Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II
Friday gratefuls: Dr. Gustave and his care for my glaucoma. Another Colorado sunny day, blue sky. The ski runs on Black Mountain still have snow, like our backyard. Bernard Cornwall, historical fiction writer. People who write. Buddy Mark Odegard’s Starry Night. A slow workout yesterday.
Ennui. A word for a pandemic. Punctuated though by what Woolly Jim Johnson referred to as the perennial. It’s Lambing time on the Casper’s ranch outside Aberdeen, South Dakota. This is an ancient ritual honored first on the Great Wheel by Imbolc on February 1st. Imbolc means in the belly and refers to the pregnancy of the Ewes.
Imbolc, which marks a season by the fertility of a farm’s Ewes, is one of four Celtic cross-quarter holidays. Cross-quarter holidays come between the equinoxes and the solstices. Thus, Imbolc is halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.
Beltane, the next cross-quarter holiday, is today, between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. In the deep past the Celts only had two seasons, the fallow time beginning at Samain on October 31st, and Beltane, the growing season, which started on May 1st.
Beltane marked the beginning of a market week when villagers would come together to sell goods made over the fallow time, livestock, and any foodstuffs in surplus. Couples interested in each other as potential partners could do a handfasting, marriage for a year and a day. Workers made contracts for the growing season with farmers.
Bonfires blazed at night. Cattle were driven through them to ward off disease and women wishing to quicken would leap over smaller fires. Men and women made love in the fields, hoping to transfer their fertility to the soil.
Beltane’s coming means the Great Wheel has turned toward growth, fertility, abundance. In spite of a human pandemic Daffodils*, Crocus, Grape Hyacinths, Bloodroot, spring ephemerals that bloom before the trees leaf out have come. The Lodgepole Pines have their new cones. The Aspens have buds. Robins and Hummingbirds have returned to the mountains. The Black Bears forage while yearling Mule Deer hunt for good food amongst all the greening.
Look for what is growing within you. Within your relationships. Outside your front door. The coronavirus will wane. You need growth. This is a wonderful time to seek what’s pushing through the Soil of your Mind.
*I’m adopting Robin Wall Kimmerer’s suggestion to capitalize names of those things animated by the Great Spirit, Ohr, the One. This signals my respect for the living world. I’m also adopting her understanding of animacy which includes all things except those made by human hands. So, for instance, Rock. Black Mountain. Grass. Soil.
