Beltane

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Well some over-ambitious fool ordered about 50 coleus plants which showed up today, even though I'm still trying to plant a bunch of mint seedlings and hollyhock seedlings that I grew. Oh, and all three moonflower seedlings and some morning glory seedlings. The parsley and lime balm are so far along that they could stand to be cut back, but Goddess knows when I'd find time to cook anything with them since I need to plant like a maniac between now and when the rain (please, Goddess!) starts tomorrow afternoon. I need to get the seedlings planted and off the screen porch so I can clean the screen porch for Beltane.

I adore Beltane. For many witches, Samhein (that's Halloween for those of you unused to the Wiccan vocabulary) is sort of THE high holy day of the Wiccan calendar, but for me, it's always been Beltane. By Beltane, (May 1st) it's really and truly Spring. There are, here in Zone 7 (aka, Arlington, Virginia), azaleas, and violets, and Solomon's Seal blooming. The peonies aren't blooming yet, but they're back up above the ground, promising to make love to the ants very, very soon. Ditto the iris, and I planted loads and loads of black ones (merci, GWPDA!) last fall and it looks as if they all made it through the winter. Merci, also, to the squirrels, who didn't eat them, even though this was a very lean (aka acorn-scarce) winter for them. My lawn looks, if I say so myself, like the softest green carpet you ever saw and all you want to do when you see it is to pull everything off your feet and let your feet and the grass make love to each other.

Beltane is when the ancient Pagans built the Beltane fires on the hills and danced the maypole and ran off into the meadows and woods to perform the Great Rite. The Great Rite is sympathetic magic at its best: Look Mother Earth! We're procreating and being fertile and mixing it up like mad! You do the same, OK?? Babies born in January, Beltane-got, were considered lucky.

Of course, the xians tried to appropriate Beltane, making May Day a feast of Mary. I can remember as a child being fascinated with the altar we set up in our living room to Mary in May and the fresh flowers we picked every day for the plaster statue of Mary, bare foot on a snake. I suppose it's no surprise that as an adult I keep an altar to the Goddess, primarily in the form of Hecate, in my home. The Soviets tried to appropriate May Day from the xians, making it a Worker's Holiday and using it to parade their military might. But, in the end, the Goddess gets back her own. From April 30th through May 1st, Pagans all over the world, including my little circle of women, will celebrate Beltane.

We'll worship Venus, and Aphrodite, and Isis, and Amateresu, and Yemaya, and other Goddesses of love, beauty, sex, sensuality. We'll light the Beltane fire, weave crowns of roses, and lilies, and carnations, and lilacs, throw offerings to the Beltane fire, drink pink champagne, eat lovely food, and dance until we're exhausted. And then . . . .

Appropriate, isn't it, that Beltane comes just after Earth Day? I'll have a bit more to say about Earth Day in the next couple of days.