Beltane

Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) which blooms in May.

Beltane is one of four fire festivals that mark out the Wheel of the Year. It’s a celebration of the strengthening sun, the coming summer, the quickening of seeds, and the fertility of the blossoming earth.

You’ll often read in descriptions of Beltane that it was the time of year when cattle would be driven up to higher ground, marched between two great hot blazing bonfires to the summer fields. Cattle were incredibly important to the Celts, as their economy was largely built on the trade and ownership of them. As you can imagine, keeping them safe and well was therefore a major preoccupation. This is where the bonfires come in: the sacred smoke drifting out from them was meant to ward off trouble from the Otherworld.

Though often forgotten, the Otherworld comes just as close at Beltane as it does at Samhain. It’s a thin-time, a threshold. An in-between time when the seasons bleed into each other and we move firmly from the dormant half of the year to the abundant. This world and the other pass by very closely to each other now.

It’s easy to slip through if you aren’t careful.

When considering why the Celts were keen to avoid mischief (or worse) from this brush with the Otherworld, it’s helpful to understand the nature of the place and the beings that live there. The Otherworld is as real a place as this one, and exists right beside us as another layer of reality. It’s just out of sight, glimmering at the edge of what we humans can perceive. Things there are slightly offset; time flows differently there, and our seasons and sunrises don’t always match up. Years may pass here and minutes there, or at times the opposite. You aren’t always guaranteed a return, and if you do make it back, you may not recognize the place you left.

Though the Otherworld is sometimes called the Land of the Living, a bright and beautiful place where the Tuatha Dé walk on white sand and along green sunlit hills, there are also things there who are dangerously indifferent to us. And some, maybe, who enjoy a little interference for their own entertainment. And so, protecting the precious cattle from any Otherworldly games and tricks is a necessity at this time of year when slipping through is easiest.

The tradition of lighting bonfires has carried itself all the way down to us today, and though most of us modern Celts don’t have cattle to cleanse in the sacred smoke, we do mark this time by lighting our own small fires (or even candles) and celebrating the arrival of warm sunny days and green leaves.

I’ll be celebrating by gathering tender nettles and chickweed and dandelion, visiting the hawthorn trees, sinking into gratitude for the return of the green and growing things. And, maybe, by musing on what fires I want to ignite in myself.

Be well, and stay of out of trouble,

- Ali