Beltane Rituals and Traditions

Beltane: Pagan Holy Day—Season of Planting, Fertility and Sexuality

Beltane is upon us and we are greeted with the reminder of the Earth’s enduring powers of renewal.

What does Beltane Mean? It is a season of love and connection.

We remember that we are still in community, that we can still reach out, create art, send letters, write love songs, and notice what is thriving in the world.

Let us plant the gardens of our future, because we know that what grows in the dark will burst through thick earth with color and life.

May 1 Beltane/Mid-Spring: planting, fertility, sexuality—May Day (Euro-American), Wulpurgisnacht/Valborg (German and Scandinavian), Root Festival (Yakama), Ching Ming (Chinese), Whitsuntide (Dutch), Goddess Festivals: Aphrodite (Greek), Venus (Roman), Lada (Slavic). 

When are the Solstice, Equinox, and Cross-Quarter holy-days Celebrated?

Traditional pagan Celtic / Northern European holy days start earlier than the customary Native / North American ones—they are seen to begin in the embryonic dark phase: e.g., at sunset, the night before the holy day—and the seasons are seen to start on the Cross Quarter days before the Solstices and Equinoxes. In North America, these cardinal points on the wheel of the year are seen to initiate the beginning of each season.

Amaterasu © Hrana Janto 1991

The seasonal cycle of the year is created by Earth’s annual orbit around the sun.

Solstices are the extreme points as Earth’s axis tilts toward or away from the sun—when days and nights are longest or shortest. On equinoxes, days and nights are equal in all parts of the world. Four cross-quarter days roughly mark the midpoints in between solstices and equinoxes.

We commemorate these natural turning points in the Earth’s cycle.

Seasonal celebrations of most cultures cluster around these same natural turning points.

2023 Beltane Holy Day Writing

As we dance in the meadow, flowers wreathed around our heads, drumbeats in our ears, we sense the trembling web, many fine threads entwined with yours and mine. We send out love to the threatened biodiversity of our beloved earth, the waning butterflies, and the amphibians warning us through thin skins to change our ways. Now is not the time for apathy or regret, not the time for keening in sorrow. It is time for swift feet and gentle fingers. Time for cracked open hearts and wild tears. Time for delight and determination to twine back together, eyes open to where we are and what can still be done.

Love Awakens © Denise Kester 2017

We begin—like the crow daring to peck away at what confines us, cracking out of the shell, persistent in our knowing. We begin like the snake, feeling the tightness that no longer suits us, stretching beyond our edges until we shed our shape and become reborn. We begin with a smile, with tears, with blood and possibilities, we begin by listening to the whispers of our inherent capacity to rise.

—Molly Remer © Mother Tongue Ink 2022

Helixical Flame © Miss Ascentia 2005

Beltane Rituals Around the World

Beltane also known as May day is a pagan ritual celebrating the height of spring. A cross quarter day celebrating the halfway mark between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. 

Bonfires have been a part of beltane rituals for generations, dancing around fire and rejoicing in the wonders of the season. 

Beltane in Celtic means "lucky fire."

Do you know we are all on fire? 

Life is literally a fire burning in our bodies. Our biology magically takes in energy in tiny increments so we don’t ignite. Still, it’s a wonder more of us don’t just spontaneously burst into flames!

What about when there’s way too much fire everywhere:

In wars, in forests, in collapsed nuclear reactors, even freak fires in the arctic? What about depression—not enough creative fire, soul fire, wemoon fire, to bring balance and healing to offset the devastation? No way to get there from here?

Dances around the Maypole are traditional for Beltane. And many marraiges take place during this time with some older rituals involving couples jumping over a broom to mark their union. 

The sun has started her dance.

She is gracing us with her rays late into the day and teasing us with cloudbursts and rainbows. The new growth of green buds stimulates growth within ourselves.

This is an ideal season to take small moments to shed things that do not serve you.

Dig deep in the dirt and within yourself to carve out space for new challenges and insights. Dance in the golden light of sunshine welcoming this new time of abundance and magick. May your gardens be fruitful and your soul rivers flowing sweetly. 

Beltane Love from the We'Moon Creatrix Team

What Was Given © Robin Lea Quinlivan 2009

Beltane is a traditional time to renew, reawaken our fire:

Inner fire, hearthfire, community fire, sexual and fertility fire of people, animals, plants, the land.

Today is our holy moment to quantum jump over the impossible and make love to the Possible. (If your head can’t do it, let your heart try.)

Newborns of the body or imagination conceived on Beltane are “Merry Begots,” full of enough aliveness, love, joy, humor to confound the toughest logic and direst doomsday predictions.

