Happy Beltaine!

Once again, the world is waking up and blooming and the power of love and fertility is running like blood and sap and electricity throughout all the land.  Twas a time when May Day, and the Rites of Spring, were looked forward to widely, and celebrated with the greatest of enthusiasm!  The tradition of the Rites of Spring (Beltane) and the Sacred Marriage go very far back indeed, and are found in ancient Sumaria in the union of Inanna and Dumuzi, and more recently, for millenia throughout Northern Europe and the British Isles.  It's rather extraordinary, if one thinks about it or even is aware of it, that this important celebration was removed from the calendar and culture by the Church, and replaced with "international workers day", or simply buried as much as possible in the compost of myth, co-option, and turning something joyful and fundamental to nature and the Goddess into something "evil".  Witness the famous "ride of Lady Godiva" which I wrote about a few years back.

There is a wonderful U.K. Blog, (below) from which I take the liberty of copying writings on Beltaine lore.  BLESSED BELTANE TO ALL!



http://celestialelfdanceoflife.blogspot.com/2011/03/beltane-blessing-beannachadh-bealtain.html

The Beltane Festival

Beltane or Beltane is the Gaelic name for the festival that begins on April the 30th or Beltane's eve and continues on 1st May and is a celebration of purification and fertility. The name originates from the Celtic god, Bel - the 'bright one', and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire, giving the name 'bealttainn', meaning 'bright fire'. Marking the beginning of the Summer season with the lighting of two great bon-fires on Beltane's eve signifies a time of purification and transition, these fires may be made of the nine sacred woods, Alder, Ash, Birch, Hawthorn, Hazel, Holly, Oak, Rowan and Willow.

Heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, Beltane festivals were accompanied with ritual acts to protect the people from any harm by Otherworldly spirits.

Significantly, as the Goddess (Brigid) moves through her various phases, Beltane sees the womanly aspect of the Summer Goddess banish the Old Crone aspect of the Winter Goddess in readiness for the maternal time and the fruits of nature to follow.

As this is one of the magic turning points of the Sacred Seasons, the veil between worlds is thought to be especially thin, and as a result many of the Fairy Host, the Sidhe and the Tuatha De Danann may be seen crossing between the worlds.  Particularly, the Faery Queen is thought to travel about on this night and if you gaze too long on her enchanted beauty she may whisk you away to live in her Other realms outside of time for an eternity.  The Faery Queen also represents the May Queen, although in practice the honor is usually carried out by young women who are soon to be married.

For the May Day is the great day, 

Sung along the old straight track. 

And those who ancient lines did ley 

Will heed this song that calls them back.

........Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

The May Queen at Beltane

Along with her May King, mythically a Jack in The Green, the Green Man or Horned God, is to take part in the Great Rite and so Open the way for the Summer. This is the Sacred Marriage of the God and Goddess, often reenacted by a symbolic union during which the Athame (magical knife symbolizing male energy) is placed by the King of May into the Chalice (Sacred Cup symbolizing female energy) held by the Queen of the May.  For a more detailed account of how this ritual was enacted in earlier time, I refer the reader to Marrion Zimmer Bradley's moving account in her fiction The Mists of Avalon.

Following this union which serves to Open the way to the Summer Lands, festivities ensue, particularly that of dancing around the May Pole. The May Pole itself is a symbol of the union of the God and the Goddess, as the red ribbons represent the fertility of the Goddess, the white represent the fertility of the God. Men begin the weaving by dancing under the upheld ribbon of the first women facing them, accompanied by music, drums beating or chanting. The dancers move forward, stepping alternately over and under each person who’s dancing toward them. The dance continues until the Maypole is completely wrapped, then the ribbons are tied off and the wreath from the top is tossed to the earth to bring its gathered power into the ground.

Whilst such public festivals are not as widespread as they once were, famously at Padstow in Cornwall there still is held an annual 'Obby-Oss' day, which is believed to be one of the oldest survivng fertility rites in the United Kingdom.   St. Ives and Penzance in Cornwall are now also seeing a revival of similar public festivities.


Beltane Lore

During Medieval times, a man might also propose marriage by leaving a hawthorn branch at the door of his beloved on the first day of May. If the branch was allowed to remain at her door, it was a signal that the proposal was accepted. If it was replaced with a cauliflower, the proposal was turned down.

The Celtic Moon month of Hawthorn is the time for lovers to attend to matters of the heart, as the Celtic fire festival of Beltane heralds the start of summer.  Crosses of birch and rowan twigs were hung over doors on the May morning as a blessing and protection, and left until next May day.
The dew on the May day morning is believed to have a magical potency - wash your face and body in it and you will remain fair all year.

Going 'A-Maying' meant staying out all night to gather flowering hawthorn, watching the sunrise and making love in the woods, also known as a 'greenwood marriage'

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight, Or he would call it a sin; But we have been out in the woods all night, A-conjuring Summer in! 

