juliewardwell

If you are sensory-sensitive, then you know the overwhelm that comes from a world that is too much. Too loud, too bright, too smelly, and either too hot or too cold. And with it, often, a low and constant anxiety that never quite settles.

Lughnasa, the Celtic festival of the first harvest, begins on the first of August, and it opens the harvest season across the whole arc of the North Atlantic. This is not a single day so much as a doorway. From now through September, the sun that has poured its light over the land all summer finishes its work, and the wild berries come ripe in the hedgerows, on the mountain slopes, along the barrens, and out among the coastal dunes.

Salmon is one of the oldest foods of the North Atlantic. For thousands of years, it fed the peoples living along the great arc that runs from Scandinavia through Scotland, Ireland, and Britain, across to Iceland, the Canadian Maritimes, and New England. It came back to the same rivers every year, at the same time, in numbers our ancestors could count on, and it was rich enough to carry a family through a winter.