BELTANE 2022

Beltane is a time when the life forces are at their most potent.

Beltane brings the blending of opposites: the rational and the intuitive, the active and receptive, Fire and Water. Fertility is inherent in everything, everything is possible. Manifestation is reaching the height of its power.

Glennie Kindred, 2018

In pre-Christian times people of Britain celebrated the ‘greenwood marriage’ at this time by honouring the coming together (pun intended) of the green-man and earth goddess. Think passion, fertility, the intertwining of male and female energies, to bring forth new life. The sacred masculine and feminine energies, recognised and honoured at the spring equinox as being distinct, separate and in balance, have matured during the early spring and are now ready to join in sacred marriage, each fully in their own power and creating more than the sum of their parts in union.

Look around you when out in nature, everything is growing and manifesting at a frenzied pace. The metaphorical and physical seeds planted around the spring equinox have come to life and, following an energy blueprint contained within, are manifesting their true potential and creativity through their vigorous growth. Anyone with a vegetable patch will be only too aware of the insuppressible drive and desire of ‘weeds’ to spring into life and achieve their greatest potential! Hopefully with the right care and attention the seeds and plants that we want to thrive, to nourish us in the future months, are showing the same vigour under our attention and care. This is the time when our farming ancestors would petition the god and goddess so that this year’s harvest would be generous and fruitful. The Beltane fire was central to this celebration, offering both a source of cleansing and inspiration.

Echoes of these celebrations are still close in our collective folk-memory: carved in stone adorning our churches and cathedrals and brought back to life in annual celebrations of the Greenman, maypole dancing and other revelries up and down the land. Most of these celebrations have been sanitised and skewed in favour of the horned god/Greenman while replacing the sexually potent, sacred feminine…the fully mature and powerful May Queen is now often represented by virginal, chaste, pre-pubescent girls (see the Maypole dance below). It is weird, and frankly a bit creepy, if not downright perverse, to my mind.

We need to embrace the power and the wisdom of the fully actualised sacred feminine in the world, perhaps now more than ever. She has the power to chose and discern when to open up and offer her receptive, life creating and sustaining powers to embrace the active spear of inspiration and action. Psychologically speaking this looks like thinking before speaking or acting and asking: will this action create the kind of change in the world that will sustain my children in health and harmony? If not, then the sacred feminine will reject the idea or abort the action.

Ask yourself: What do you want to leave behind in the cleansing Beltane fire? What do you want to create, to grow, to produce in the coming months? How can you marry the inspirational and the physical to create something new in the world?

In preparing for this ceremony you might want to spend time alone in Nature reflecting on these questions. You could also make a mask representing the Greenman/May queen to wear during the ceremony.

Calendar Beltane eve is on Saturday 30th April while lunar Beltane is on Monday May 16th this year (our ancestors would have gone by the lunar phases). It doesn’t matter that we will not be celebrating at the exact time…the energies are already active and will remain so during the build-up to the summer solstice in June.

Let us come together and dance!

With love and blessings,

Anna ♥