Beltaine andThe Sacred Marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi

From "The Rainbow Bridge Oracle"

Well, that most auspicious day is here, Beltane, May Day, a Celebration of the Earth's fertility with ancient and universal roots, indeed, one that made the Church fathers very nervous,  so nervous that they managed to demote the holiday if not extinguish it's meaning all together, along with demoting erotic love to, well, something to feel guilty about.  Birds may do it, bees may do it, but holy men, God, and the Virgin Mary, in the tradition many of  us have inherited, definately don't do it.

Still remnants of the most ancient and sacred act of love, the union of the Goddess and the God, the "Sacred Marriage" with it's ancient hope of fertility and abundance, have survived throughout the world, even to this day.  Consider the story of the May Queen, "Lady God-diva", and her famous ride to the Maypole.  Or for that matter, the marvelous symbolism of the May Pole, where in the maidens of the village plant the phallic Pole into the ripening earth, along with much festivity.  In earlier times, the festivities usually ended with couples going into the fields to celebrate, as a pleasurable form of sympathetic magic, the sacred marriage, the idea being that their pleasure would encourage the earth and the animals to do the same.  

One of my favorite examples of the de-sacralization, and descent, of not only the power of Eros in our world but also of women is the use of the word "whore".  We all know that "whore" means a degraded woman, an insult.  And yet the origins of this word go all the way back to the Hebrew "Hora"(and to this day a circular fertility dance called the Hora is danced at Jewish weddings)  or "Hara" (healers still refer to the womb/generative center as the "hara" center).  This root word originally meant both "fertility" as well as a title for a woman who was a priestess.

That rich sense of participating in the sacred sensual lifeforce, so vibrantly felt at the ripening of Spring, the "Sacred Marriage" is something I believe people long for in our guilty and cynical times.  People talk about "having sex" with the same consumer disposibility as "having a beer".   Somehow in the long years since Inanna called to Dumuzi to help her "plow her high field" the sanctity of physical love has been lost, along with the potent magical  sense of participating in the generative, mysterious,  love act  of nature.

So to honor this day, I copy below from the wonderful translations of 5,000 year old poetry by the literary and archeologist team of Diane Wolkstein and Samual Noah Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (1983)

Inanna and Dumuzi

Inanna bathed and anointed herself 
with scented oil.
She covered her body with the royal white robe.
She readied her dowry.
She arranged her precious lapis beads 
around her neck.
She took her seal in her hand.

Dumuzi waited expectantly.
Inanna opened the door for him.
Inside the house she shone before him.
Like the light of the moon.
Dumuzi looked at her joyously.
He pressed his neck close against hers.
He kissed her.

Inanna spoke:

   “What I tell you let the singer weave into song.
    What I tell you, let it flow from ear to mouth,
    Let it pass from old to young:
    My vulva, the horn, the Boat of Heaven,
    Is full of eagerness like the young moon.
    My untilled land lies fallow.

    As for me, Inanna,
    Who will plow my vulva?
    Who will plow my high field?
    Who will plow my wet ground?
    As for me, the young woman,
    Who will plow my vulva?
    Who will station the ox there?
    Who will plow my vulva?”

Dumuzi replied:

    “Great Lady, the king will plow your vulva?
    I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva.”

At the king’s lap stood the rising cedar.
Plants grew high by their side.
Grains grew high by their side.
Gardens flourished luxuriantly.

Inanna sang:

   “He has sprouted; he has burgeoned;
    He is lettuce planted by the water.
    He is the one my womb loves best.
    My well-stocked garden of the plain,
    My barley growing high in its furrow,
    My apple tree which bears fruit up to its crown,

    My honey-man sweetens me always.
    His hand is honey, his foot is honey,
    He sweetens me always.
   
Dumuzi sang:

    “O Lady, your breast is your field.
    Inanna, your breast is your field.
    Your broad field pours out the plants.
    Your broad field pours out grain.
    Water flows from on high for your servant.
    Bread flows from on high for your servant.
    Pour it out for me, Inanna.
    I will drink all you offer.”

Inanna sang:

    “Make your milk sweet and thick, my bridegroom.
    My shepherd, I will drink your fresh milk.
    Wild bull Dumuzi, make your milk sweet and thick.
    Let the milk of the goat flow in my sheepfold.
    Fill my holy churn with honey cheese.
    Lord Dumuzi, I will drink your fresh milk.
    My husband, I will guard my sheepfold for you.
    I will watch over your house of life, the storehouse,
    The shining quivering place which delights Sumer
    The house which decides the fates of the land,
    The house which gives the breath of life to the people.
    I, the queen of the palace, will watch over your house.”

    I would go with you to my garden.
    There I would plant the sweet, honey-covered seed.”