Beltaine

~Magickal Graphics~
The first of May is Beltaine, May Day, Calan Mei, and Walpurgis Night. It is a cross quarter day, falling between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. The UK public holiday May Day occurs on the first Monday of May each year – this year it won't be until the 5th.

This article talks about modern celebrations taking place in Britain today:

Held at Butser Ancient Farm, an archaeological site, on paper it had looked like a charming low–key Celtic festival with a few folk bands and a hog roast.
It was so much more than that: dancing women in woad, waving antlers to ancient gods of fertility. Children wearing self-woven blossom and wicker May coronets roaming among picnickers. And, of course, the high point of the night – the burning of a specially built, 30ft-high Wicker Man, stuffed with scraps of paper on which we had written our hopes for the coming year. A large crowd, children perched on shoulders, pressed closer into the insistent heat for a better view as leaping flames licked the man’s torso and consumed his legs. And then he shuddered, buckled, and collapsed sideways down into the dark Hampshire earth. The Pagan watchers revelled in the grisly ritual. The Wicker Man is dead; summer is a-coming in. Afterwards, we all trooped home through a wet field, oddly elated.
In our peripatetic, deeply temporal, modern society, why would anyone choose to spend a long night marking the passing of Winter and greeting Summer? You can sit at home with a boxed set of The Killing and a Waitrose ready meal. Who celebrates change – apart from the Coalition?
Actually, it emerges, increasing numbers of Britons – old, young, and of worldwide origin – still do.

Below the cut is more information and personal reflections about this festival.
Past Beltaine posts are here:
http://meridian-rose.dreamwidth.org/354745.html
http://meridian-rose.dreamwidth.org/253912.html
http://meridian-rose.dreamwidth.org/154384.html
( Read more... )

And if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, it's time for Samhain aka Halloween – though probably without the traditional commercial trappings since Halloween has become fixed to the October date. I am, of course, happy to be corrected on this matter. But still, I'm guessing, a time for divination, remembering your ancestors, and noticing the shorter days and longer nights of autumn.