexions in these things almost always view Juliet in terms of the sacrificial first harvest. She is, in fact, in her tomb before Lammas arrives, less than a week after meeting Romeo. (Sorry for the spoiler… and try topping that next time you’re complaining about having a bad week.)

You may also hear this time of year called Lughnasadh––this is the Celtic version of Lammas. The celebration is much the same. Our suggestion, as you might easily assume, is to celebrate and mark this day. We are not, for the most part, an agrarian people anymore, and this explains the waning of a celebration like Lammas. But we rely on those who grow the grains we eat, and so why not set some time aside to enjoy with gusto the fruits of their labors––the farmers, the bakers, the brewers and distillers. Honor them, honor the bread you eat, the ale you drink, celebrate with us this first harvest as we begin to set our sights toward autumn.

Image: Sommer by Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth. Oil on canvas, 1890. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Jul 29 2015
St. Martha's Day

On What is Just Right

Martha

Summertime is full of the feast days of lesser known saints, and for the 29th of July it’s the Feast of St. Martha, patron saint of cooks. If hearing this calls to mind for you a contemporary patron saint of cooking and entertaining, Martha Stewart, well, then… your mind operates a bit like mine. In the gospel story, Jesus is visiting Martha and her sister Mary at their home in Bethany. Martha is consumed by the tasks of good hospitality: cooking, preparing, making everything just right. Her sister Mary, on the other hand, spends all her time visiting with their guest, leaving all the work to Martha. Martha, as you might imagine, is a bit peeved about this situation, and she asks her guest to intervene. “Lord,” she says, “don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

But Jesus basically tells Martha not to worry about so many things, that she should come and sit with him and Mary. I love this story, because I can be a bit like Martha (both the biblical and contemporary versions) as I strive to make sure everything is just right. But what is just right? Sometimes just right is just being. Martha offers us a valuable lesson. She does this by practicing the opposite, of course. But through this visit and what she learns from her visitor, Martha teaches us to engage life fully and to not worry so much about appearances, and this is a valuable thing to learn.

Image: Saint Martha, in a Flemish illumination from the Isabella Breviary, 1497. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

← Older posts
Newer posts →