An excerpt from my book – Another Spring – to guide and inspire you in your Beltane/May Day celebrations.
Also known as May Day, Beltane is halfway between Spring (Vernal) Equinox and Summer Solstice, and often thought of as the beginning of Summer in the old religion. You may be more familiar with traditional image of dancing around the May Pole.
Loosely translated as “bright fire”, Beltane also finds us having our first outdoor fire. While there are four fire rituals throughout the year, we sometimes save our major burning ceremony for Beltane, writing notes of what no longer serves us and committing them to fire. There is a beautiful feeling of release and cleansing when we do this. As with any ritual, consider your intention.
With May Day or Beltane, I encourage joy and Spring’s release as your intention.
You have a few options for your May Day/Beltane ritual:
- Make a lovely flower crown for yourself or another, just for fun. Join hands and lean backwards, twirling and laughing, celebrating the peak of Spring joy.
- Picnic Time! With or without a fire, it’s a lovely time of year for a Spring picnic.
- If you choose to burn, feel the release of what no longer serves you and allow the cleanse to propel you forward with new purpose.
The following excerpt detailing a simple approach to any ritual is from my upcoming book Another Spring: A Year of Self Therapy and Spiritual Practices. It comes from Chapter One: Reverence.
Here is an easy daily ritual which you may choose to embellish over time, or which you may adapt for any ritual you create:
1. Light a candle.
2. Express gratitude for your incarnation in this body, or simply give thanks that you woke up alive.
3. Cleanse by symbolically brushing yourself off or brushing up and down your arms.
4. Ground yourself by imagining roots growing out of the bottom of your feet deep into our Mother Earth and drawing her energy up through your body.
5. Visualize yourself standing at the centre of the four directions. This is your Spirit position, from which you now give thanks for the four elements without which none of us would be here. You may wish to turn and face each of the four directions as you do this.
6. The spirit position at the center of the four directions is the point of transformation and change so now would be the time to set your intention for the day. Your intention issimply a desire you have for yourself on this particular day, but it might be part of an ongoing transformational undertaking. For example, you may be in the middle of a difficult project, a personal challenge, or attempting to repair a relationship tear. Your intention may be to focus on the positive today, or to remember your worth, or to think before speaking. Some women choose a mantra or an affirmation at this time to guide them through their day.
7. After determining your focus for the day, you may want to request super-natural assistance with your intention. Spirit is both imminent and transcendent, as close as our breath and part of all that is. Some people petition Goddess or God; Divine Mind; pure Consciousness; a higher power or the Source; the unified field or universal intelligence; the Creator or Gaia. Others have specific guides, saints, angels, or ancestors they call upon for assistance. Myself? I ask my Soul (my inner eternal Friend, my True Self) to guide me, to help me remember that I am not my ego, and for the quiet stillness to hear this guidance.
8. Bless yourself, give thanks again, tap your gong if you have one, and blow out your candle.
Folks, T. (n.d.). Another Spring: A Year of Self Therapy and Spiritual Practices [Unpublished manuscript] (pp. 24/25)
In light,
Terry
