Bealtaine
May blessings or ‘Beannachtaí na Bealtaine’ as Gaeilge, in the Gaelic language, which applies to the whole month, as Bealtaine is the Irish name for the modern calendar month.
Originally, in ancient times, when our ancestors orientated themselves by referring to the movement of the stars and planets to track the passing of time, expressed through the rhythms of nature. Bealtaine marked the beginning of the light half of the year, the unfolding of the summer, the actual midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. It was one of the most sacred seasonal ceremonies of our ancient agricultural calendar here in Ireland,when human life was known to be inseparable from the rhythms of Mother Earth and her operating unseen forces that breathe life into all that is on our beautiful planet and beyond.
It marked a profound turning point when we moved from the dark half of the year to the light half, the threshold into summer, when the energies of growth, fertility, and abundance have awakened again and are indeed at their most potent and forceful time of the year.
Celebration of the ancient festivals
The celebration of festivities always began on the eve of the festivals, as darkness fell and veiled the seen world, as it was observed that all life begins in the darkness, like the seed in the dark damp fecund soil and the baby in the dark rich nourishing mother womb. Bealtaine, one of the eight ancient agricultural festivals, which were all seen as liminal times of the year but Bealtaine was one to stay particularly attentive to as it was when the fairy folk moved from their winter abode to their summer abode, a delicate time to invoke an abundant season of growth, to insure the regeneration of the tribe, and nature herself.
Traditions and practices were maintained with a knowing that life itself has its own unseen regenerative force and it was necessary to recognise and balance this relationship between the seen and unseen worlds, between light and dark, Mother Earth and Father Sky, the spiritual and the material. All indigenous wisdom speaks of the importance of honoring this balance and right relationship, whereby harmony is maintained for the land, the people, the animals and plants, to thrive in and abundance ensured.
The lighting of sacred fires were central to these ancient festivals, tools of transformation, protection, and a symbol of shared life force. According to ancient texts, across the island, great bonfires were lit, often on high ground, where visual contact was maintained from hill to hill. We hear that these fires created a great spiral around the island,ending in the center, on the sacred land, the Hill of Uisneach. Known also as The Navel of Ireland, it was both described in ancient texts and known to the ancestors, as the spiritual center, where the energies of the provinces meet, the axis mundi and where our ancient Goddess, who gives her name to the land, Eriú resides. We are in fact known as Eireannach, the people of Eriú, the island itself known as Eireann, the land of Eriú. For our ancestors the land of Ériu was alive, a living being made up of her hills, rivers, rocks, forests, her mists, infused with spirit. She was personified as a sovereignty Goddess, who both nourished and tested her people.
Many of these festivals featured the lighting of fires as ceremonial flames, kindled with intention, carrying the prayers for the well-being of the people, the animals, and the earth itself. Our ancestors knew that Earth herself, was a living being with her own regenerative power. And as the seasons changed great care was taken to acknowledge this change and transformation, in the land, reflected in her people too. So Bealtaine is on of these markers of seasonal change. It is the arrival of the time of the blossoming, meadows filled with early summer flowers, as a colourful heralding of a softening into warmth . This was the time when the people honored the sacred union that sustains life. In very ancient times, it is said that this was the time of the Banais Ríghi, the sacred marriage, the hieros gamos. We are told that a priestess of Medb, an expression of the sovereignty goddess, would be chosen to represent the Goddess and the King would make love to her to recommit to honoring and taking care of the land for another year and in return the Goddess of the land would ensure the abundant regeneration of the tribe and the land.
So people, tonight, the 5th of May, is the actual cross quarter eve and if you have clear skies it will be possible to observe both the SUN at the ancient astronomical northern cross-quarter position (either rising or setting) and the MOON rising at the southern standstill position in darkness of the early morning hours (and setting in daylight a few hours later).Also if it is clear Venus might be observed setting at the ancient summer solstice position, an added influence in this cross quarter phase!
