Beltane

 

Beltane, May Day, or Lady Day is the celebration of the flowering and fertility of the earth. It is halfway around the year from Samhain, when we honor our beloved dead, beltane is the festival that celebrates all of the living world: plants, animals, and human beings.

This is a holiday of the fertility of the earth, celebrating the gifts of the Goddess as Mother Earth growing all the wonderful flowers, fruit, and all the things we eat.

We also celebrate all different kinds of human fertility as well. We give thanks for the powere for a man and woman to create life. We give thanks for all of the ways that we create. When we paint pictures, write songs, tell new stories, plant a garden, or cook dinner we take part in the fertility of the Goddess.

Beltane is a time to celebrate the joys of being alive. We give thanks for all the different kinds of pleasure our bodies give us, for without our bodies we couldn't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, run, jump, dance, sing, or swim.

 Adults celebrate sexual pleasure at Beltane. The loving feelings people can give each other with their bodies are special gifts of the Goddess. When we give each other love and pleasure the whole earth rejoyices. The flowers bloom brighter and the birds sing louder.

Children celebrate the growth and changing of their bodies, enjoying all the things they can do as they get bigger. They celebrate all the things they couldn't do the year before. Like running, playing games, climbing trees, doing cart wheels, and anything that makes them glad they have a body.

At Beltane we welcome the Goddess as Lover of All Living Things. She is Aphrodite! She is Astarte! She is Queen Maeve, the Faery Queen, riding forth from the Otherworld, the realm of dreams, imagination, spirits, and visions, to teach us how to move between the worlds!

On this day we welcome the God as the Green Man, God of all growing things. He too is the Lover of All Living things, spreading the seeds of the colors of day. He is protector of the wild things, and gaurdian of the forest.

Correspondences