Celebrating Beltane in Avalon

Beltane blessings to all of you

I am sitting in the most beautiful countryside here in Avalon. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and I am blissfully happy. It is Beltane, which besides Samhain, is the most exciting time of the year for me. I make it my mission, and unfortunately I often fail, to take time every day to go out and enjoy the blossoming of the flowers and trees all around me. Too many days do I sit in front of a computer. I love my work, as you all know, but there’s also a time to leave the house and explore the world around us.

Beltane is the neopagan name for this time of year. Here in Avalon, we call it the blossoming. It is a time of unrelenting expansion, of every tree and every bush and every flower showing us their most beautiful expression. Traditionally, this is the Pagan festival of fertility, of the Queen of May selecting her beloved, her King. In the villages this was celebrated by the May Pole dance, and here in Avalon we are no different. A group of men dressed in green, their faces painted with green colour, go out to pick a tree. It has to be a very straight young tree, vibrant and virile. This young tree is felled, an offering to the Goddess, and the branches removed. A sharp end is created to be placed into the earth, as a symbol of fertility. The young maidens, from whom a young May Queen has been selected, spend the time weaving a willow circle and decorate it with flowers and colourful ribbons, to be placed on the tree when it is being presented to them. I have no wish to be crude, but it is the closest representation that we can get to the act of sex.

On the morning of Beltane the whole town, and many visitors, gather in the marketplace, and the men climb up bushy Coombe Hill with the tree on their shoulders, not a mean feat. Once arrived there, they ceremonially place the trunk of the tree into a prepared hole, whilst the maidens bring up the willow circle. The queen stands in her bower, and when the men arrive with the tree, they beg her favour. The queen graciously places the circle onto the top of the tree, she crowns it, she, in a way, “marries” the land. This is an ancient tradition, and we believe it goes back to the Celtic roots of our land. Hundreds of people come to see this beautiful ceremony.

Once the tree is safely anchored to the ground, the ribbons are unfurled in a sacred way, and each ribbon is given to a man or a woman, so that they may dance with each other around the tree, weaving their fates together, in a mock marriage, asking the goddess for, fertility, for Her blessings on them for the coming year. Nowadays, this isn’t necessarily about physical fertility, it is also about fertility of the mind and the spirit. We can ask Goddess to gift us fertility so we may manifest projects, ideas, wealth, or whatever else we desire.

 

Beltane in Avalon

 

Blessed be.

Bee

 

Bee Helygen

Adoratrix of Cerridwen

Priestess of the Llwyth

Avalon

Website: cerridwen.co.uk

Bee is the creatrix and course tutor for the Priestess of Cerridwen training which has been running as part of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple since 2015. She also runs the Death Priestess training and is a celebrant and Avalon Soul Healer. Full bio