Celebrating Beltane
Both Easter and Beltane seemed to be spread across a strange glut of Bank Holidays this year! This made getting together for sacred celebration rather tricky, as so many folks were on holiday, getting married or watching other folks get married. Given the sensual and sexy nature of Beltane with its May Poles and May Queens…the national preoccupation with loving or hating the Royal Wedding had a certain seasonal sense to it. Although those carefully timed kisses on the balcony of Buckingham Palace were a very controlled version of the King wedding the Land or the Sacred Marriage of God and Goddess, I still appreciated the rare occasion of a national event that in some way celebrated the Alchemical Wedding in such timely fashion. I like to imagine that I was not alone in sensing these deeper, symbolic resonances…
Meanwhile, the Wood Sisters had to curtail their day of Beltane celebration as so many of us were away or busy with other things. Instead of our usual day of myth & story, meditation & ritual, craft & nature, we opened up our celebrations to friends and family with an evening get together. Although our women only days are a real treat, it was also wonderful this time (and somehow felt in keeping with the masculine and feminine balance of Beltane) to share a simple sacred occasion with husbands, partners and sons.
So on Sunday 1st May several families came together, bringing time honoured sacrifices…mostly in the form of fruit crumble. While the boys played football in the garden, the adults enjoyed good food and good company… washed down with sloe gin!
Meanwhile, here in the Vicarage garden, nature was celebrating its own fertility festival. Both the hawthorn and the red crab apple were in glorious full flower and I’m hoping for a correspondingly rich harvest of haws and crab apples later in the year, so I can replenish my jelly stores. The swallows came back from their winter holidays in Africa and the first cuckoo was noisily seeking a mate in Dartington. Here’s a touch of Middle English to celebrate!
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel þu singes cuccu;
Ne swik þu nauer nu.
Pes:
Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!