Beltane Fun!!

Beltane

End of April/ beginning of May in the Northern Hemisphere
End of October/ beginning of November in the Southern Hemisphere

The Wheel of the Year is a symbol and calendar for the cycle of the seasons. It consists of eight festivals, spaced at approximately even intervals throughout the year.

As the Wheel originates in the Northern Hemisphere in the Southern Hemisphere we will advance these dates six months so as to coincide with the natural seasons as they occur here. For instance, an Australian Pagan may celebrate Beltane on the 1st of November, when an American Pagan is celebrating Samhain.

Beltane honours Life. It represents the peak of Spring and the beginning of summer. Earth energies are at their strongest and most active. All of life is bursting with potent fertility. As such this is a brilliant moment in the Wheel of the Year to bring ideas, hopes and dreams into action. And to have some fun.....

It is one of eight solar Celebrations.  This holiday includes traditions from the Gaelic Bealtaine, such as the bonfire, but it harks to traditions found in the Germanic May Day festival as well, both in its significance (focusing on fertility) and its rituals (such as May pole dancing)!

For the Celts though Beltane is basically a Fire Festival. The word 'Beltane' originates from the Celtic God 'Bel', meaning 'the bright one' and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire. Together they make 'Bright Fire', or 'Goodly Fire' and traditionally bonfires were lit to honour the Sun and encourage the support of Bel and the Sun's light to cultivate the developing future harvest and protect the community. 

As Beltane is the Great Wedding of the Goddess and the God, Earth and Sun, it was and for some of us still is…a popular time for weddings or Handfastings, a traditional promise for 'a year and a day' after which the couple would either choose to stay together or part without recrimination. Another common element of this is 'jumping the broomstick' - The broom marks a 'threshold', moving from an old life to a fresh one.

Jumping or leaping the fire, or broomstick is also about encouraging the growth of the harvest... folk believed that the higher they jumped the higher the crops grew!!

For us in the modern world, it can be a celebration of nurturing our own  soon to be harvest on many levels…we are called to assess what we are caring for and growing in our own lives and how we are doing this! We can put energy and passion into that which we love and choose to see manifest in a wonderful way in our lives! We can renew our vows to a loved one, our promises to ourselves and feed our desires for our future with inspiration and light! We can give energy to seeds we have planted both literally and metaphorically!

Light candles, have a small fire (where this is allowed), feast, dance, sing, drum, Jump a broom, and play joyful games, at best we can celebrate the happiness of being alive!