May 1st – Blessed Beltane!
Blessed Beltane!
Beltane, or May Day if you wish, is celebrated on May 1st. Beltane is the last of the spring festivals and marks the beginning of the warmer months of planting and the growing season. It’s one of the festivals that I like to call the Big Four, the others being Mabon, Samhain, and Yule. Beltane is the festival when we honor life and this is the time when the Goddess now takes the God as her Consort. Revelers dance the May Pole and crown a May Queen. (I’ve done the May Pole dance several times, although it’s harder than it looks.) Many will build huge bonfires, or bale-fires, and it’s tradition to drive livestock between two bonfires to purify them and bring good luck. Household fires would be extinguished and then relit with the ceremonial bonfires. My own town has a May Day celebration with a pole, funnel cakes, and a small fair and petting zoo.
There is a very nice slideshow from MSN Glo that can be found here.
Blessed Be, everyone!
Posted on May 1, 2012, in Uncategorized and tagged 2012, happy holidays, holiday post, little something extra. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Lady With Books 
Emerging Visions visionary art ‘zine #22
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com
In celebration of Earth, our Gifting Gaea has emerged.
Share our Gift; Enjoy our Earth; Blessed Be
Sense caressing meadow
Green grain and brilliant petals
Lovely buzzing, lively hopping
Warm, yellow light at play
Luscious wash of pleasure
Fragrant, rolling, mellow
Miles of flowering moments
Celebrate today
Imagine May Day
Brazen witches fly, legends say,
dark Moon nights; arise, stealthy, silent
in their joyous revelry.
Bonded to Earth’s creation;
learning at mother’s breast
to manage life’s gifts and lessons.
Historic Man may proclaim, may murder
for fealty, to swear allegiance to
their hunt’s command.
They may elevate their One True King
to kneel and obey. They may employ
counting measure, ceremony and sacrifice,
taunting and torture or other trials
thus finding for each loyal swan a pond
to plunder, to parade in royal colour,
their place of pride.
Cruelty descends, more master than tactic;
it is the enemy of joy, of flavor,
bonding, works of love and honor.
Yet men, on real ground, work companions
to soil and rain, engineers trained to each
moment’s urgencies, philosophers of stone and mud,
reason and toil, persist. Their sinew and bone feed
the ages, build clay and richness on which
wealth relies.
Wisdom knows the sweat of practiced movement,
flexible to unexpected obstacles, able to modulate
quiet or loud as the crowd ebbs
or grows in credulity.
Where wisdom seeps through, counters
prevailing poisons, invigorates blood to nourish
minds and hearts, look there for blessing.
Arise, lovers! Bring forth better days,
ours to play in open revelry,
neighbors enjoying shared labors and our fruit.
Accept truth of magic; imagine life into this world.
Beltane 2012
Oh wow! Thank you so much for posting this.
Blessed Beltane!