Beltane Is Upon Us!

Commonly known as May Day, Beltane celebrates fertility, and is observed on May 1 as a religious holiday for many Wiccans, Celts and Druids, and as a secular holiday in many parts of Europe.  The most common symbol of Beltane is the Maypole.  If you have never seen a Maypole dance, it involves a tall pole strung with ribbons.  Participants form two circles that move in opposite directions and interweave with each other, eventually creating a braid of ribbons encircling the Maypole.

For Wiccans, this holiday represents the physical union of the God & Goddess.  It is a joyous (and often raucous) holiday.  In days of old, celebrants would feast, sing, play music and dance around the bonfire before running off into the woods in pairs to observe the Great Rite.  While some still celebrate in that exact fashion, many people now save the observance of the Great Rite for a more private area, such as their home or tent.

Clearly the Great Rite is not an appropriate way to celebrate for children, so families often choose to have children participate in a symbolic representation of it, which is what a Maypole dance was originally intended to be- the interweaving of energies to produce fertility.  It can also represent fertility for the planting season, which is the piece most families focus on when discussing the holiday with younger children. 

As stated in my piece on Yule traditions, our family is still young, and family celebrations are new to us.  As the demands of the modern world pull at us as well, we will delay our festivities until the weekend, when we will observe the holiday with a feast involving lots of fresh foods, light a fire in the fire pit to tell stories and sing by, and start work on our garden.

Ostara (The Spring Equinox)

As the Wheel of the Year continues to turn, we have once again come upon another Wiccan holiday.  Ostara is celebrated at the Spring Equinox, one of the two times of year when day and night are in perfect balance, which typically falls between March 20-22.  It is a holiday that reveres spring, fertility and growth.  Ostara marks the point in the year where all is in perfect balance, yet the light is growing stronger every day, causing the energies to shift from the doldrums of winter to the vitality and lushness of spring.

As with Yule and Christmas, Ostara and Easter are closely related holidays, and many traditions associated with Easter actually came from Ostara celebrations.  It is named for the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, whose name was Ostara, which can also be spelled Eostre (which is most likely where the word “Easter” comes from).  Rabbits were sacred to Ostara, and eggs are a well-known fertility symbol (hence the modern Easter tradition of the Easter Bunny bringing eggs). Easter is also linked to Ostara in that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

Modern-day pagans celebrate Ostara with lighting candles and bonfires, planting gardens, making Pysanky (colored eggs that are offered to Ostara), starting spring cleaning and eating eggs, lamb, cream, milk, honey cakes and ham.  It is an excellent time of year to renew commitment to dreams, aspirations and relationships.

After the long and difficult winter we had this year and the joyful chaos of my sister’s wedding, Ostara snuck up on me, so I didn’t really have anything planned.  Still, as I made a long drive back from a training through the wilds of New Jersey, the spirit of the holiday overwhelmed me.  I relished the bright sunshine and blooming trees and flowers. Even though we had plenty of food in the freezer, I stopped at the grocery store, where I purchased fresh carrots, onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus and zucchini so that I could make Pasta Primavera with a light cream sauce, because I just had to have fresh vegetables.  I made dinner for my family, and we all sat together, talking about upcoming changes in our lives (personally and professionally), the progress that Logan has been making at school, and our growing baby, which we’ll get another peek at tomorrow morning.  As I write this, I feel refreshed and renewed, and am looking forward to all that lies ahead of us.

May you all feel the presence of the strengthening sun in your lives!

The Pasta Primavera I made for Ostara

 

Samhain

As parents, one of our great worries has always been how others will react when they learn about our faith. In order to help encourage understanding, I have put together little blurbs on each holiday for Logan’s teachers, and so far they have been receptive and supportive. It occurred to me just the other day that some of you might be interested in learning more as well, so here is the blurb I wrote for our next holiday, Samhain:

Samhain (pronounced “sow-en,” with the “sow” part pronounced like a female pig) is a time to honor your ancestors. It is celebrated on October 31, and is the time when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, allowing the ghosts of our ancestors to pass more freely between worlds. It is also the time when the God dies and the Goddess enters her Crone (wise woman) aspect. The Goddess will mourn the God until he is reborn at Yule (Winter Solstice). Samhain is also revered by many in our faith as the New Year- the point when one journey ends and another cycle of the wheel begins.

Many of the American holiday traditions have root in this Celtic holy day. Jack o’ lanterns are one of the biggest carryovers. The Celts believed that it was not just your ancestors that could pass through the veil- evil spirits and demons could cross as well. When they travelled at night, the Celts would carry hollowed out turnips containing a candle and carved with scary faces to frighten any spirits that wished them harm. This became our modern-day carved pumpkin.

In our family, Samhain is a time for dress up and fun, but it is also a time to honor our dead. In the days leading up to Samhain, we carve pumpkins. We decorate the house. We watch scary movies. We also create soul lights for any loved ones that have passed in the last year. A soul light is created by taking an empty soup can and creating a punch design that reminds you of the person being honored, along with their initials. If using real candles, you place a small amount of sand or kitty litter in the bottom, then put a votive or tea light into the can. For safety reasons, we usually use battery-operated candles now.

On Samhain itself, after trick-or-treating is done, and preferably at midnight, we set up our altar and hold a ritual to honor those that have passed, with particular attention to anyone who has passed in the last 12 months. We remember and celebrate their lives, and welcome them back into our home. After the ritual, we set soul lights out in the backyard, one for each person who has passed in our lifetime. We let them burn through the night to guide the dearly departed back through the veil, should they choose to visit. The following morning, we add pictures of the newly departed to the Ancestors Wall in our home.

At the present time, Logan does not participate in the midnight ritual. However, once he is old enough to understand death a bit better, he will. We hope that it will teach him to honor history and family, and that death is not the final word. As Amy Tan wrote in her book The Hundred Secret Senses, “Believing in ghosts – that’s believing that love never dies. If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses.”