Earth Mother Awakenings
By Staff Writer: G. BradHarte
Earth Mother
We honour Your Body
Earth Mother
We honour Your Bones
Earth Mother
We sing to Your Spirit
We sing to Your Stones.
-Druid Chant- -Anonymous-
Gate Keeper
Open the Portals between the Gods and Mortals
Power freely flows
When our magick grows
-Druid Chant- -Anonymous-
We approach the Sacred Grove
With Hearts and Minds and Flesh and Bone
Join us now in ways of old
We have come home
We have come home
We have come home
-words by Sean Miller
Light the Fires.
Bang the Drums.
Dance the Maypole.
In the Germanic countries it’s Walpurgisnacht.
In the modern Irish it is Mi na Bealtaine {"month of Bealtaine"}.
In the English countries it’s May Day.
For Celts, Druids, Wiccans and assorted Pagans it is simply Beltane.
Down through history’s centuries the festival was celebrated around or about
May 1st in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Similar and closely related festivals
were held at the same time in Wales, Brittany as well as Cornwall. The Welsh, Bretons and Cornish did not, and do not, celebrate La Bealtaine. In Wales the day is known as Calan Mai and the Gaulish name is Belotenia. Among the Pagan and Wiccan Sabbats,
Beltane is a cross-quarters festival. In the Northern hemisphere it is celebrated May 1st.
In the Southern hemisphere is it observed on November 1st. [1]
Beltane marks the passage of the earth from the cold fallow season into the warming growing season. The earth is slowly awakened from her winter slumber. This festival marks the return and rebirth of earth’s bounty. [2]
Beltaine, translated, means ‘bright fire’ or ‘bale fire’. On Beltaine the Celts would
build two large fires using the nine sacred woods. The fires are an invocation to bel (Belenos). The cattle herds were driven ritually between the two fires to purify, bring luck and protect them on their way to their summer grazing lands. [2]
This is a time-between-times. The veils between the worlds/realms are thinnest at this time. Like Samhain this is a time of magick, when the two realms mix and intermingle and you may just see if you are awake and alert enough elves, faeries and perhaps even a sprite. Be alert this night for the Queen of the Fae riding on her white horse.
IF you are sitting beneath a tree on t his night and the Queen comes riding by, hide your face, otherwise you may be riding off to the Otherworld.
Celebrate.
Consecrate.
Join in the Circle.
It’s May Day.
It’s Beltaine.
Come dance the Maypole.
Come join the Awakening.
Awakenings.
Dawn’s First Light
From over distant mount
Bird’s song of morn
Rabbit’s run
Squirrel’s scrounge
Out from under
Up and about
Gather and grab
Snatch and go
Cheek pockets filled
Scampering scramble
Back to nest
Down to den
Home again.
Pepper tree
leaves falling
rain of green.
Water falling
Flat rock
Quiet splashes.
Doves on ground
Feeding
No hawks nearby.
Birds
Swooping and diving
Sky dancing.
Bee
Busily buzzing
Making honey.
Acorn into Tree
Seed into Plant
Caterpillar to Chrysalis to Butterfly
Winter’s Cold Empty Dark to
Spring’s Warm Growing Light
Out of Oblivion’s Darkness.
Awakenings.
[2] Beltane - Holiday Details and History
Christina Aubin
Posted: April 30th, 2000
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