BELTANE: SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Southern Hemisphere Beltane

The date for the Southern Hemispheric Beltane is October 31st and ‘May Day’ is November 1st. The climax of Spring!

Beltane is the peak of Spring, a celebration of fertility. In ancient times it was the Beltane Rites that recon- nected each year the King to the Goddess, the masculine to the feminine. It is a time for us to give thanks for our fertile lives, our creativity and our gender specific gifts and roles. Its a time to notice and honour the difference in the masculine and feminine. It is a time of increasing growth, building to almost full potential, of beauty and heightened passion.

Beltane Spiritual Practice

Your being, as part of the Earth, part of the cycle of the seasons, will be influenced by this energy whether you’re paying attention to it or not. If you pay some attention, you will feel it, and you can be in flow with it.

Think like the gardener, and align with the Earth energy of now, contemplate the growth that is peaking in your life, that is getting all the attention… if conditions support its final growth phase, this is what will eventually fruit.

So, how can you best nurture what is blossoming in your life now so that it will bear fruit? What do you know you must do?

And if you are not doing it, why aren’t you? Where is your desire leading you?

Suggested Ceremony for Beltane

Our community gathers at Beltane to honour and celebrate the rites of passage of our young folk as they grow from children to fertile young adults and to express ceremonially the specific and very different roles of the masculine and the feminine.

It’s a joyous time, much looked forward to. We camp for the weekend, sitting on the Earth. We live as a community together, all helping each other. We have separate women’s and men’s circles to conduct the rites of passage for the teenagers and then reunite as the sun sets dancing around a big fire, welcoming the new young adults back to the group in their new roles and status.

The next day, ‘May Day’, we have a May Pole ceremony. The May Pole is a beautiful ceremony for young and old and has deeper levels of significance the more you lend yourself to the symbology of all that it rep- resents.

For the children it is a fun and playful game with their parents, dancing and singing, for the adults it is a re-enactment of the union of the masculine and the feminine and a chance to weave magic and love into that aspect of yourself within and without.

Here’s a suggestion for a simple ceremony to honour the Beltane energy with your family or by your- self:

Do what you do to make sacred space, call for protection, guidance and support and focus.

Go around the circle and each person can give thanks for all that is growing in their life, if you are alone, take your time and really feel this giving thanks process.

Choose one or two or three, you’ll know how many, specific things that are growing that you would like to focus on.

You could put something on your altar that represents this/these and light a candle for it/them.

Ask those there with you if they would be willing to support you in seeing this particular thing come to its fullness, and you could ask them for specific help if appropriate.

If you are doing this with your children it would probably be a good time to offer suggestions to them for what could help them.

And it is said that at Beltane, the veils between the worlds are thin and so you can see the fairies, so be sure to look out for them!

Blessed Be!