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Beltaine--Significance
May 1 is Beltaine?
What is Beltaine?
Date: 5/3/2007 9:34:33 AM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 1162 times 7:49 AM
May 3, 07
The trash and recycling goes out on Friday.
I forgot and started to take the Recycling out today.
Then I remembered.
Twin Soul/Best Friend has been here all week.
I sometimes lose track of time.
I received a wonderful email from JM last night
that I posted on Celestial Timings.
May 1 is Beltaine--we have a tendency to be together
on Special Energy Times. Beltaine is one of them.
So what is Beltane? I want to remember.
Here is a note for Essene Book of Meditations and Blessings
by Danaan Parry-a dear, dear, old friend, who died unexpectedly
some years ago.
From his Book:
Seasonal Focus:
Flowers announce the promise of fruit.
Morning Focus: The Angel of Earth
What is the source from whence gushes
the frenzied growth
All About me?
What overlighting presence
Guides the living things of Earth
Toward the zenith of their life?
I, as one of these Living Things,
Marvel at the Perfection of our Unfolding,
Blessed am I
to be part of the Plan.
[Some Extra Caps added by me...]
From Wikpedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane
Beltane is a cross-quarter day, marking the midpoint in the Sun's progress between the vernal equinox and summer solstice. Since the Celtic year was based on both lunar and solar cycles, it is possible that the holiday was celebrated on the full moon nearest the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. The astronomical date for this midpoint is closer to May 5 or May 7, but this can vary from year to year.[6]
[edit]
The fertility of the land and animals is celebrated and encouraged. Led by one of the Blue Men, the procession's guides and guards, the Green Man (in winter guise) appears through the columns. Next the Need Fire is made; this is the making of fire by traditional methods, and all fire seen on the night is produced from this first flame. The Torchbearers and Processional Drummers are next over the top of the Acropolis, followed by the White Warrior Women and finally the May Queen. A horn signals the May Queen's birth, and the drums begin. The May Queen and her White Women, four of whom are her Handmaidens, proceed to be born of the Earth, greet the (four) cardinal directions in back bends and bow to the crowd of spectators (in three directions). After they finally acknowledge the Earth and the sky, the Green Man (who has been watching this from the ground) is allowed to approach the May Queen at the very top. She accepts him as her consort and the procession begins, led by the May Queen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane_Fire_Festival
Overcome with the May Queen's beauty and goaded by the presence of the Red Men, the Green Man can no longer resist and catches the May Queen. This act is strictly forbidden, and the Green Man is ritually killed by the Handmaidens, lifted and turned anticlockwise, his bulky Winter form stripped away and thrown to the Red Men, he is then turned clockwise and presented to the May Queen.
[edit] Green Man reborn
The May Queen takes pity on the Green Man and brings him back to life, like a young sapling breaking the earth after Winter's hoarfrost is melted away. Overwhelmed by the new life that fills him the Green Man dances presenting himself to the four directions, repeating the actions of the May Queen from the beginning of the procession.
****
After this, the four Elements and other groups (these vary but will usually include "No Point", that entertain spectators without being in a fixed location) formally present their gifts to the May Queen and Green Man, and the Red Men are presented before the Handmaidens and White Women. Symbolically, they seduce/are seduced by the White Women and Handmaidens, representing a union between the White Order and the Red Chaos. The rest of the performers are then invited into the Bower circle to dance and celebrate the arrival of summer, and finally so are the spectators.
The May Queen:
http://www.beltane.org/en/bestiary/court/mayqueen/index.en.shtml
The May Queen is also known as The Maiden, goddess of spring, flower bride, queen of the faeries, lady of the flowers. The May Queen is the stillness around which everything revolves. She embodys purity, strength and the potential for growth. She is the personification of the energy of the earth.
The Green Man:
http://www.beltane.org/en/bestiary/court/greenman/index.en.shtml
At Beltane the Green Man begins in a dormant and inactive state in the form of the old Horned God, until he 'dies' when he touches the May Queen. Her Handmaidens tear his garments from him and he is 'reborn' as the young Green Man with a wild exhilarating dance that celebrates his youth and the new summer.
The White Women:
The procession is led by the May Queen and her entourage: four Handmaidens (north, south, east and west) and a cohort of White Warrior Women. The Handmaidens and White Women protect the May Queen and attend to her later in the evening in her otherworldly bower. They are the order and discipline
to the red mens' chaos and misrule.
The Red Men:
http://www.beltane.org/en/bestiary/red/redmen/index.en.shtml
d Men
*
*
The Red Men are the Lords and Ladies of Misrule. Beltane is their night of mischief - the World Turn'd Upside Down - the one night of the year where fools become kings. The Red Men represent the archetypes of the mischief makers, Pan-like figures who live for the moment without a care in the world or any inhibitions to censor them.
Our charming friends have this single night each year to make merry, tempt, seduce, carry out acts of foolishness and wantoness and inspire the revellers to cast aside their thoughts of the next day and abandon themselves to the excesses of the night.
At Samhuinn, having endured a summer of debauchery and merry making, the red men appear with deformations, walking sticks, blindness and clumsiness. Their 'ageing' is in step with that of the other court characters. Their whole lives are squeezed into just a year in our own world.
The red men are often, wrongly, interpreted as being demons or devils. Far from being this they are a personification of the need in all of us to let loose and go wild just once in our lives. Their very reason for existence is simply to 'throw a spanner in the works', to divert the path of fate. But despite their best efforts, these random agents are always thwarted, often with comical results.
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