Beltane

Wendy Stiver, MA

29 April, 2023

While the history books are usually written by those in the center of dogmatic power, the real “stuff” of life takes place in the margins and the intersections. This truth is woven throughout the Gregorian calendar, which carries holidays with names like “Easter” that reflect how the early Christian church claimed and re-branded days of celebration that originated in the rituals of paganism. The Hebrew calendar is luni-solar, driven by the phases of the Moon and the rhythms of agricultural life; urban Jews continue to celebrate holidays that began as harvests of barley or wheat, and festivals paying honor to the “New Year of Trees” and the “New Year of tithing of cattle.”

Beltane, or May 1, is an example of such intersectionality. We will briefly explore the history of this colorful day, and how the interweaving of traditions enriches our culture in 2023.  We will begin our search in modern times, and then work our way back through sacred time to find the origins of the Beltane ritual we celebrate.

May 1, “May Day,” is a public holiday in over 50 countries throughout the world to recognize and celebrate labor. In 1886, May Day became known as International Workers’ Day for labor rights. This special day was created to honor those who died when protesting for the rights of workers, such as an 8 hour day. While Labor Day is celebrated in the United States in the month of September, May 1 is an official holiday in 66 countries. Large public festivities such as parades, marches,and rallies are common, especially in Socialist and Communist countries such as Cuba, Russia, and North Korea. May Day is also celebrated throughout Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and Europe.

The Roman Catholic Church honors Mary, the Holy Mother, during the month of May. This custom originated in the 13th century, but did not become popular until members of the Jesuit Order spread the Marian devotion practice worldwide by the 1700s. Catholic tradition includes crowning statues of Mary with flowers. While the origins of this practice are shrouded in history, it may be yet another example of intersectionality: imperial Roman culture linked the month of May to the goddess Flora, the goddess of flowers. The month of May was the official beginning of Spring, and as Christianity spread through the Roman Empire, Christians began to weave their love and adoration of the Holy Mother into the ancient traditions of celebrating life, the glories of spring, and fertility.

This takes us further back into Western European history, as we search for the origins of Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival. Beltane is an example of Ireland’s ancient pagan past. The Irish believed in a number of gods, venerated the ancestors, and believed in a mysterious Otherworld. We continue to celebrate the four yearly festivals– Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasa– into the 21st century. 

Beltane falls at the beginning of summer in Gaelic Ireland, when the cattle were driven out into their summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect the cattle, the people, and the crops. Many rituals involved the kindling of special bonfires, believed to convey protective powers on those cattle or humans who walked around or between the bonfires, or leap over the embers or flames. Such celebrations also included feasting, decorating structures and livestock with yellow May flowers, the making of May Bushes, and of course the Maypole dance. In essence, Beltane is about fire and fertility: the Maypole represents the male energies, and the ribbons which dancers weave and wrap around the pole represent the female energies. This is a time for washing one’s face in the morning dew, a time for flowers, and rejoicing at the return of the light.

As at Samhain the veil between the worlds thins at Beltane, and the spirits or fairies are especially active. Beltane was and is a springtime festival of hope as the glories of nature awake from the long winter, and fertility is invoked through ritual practices. 

No one knows precisely when the Gaelic peoples began to celebrate the fire festival of Beltane, but it is mentioned in early Irish literature dating from the 5th century and beyond. Celebration of the festival had largely died out by the mid-20th century in Ireland, yet the growth of Neopaganism, Celtic Reconstructionism, and Wicca have encouraged renewed interest in the ancient “Wheel of the Year” and festivals. 

As we celebrate Beltane in community or on our own, we participate in rituals that have been with us for millennia. We are part of an ancient vibrant tradition being renewed in modern times.

We dance in the intersections of sacred space and time, and remember our foremothers who danced before us.

Watershed Discipleship by Daphne Levey

Daphne Levey has been a long-time member of St. Hildegard community. She shares the following reflection to create an authentic dialogue on our relationship with the land and water. You may respond to this piece through our community email; Sthildecommaustin@gmail.com

Here is the place to start, a quote by Ched Myers:  “It is impossible to overstate the depth and breadth of the social and ecological crises that have been stalking human civilization for centuries, and now arrived in the Anthropocene epoch.”  How did we get here?  To some extent, the fault can be laid at the feet of Christian theology.  We have been seeking salvation elsewhere, not on Earth.  We have been trying to rise above the “mere” material world, into the spiritual realms.  We have believed we have a commandment from God to “improve” Earth, manipulate her boundaries, extract “resources.”  Convert the inferior peoples who get in the way.  I am talking about European Christians, light-skinned people who came to the Americas to “civilize” the land, believing it was God’s will.  

Recently, we light-skinned Christian people in the US are coming to understand we may have misunderstood God’s commands.  Movements have begun in churches in the US called “creation care” that emphasize Earth as God’s own, as sacred ground.  These trends, however, tend to be very broad, trying to encompass the entire planet, Gaia and her interlocking systems.  Looking through that lens can be overwhelming.  How can we Americans really do anything about destruction of the rainforest in the Amazon?  I would like for us to discuss an alternative, something called watershed discipleship.

An eye-opening revelation, for me at least, is to understand all of us European people who came to the Americas are displaced people.  We all left our ancestral homeland for a place we were to “conquer.”  (Of course, darker-skinned people who came here were also displaced, violently and involuntarily.)  I happen to know about my ancestors who came to Jamestown in 1637, so, close to the beginning of our diaspora.  They continued to move west, eventually arriving in Arkansas.  They fought for the Confederacy.  I am even now further west, in Central Texas.  Even though my ancestors have been in the Americas for almost 400 years, there are no ancestral lands I can claim.  The question indigenous people ask is:  what land would you die for?  The idea behind watershed discipleship is for us non-indigenous people to re-place ourselves within a bioregion, a watershed, something indigenous people were born into.  It isn’t about loving the whole Earth as much as loving your place, your landscape, your watershed.  Native Americans say the landscapes of their lives claim them, give them ceremonies, stories and spiritual meaning.  As a start, I looked up the watershed in which I am located.  It is the Slaughter Creek watershed, dry most of the time until the periodic floods come to the Hill Country.  The creek bed is only two blocks from my house and I intend to begin a relationship with her, find out what ceremonies and spiritual meaning she may have for me.  To find your watershed, look at epa.gov/waterdata/surf-your-watershed.  Let us know what you think about this approach, falling in love with your particular place on Earth and learning what it might mean to lay down your life for the Land, as Jesus said about deep friendship.