—Miriam Dyak © Mother Tongue Ink 2015

DIY Beltane Rituals

• Have a fire:
  
  Go outside and safely have a bonfire with friends. Bring fresh foods from local gardens to eat over the flames and give thanks to your community by bringing them together. If you are unable to safely have a fire outside, light a candle to honor the fire goddess within you! LED candles work as well if there are little ones about who might knock them over. 
  
  
• Create a fairy altar:
  
  The veil is thin during Beltane and creatures from the other realms often visit! Create a small altar for them when they visit, fill it with colorful flowers, ripe smells and sweet tasting food. 
  
  
• Create flower crowns:
  
  The season is bursting with flowers, why not adorn yourself and your family with them too! Weave together long grasses and stems with flowers and sing songs throughout your neighborhood. 
  
  
• Maypole:
  
  This can be done on a small and large scale. Wooden dowels work amazing for every person to craft their own maypole with flowers and ribbon. They also make great garden ornaments when you're done.
  
  
• Cast a spell:
  
  Beltane is rich with magick, especially for fertility and love. Write your intention or wish on a piece of paper and blow it into the wind, or sing it out and let the wind carry your words out into the universe. 
  
  
• Track your Fertility: Get an app or follow your cycle through the moon phases of your We'Moon Datebook! 

Goddess of Beltane

Amaterasu (Japenese): Sun Goddess

Oya (Yoruba): A warrior-queen of thunderstorms, lightening, forces of nature

Aphrodite (Greek): Goddess of Love and fertility

Venus (Roman): Goddess of Love

Lada (Slavic): Goddess of Beauty and Fertility

Freya (Norse): Love, fertility, war and death

Beltane Blessing by Kim Duckett from We'Moon 2017:

We celebrate the Maiden or Maen (an alternative word for this life-phase for those who do not resonate with the term Maiden) in the month of April and Menarche in May. We create this distinction to unlearn the trance of equating Maidenhood with reproduction and sexuality, focusing instead on sacred Desire.

In this season, no matter our age, we embrace our inner youth.

This is a good time to journey or quest, learn new skills, practice the balance of self-care and care-giving. We seek the inspiration raging in our guts—our genius—that which is ours alone to manifest. Ask the Maens and Maidens in your life, and within yourself:
(art credit: Making Light © Autumn Skye Morrison 2008

Beloved, what is it that you really Desire?

In May, we honor the pattern that replicates itself in the seasons, the waxing and waning moon, the ebb and flow of ocean, and in the bodies of Women.

We respond to both sunlight and moonlight through the magical science of hormones and the pineal gland—“the seat of the soul.” Our hormones dance and flow in synch with these large forces of nature. This cycling is a built-in mechanism for renewing mental and physical health, taking us inward and outward, to release what no longer serves us.

Archaeology and anthropology teach us that menstruation was central to the development of human civilizations:

Women responded to their Blood Cycle by going within to listen, then coming out to share with their tribes what they experienced in their monthly “vision quest.”

This sharing was not about reproduction, but about creation of the whole universe.

I ask women to sit with this remembering. There is science involved in this magic, but it is magic first.

Desire is the Outward call, our internal guidance system. Menarche is the Inward call, where we seek wisdom about how to bring desires to fruition.

The natural and personal cycles are One. We become She Who Cycles. Now that is something to tell a young woman on the day of her First Bloods!

Kim Duckett © Mother Tongue Ink 2016

Beltane Poetry

Tree Lover

My juicy lover
Your long silhouette of elegance
Mirrors my own rhythmic dance
Sometimes bending furiously
Other times bending gently
Always in perfect balance
with your own inner tune

I see you, I feel you
Your wide veins exposed
Carrying the sacred fires of life
Your sturdy branches
Sheltering home for my soul

I feel your benevolent heart
Infinite welcome
In the softness of your moss next to my skin 
Caressing me tenderly
Innocently

You and I
We are of the same kinship
One lifeblood, one family
Infinity of roots
Spreading riot through the world
Quickening its pulse

You and I
One breath—Rhythmic dance
Wayfarer
Cathedrals of hope
Entwined Sisters, lovers of hope

With first waking of the day
And sleep in my eyes
I inhale your moist fresh dew
Tasting aliveness and potency
My faithful companion
My juicy lover
My wild inspiration

— © Durdica M. 2018

Complete Trust

Could we soften? Could we surrender? Say what we find edgy out loud? Could we have safe enough spaces? To keep exploring, to heal, to grow? To learn about our true purpose, our beauty, our gifts, our power?

If we had trust in one another, could we share more?

If we had trust in one another, could we know we are always held? That our voice matters too?

