At Winter Solstice, the light begins to return – gradually, the memory of the long nights fades until the light and dark are equal on Spring Equinox. From that point on, the light returns more rapidly and on May 1st we arrive at the midpoint between equinox and Summer Solstice.
Today, my sunrise was at 5:52am CDT and my sunset will be at 7:57pm … more than 14 hours of daylight, adding 2 hours since the equinox. By the end of May, we will have added 49 more minutes of daylight!
May your May days be filled with sunlight, flowers … and kissable snouts!
(Place your cursor over the photos to read the hovers!*)
Beltane, celebrated on May 1st, is one of the cross quarter holidays from the pagan Wheel of the Year. It is “the celebration of life, the land, the union of mankind with the mother earth and the purification and rebirth of all things”.
As with all earth based holidays, we celebrate what we see around us in nature: the weather is warmer, plants and flowers are blooming, wildlife is more active and we are energized by what we see and feel. Beltane is about the sheer joy of life and taking part in it.
This advice for Beltane should sound familiar to progressives:
Being on a spiritual path of any kind is not a part time thing. It is a way of life, and that is an everyday thing. It is not enough to make a commitment to spirit if you don’t carry that through all your thoughts and actions for the rest of the year.
Go out and enjoy the day, leap a bonfire (carefully), dance around a maypole and listen to some stirring music from Loreena McKennitt performing the Huron Beltane Fire Dance:
Let’s reaffirm our commitment to our spiritual and progressive path and dedicate ourselves to the work that, quite clearly, still needs to be done.
(Crossposted from Views From North Central Blogistan)
This post is a rerun, with revised dates, because the holidays – and their celebratory posts – are on an infinite loop … or more precisely, the Wheel of The Year! ;)
*Hover text for those on tablets and smartphones:
Row 1: ‘All things seem possible in May.’ ~ Edwin Way Teale
Row 2: ‘since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid’ ~ E.E. Cummings
Row 3: ‘A weed is but an unloved flower.’ ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
‘The earth laughs in flowers.’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Row 4: ‘In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.’ ~ Kakuzō Okakura”
‘A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.’ ~ Victor Hugo”
Row 5: ‘Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.’ ~ Kahlil Gibran
Row 6: ‘Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…’ ~ Susan Polis Schutz”
‘I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.’ ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
Row 7: ‘I must have flowers, always, and always.’ ~ Claude Monet”
Row 8: ‘Don’t wait until people are dead to give them flowers.’ ~ Sean Covey
Bright blessings on Beltane!
Bright Blessings indeed on this very rainy Beltane morning. Thank you, Jan.
Thanks, Jan, enjoyed this enormously, even though I’m reading it four days after the event! I love dogs, flowers, and Loreena McKennitt.
If this madly inclement Sunday morning is anything to go by, there will be thousands of flowers after the sun comes out and gets to work.
P. S. Enjoyed the “hovers” as well. I’d still like to put flowers in my hair and dance despite my age!
It is okay to be “late” – as you know, the pagan holidays are very flexible. Also, this is not BREAKING NEWS, but a comforting (to me!) repeat, just like the Wheel of the Year.