Beltane                      Waxing Flower Moon

Beltane marks the beginning of the growing season so fertility is the essence of the celebration.  In a pre-refrigeration, pre-food preservative (except salt and drying) culture fertility during the growing season carried with it survival, for animals and humans.  Thus, anything to encourage the land and to safeguard the animals that could be done, would be done.

This holiday, Beltane, used to separate the Celtic year into halves, the other half coming six months later at Samhain, or Summer’s End.  Later the Celts adopted the solstice and equinox celebrations of other peoples and added Imbolc and Lugnasa to make an 8 holiday year.

Beltane, Lugnasa, Samhain and Imbolc are cross-quarter holidays.  They occur between the quarter year events of Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox–Imbolc,  between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice–Beltane, between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox–Lugnasa and between Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice–Samhain.  The cross quarter days were the occasion for markets, festivals/fairs and certain seasonally observed matters like short term weddings, labor contracts and preparation for winter.

The fire jumping and making love in the fields at night preserved and magnified fertility.  The May pole which you may have gaily stomped around as a child in elementary school symbolizes the male aspect of fertility while the young maidens with May baskets symbolize the feminine.

The choosing of a May queen carries over the honoring of the goddess in her maiden form, when she can become pregnant and bear children.    This tradition has almost died out in this country and I don’t know whether the selection of a mate for the May queen ever crossed the pond.  At certain points in Celtic history the May Queen’s mate was king for a year and a day.  Over the course of the year and a day the king received all the honors and trappings of royalty.  After the year finished, however, the king died at the hands of his people.  His blood fertilized the soil.

Today we have much less feel, if any, for this holiday.  It has faint impressions on our culture with May Day celebrations, sometimes with construction paper baskets for paper flowers.

As we have distanced ourselves from the land and the processes that bring us food, we have also distanced ourselves from the celebrations that mark seasonal change.  We can let Beltane pass by with no bonfires, no cattle purified, no holiday related love making in the fields.

It may not seem like much, this cultural dementia, at worst a mild symptom.  It might, though,  reveal a more severe underlying affliction.  As we forget the world of fields and cattle, the oceans and their wild fish, cattle ranches and dairy farms, the subtle body may die of starvation or dehydration. Continue reading In the Merry, Merry Month of May →