Could our bodies be softer?
Could our tensions be eased?
Could we see
the solutions we need
in our personal
and collective life?
And share them freely
without fear?

If we had 
complete trust
in one another,
how would we walk
in the world?

— © Sophia Faria 2019  

More Beltane Inspiration

Joyful time of flowers, softening the world; the chains of winter are broken. Break your symbolic bindings by planting seeds. As these seeds unclench in the darkness, ask what choices can you make in response to the needs of this sacred moment? 

What is it that you value and how can you align your life with that? In simpler times, communities gathered to jump over fires in the fields and participate in the great round of fertility. 

Listen to the voices of the universe saying YES—the sun shines, the birds sing, the flowers bloom. 

The purpose of the universe is to celebrate the delight of its existence. May that inspiration hot-wire us into the living voltage of the Mother Renew your life with others. 

What we long for is relationship with other beings; it's the only thing that cures this massive alienation. Lying on the back in the woods, see how the trees lift themselves in a circle. 

Reach out and extend your circle. Community, the geography of Somewhere, is the We that balances the Me. Women know this, in the compass of our bones. 

— Oak Chezar © Mother Tongue Ink 2019 

These articles, poetry, and images come from the We'Moon datebook, our beloved astrological moon phase planner.

Highlights of our desk-top datebook include information for every day in week at a glance format:

• Astrological data in Pacific Standard Time
• Moon phases depicted for every day
• Notation of when the moon changes signs
• Void of Course Moon date, time and aspects
• Notation of when the Sun changes signs
• Astrological predictions for every sun sign in the zodiac
• Holiday / Holy Day writings about each of the   wiccan / pagan celebrations days
• Over 100 images of fabulous feminist art and over 100 righteous writings by amazing poets and storytellers. All of these works are submitted by women from all over the world
• The planner is laid out in a week-at-a-glance format
• Month-at-a-glance moon phase calendar pages in the appendix
• Year-at-a-glance calendars with full and new moons for both the current and following year, so you can schedule your full and new moon circles well in advance
• Full Ephemeris located in the back of the book with retrograde periods highlighted for every planet
• Bylines for the hundreds of contributors whose work is included in the day planner
• Information about how you can contribute your creative work for possible publication
• Intro articles about astrology, Chinese astrology, herbs, the wiccan / pagan holidays, eclipses and mercury retrogrades that are coming up for the year, and more
• Appendix articles on how to understand the various influences of the planets and signs, a veritable feast of Astrology 101

...And So much more!

Molly Remer, MSW, D.Min (Rolla, MO) is a priestess facilitating women's circles, seasonal rituals, & family ceremonies. Molly & her husband, Mark, co-create original Story Goddesses at Brigid's Grove (brigidsgrove.etsy.com). Molly is the author of nine books, including Walking with Persephone, Whole and Holy, Womanrunes, & The Goddess Devotional. She is the creator of the devotional experience #30DaysofGoddess & she loves savoring small magic & everyday enchantment. 

Denise Kester (Ashland, OR) is a mixed media printmaking artist, renowned teacher and founder/artistic director of Drawing on the Dream, an art distribution company. Announcing the new book Drawing on the Dream—Finding My Way by Art. drawingonthedream.com

Durdica M. (Surrey, UK) Becoming worn out by life, she received a call in 2008. It guided her into depths of her underworld. She recognized it as a catalyst to begin reclaiming her authentic feminine power and true voice which she longs to share with other women. 

Kimberly Webber (Taos, NM) Priestess of painting, alchemy and bees. Advocate for the Divine Feminine, personal freedom, youth, pollinators, biodiversity, animals, oceans, forests. Planter of flowers and corn. Pollinator of empowerment. Amplifier of hope. Kimberlywebber.com

Oak Chezar (Jamestown, CO) is a radical dyke, performance artist, Women's studies professor, psychotherapist, writer, & semi-retired barbarian. She lives in a straw bale, womyn-built house. She just published Trespassing, a memoir about Greenham Common Womyn's Peace Camp. Whilst working & playing towards the decimation of patriarchy & industrial civilization, she carries water. oakchezar@gmail.com

Maeanna Welti (Portland, OR—unceded Chinook Land) is a writer, astrologer and witch. She is the author of the Healing Witch Samhain to Samhain workbook. Maeanna offers readings, coaching, support for ancestral and personal healing, and teaches astrology and the fundamentals of witchcraft. 

Sophia Faria (Salt Spring Island, BC) is a sex educator, retreat facilitator and writer. Her private practice and home are on Salt Spring Island. She supports individuals and couples on their sexual healing journeys and co-creates nature based retreats for women. 

Also in Pagan Holiday Rituals and Traditions