Pagan Traditions: Beltane

Beltane is also known as the first of May celebration and is one of the biggest festivities within the Pagan tradition.

This festivity celebrates the arrival of the spring, the fire, the light after so many months of cold and darkness. It celebrates nature and its cycles as it emphasises the victory of the light over the night, spring and renewal over the cold winter months.

I have heard that Beltane is the best time to make love if you want to fall pregnant. Here in France, Pagan followers suppose to dance on the woods and make love there -frankly I think they do this all year round!!.

It is also a tradition to jump over bonfires. This is a celebration of love and thanks to nature for its generosity. It is the best time to go out camping and admire the new spring flowers.

This year for Beltane, we decorated the big pine tree in our garden and had a picnic and danced and sang around it. You can also prepare a basket with fresh flowers and give it to someone who needs healing and caring. For the children you can encourage them to pick small flowers and bride them to make flower arrangements. My children love this celebration, especially the girl who decorates her hair with flowers and leaves flower offerings for the fairies all over the garden. The boy just enjoys running around and dancing naked!

If you are daring enough you may like to bless your garden in the old way by making love in it . After all in old Celtic traditions it was a time of unabashed sexuality and promiscuity. It is said that in the old Celtic times, young people would spend the entire night in the woods "A-Maying," and then dance around the phallic Maypole the next morning. Older married couples were allowed to remove their wedding rings (and the restrictions they imply) for this one night.!!

Unfortunately, you will need to wait until next year before you try to convince your partner to adopt the pagan ways and rituals!!!

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The Beltane Fire Festival

This is held every year during the night of 30th April on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. it was first organised in the mid 1980s. in an effort to revive ancient traditions in Scotland and the Celtic world.

Also known as May Eve, May Day, It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight.

http://www.beltane.org/