Overview from Rachel Patterson

1st May (1st November in the southern hemisphere) marks the sabbat of Bealtaine/Beltane. This is a fire festival. It is a celebration full of the energy and zest for life, along with the passion that makes us feel alive. It is a fertility festival, the union of life and procreation. Also, a time when the fairy world interacts with ours. Remember that fertility is not just about procreation it can be new beginnings, ventures or projects of any sort. Anything can be ‘birthed’ whether it is a baby, a job, business or new way of thinking or living your life. Our ancestors would have transferred their livestock from their winter shelter out to the fields and pastures, at this time the animals would have been driven between the Beltane bonfire to cleanse and purge them from evil spirits and to bring fertility. 

Beltane Magical Energy

Full creating energy; propagation. Intuition, contact with faeries and other supernatural beings. Strengthen connection with supernatural protectors and beings around you. Power flowing from nature. Work magic concerning your career or a new job, making changes or furthering your education. Light up the fire (or a candle) and read some flame or smoke divination for guidance. Do some planting rituals or spells to set the seeds for future projects. Workings for fertility whether it is the pitter patter of tiny feet or new projects will be on fire if set in motion this month. Hold an abundance ritual or work with abundance spells – not just for material wealth but spiritual and emotional too.

Beltane Plants:

• African violet
• Alexanders
• Ash
• Beech
• Camellia
• Cornflower
• Elder
• Frankincense
• Heliotrope
• Orchid
• Rowan
• Self heal
• Sweet pea
• Willow

Beltane Foods:

• Almond
• Banana
• Bay
• Butter
• Cinnamon
• Cucumber
• Grapes
• Honey
• Milk
• Mustard
• Parsley
• Star anise
• Vanilla

Crystals that carry Beltane Energy:

• Amethyst
• Bloodstone
• Chrysocolla
• Citrine
• Fluorite
• Goldstone
• Garnet
• Kyanite
• Labradorite
• Lapis lazuli
• Moonstone
• Rose quartz
• Rhodochrosite
• Selenite
• Sunstone
• Turquoise

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/rachel-patterson

Beltane Mandalas from Lucya Starza

Beltane is at the heart of spring, when flowers are blossoming wildly. It is a perfect time to use them to create seasonal art. For example, sketching from life encourages looking closely. You become more aware of the shapes of petals or leaves. It doesn’t matter what skill you have. This isn’t a competition – it’s a means of becoming more familiar with the natural world or other aspects of your spiritual path. Art doesn’t have to be realistic. You could sculpt with clay or other materials. Use your imagination to create magical art inspired by all your senses. You can use flowers, leaves, and so on to create a mandala, which is a term for patterns used in spiritual contemplation.

• Go outside and collect flowers and leaves to use.
• Bring them indoors and arrange them in a pattern or picture on a large piece of paper.
• You can also add things like crystals or jewellery that have the right resonance.
• Meditate on your work.
• Photograph it before the petals fade.
• Add the pictures to a scrapbook, journal or digital album.

The pictures show May time mandalas and flower pictures I’ve created in the past. You can find more ideas for seasonal spells, magic and crafts in my book Pagan Portals – Rounding the Wheel of the Year.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/lucya-starza

From Ellen Evert Hopman:

“For me it isn’t really Beltaine until the local hawthorn trees bloom. In ancient times that was the signal for the farmers that the hills were warm enough to send the cows up to the shielings. So, I keep an eye on the trees. In my area they bloom about mid-May and no sooner!”

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/ellen-evert-hopman

From Daniela Simina:

“On May Eve, I celebrate Walpurgisnacht or Hexenacht, a Germanic holiday related to witches. In my practice, I connect fiber work such as weaving, spinning and knitting, to magic. During the week that precedes Walpurgisnacht I spin wool as a devotional practice. I make yarn of different colors, a few yards of each, which I use then in magical workings. In the process of making the yarn, I dip my fingertips into herb-infused water and pass them over the length of thread that I’m spinning. Same as the color of the wool itself, the herbs added to the water are selected in accordance to the magical purpose the spun thread will be used for. Occasionally, instead of spinning wool, I braid or knit. These activities satisfy the same devotional purpose as wool spinning. Depending on what I braid or knit, the final product can be used in different forms of magic or related activities. For example, I might knit a satchel to hold a deck of cards, or a pouch to keep magical supplies, a witch’s bag. I might braid a cord to mark the periphery of my ritual space when I hold a ritual. I like to create small things not only for myself but also as gifts to friends. Alongside the fiber work per sé, the act of gifting becomes intrinsic to the devotional aspect, both intertwining in my celebration of this sabbat.”

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/daniela-simina

Leaping the Bonfire (safely) from Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

One aspect of the Bealtaine (the correct spelling in Irish) Festival that always fascinated me was the concept of jumping the bonfire. As an echo from our long distant past, bonfires are still lit across Ireland on the evening before May 1st; making the start of traditional Summer in Ireland. I remember as a child attending bonfires in Wicklow, and later as an adult, having a rare old time at a very raucous gathering on a beach in West Cork. At some point in the evening, the dares would start – jump the bonfire, and get good luck for the months ahead. A remnant of older traditions, this piece of folk magic was deeply embedded in our culture. It happens at other festivals, including Midsummer and Samhain, and often cattle or livestock at encouraged to walk through either the embers or the smoke. I am proud to report that I managed to “leap” a very small section of an almost extinct fire, with more enthusiasm than grace. Now, I recreate the spirit of the thing in a simple way – no one needs to see a stout middle aged woman fall into the centre of a proper blaze! I find a nice piece of Hazel, Willow or Rowan, add it to the carefully controlled fire in our back garden (we have nervous neighbours, and live in a Dublin suburb) and after a suitable time I remove it, lay it smouldering on the path and “leap” over it. Guaranteed good luck for the Summer, minus the fear of scorched extremities!

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/geraldine-moorkens-byrne

Beltaine and Samhain from Jane Meredith

Whenever it’s Beltaine, it’s also Samhain. When it’s Samhain, it’s also Beltaine. In the northern and southern hemispheres these festivals balance each other, every time. This double perspective – honouring sex and death in the same moment, as it were, twice a year means that we can see the birth of one within the other, the fruition of each while its generation is simultaneously acknowledged.

I like my rituals to recognise this – a Beltaine ritual that holds within it somewhere the knowledge of death, ancestors, and initiation; a Samhain ritual that includes honouring descendants and the future, and carries a light into the dark places.

To be a pagan, for me, is to celebrate locally – to hold this little patch of earth, Darug and Gundungarra country, the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia as sacred, to watch and note its seasons, to form alliances with its birds, plants, insects, weather. But being a pagan is also broader than that – earth honouring – and that’s when I notice that the earth holds polarities, always – night and day are simultaneous, summer and winter, dawn and dusk – each as part of the story, but not the whole story. And if the earth holds it all as true, all as real right now then I think it’s my job as a pagan to take that into account.

So my Samhain ritual will contain the seeds of Beltaine within it… and if you’re celebrating Beltaine, I invite you to weave a thread of the mysteries – both of this polarity, and of Samhain specifically – into your ritual.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/jane-meredith