But even if you can’t see through clouds know, that we are at the crossing point, and presents another opportunity to honour those ancestors who knew of the importance of this threshold to bring balance between the spiritual and the physical and to call on the goddess to grant protection and abundance to the land so that all might live in peace and harmony !
The stories handed down through word of mouth and the written word, tell of another of the powerful rituals of the bealtaine celebrations, where two fires were lit, and cattle, the lifeblood of the pastoral tribes of this land, were driven between the two fires and the billowing smoke was believed to cleanse the animals, of fleas etc as they came out of winter shelter, to call on protection and to strengthen them on their journey to the summer pastures.
These ceremonies also included the people, who would pass through the smoke or leap across the fires as flames turned to embers. This was not done purely for sport or fun but also with intention, as a prayer to the regenerative forces, for the good health, blessing, protection of the people too.
The stories also tell of how every hearth on the island was to be quenched, on the eve of Bealtaine. Embers were brought from the sacred fires lit, along the spiral of fires around the island, rekindling the household hearths. The central fire at Uisneach, described as the fire eye of Ériu, where she could observe herself, her people and bestow protection to all. This fascinating story gives a sense of unity consciousness expressed by the ancestors of this island. In fact, It can be seen as metaphor for our modern times, in that each one of us carries an inner flame, the electromagnetic pulse of the heart, a spark that connects each one of us to the central sacred fire, each one of us an important fractal of the whole, carrying our own fire, passion, our creativity, an expression of our inner divine light.
This awareness of the practices of our ancestors is surely something to inspire us, to reinvoke this care for our small island, where the honouring of the Mother has survived into modern times through the veneration of the blessed Mother, Mary, to whom the whole month of May is still dedicated to in the Catholic tradition. Each one of us is born of the Mother, she of many names around the world. She is calling us to remember her regenerative powers that are there for us to harness and work with rather than to possess, dominate and control and even destroy as is the human trajectory thanks to the out of control forces in our world today!
The ancient Goddess teachings of the wheel of the year
In the tradition that I have trained in, transmitted by international teacher, seer, wise women, Amantha Murphy, we walk the spiral of the year, punctuated by these 8 cross quarter days. Each one, a sacred threshold, is overseen by one of the ancient goddesses. Some of these archetypal energies came through from the stories still being spoken by her grandmother and her friends around the evening fires in a time before the intrusion of the television and its programmes, others came through metaphysical experiences.
Each of these threshold points of the year can act as a hinge to open us to more learning, more understanding of ourselves, with teachings and challenges that can assist us in accessing our own personal knowing, our gnosis, the ancient wisdom we each carry in our blood, DNA, ancestral memories. Opening to the wisdom of these energies can assist us in knowing how to be in this world, to express our spiritual urge in a way that’s honouring ourselves, all we meet and the world around. To establish and maintain a balance in order for us to express our soul’s medicine and fulfill our mission on the planet at this time of incredible strife yet expansion of the consciousness.
This threshold of Bealtaine is the time of the ancient archetypal force of Mebh, an ancient expression of the Goddess of sovereignty, an earth goddess and warrior queen who was the powerful Sovereign, keeper of the western lands of Ireland. Her name relates to Mead, the intoxicating drink made from honey.
Medb of May.
She is both land goddess and human queen described in the ancient stories, where her physicality is woven into the land itself, in the naming of places and the shaping of earth and stone. Like at her cairn on the mountain top of Knocknarea, Co. Sligo visible for miles, a symbol of the cycle of life and death where the mountain looks like a pregnant belly and the cairn on top said to be the resting place of Medb herself.
Knocknarea co sligo.
The landscape around Rathcroghan, where her royal palace was located, can also be seen to have been shaped to represent her body. We hear of the linear earth work channels, known as the Mucklaghs, which are said to have been formed when one time, as she was crossing the land during her menstrual time, relieving herself, her blood flow was so powerful, that it carved out these channels in the landscape! This sacred topography allowed her the king to be always physically close, so he could maintain a connection to his source of power,
Mead the fermented honey drink, of which she is named after, is said to have been used in the inauguration ceremonies. As goddess, Medb, representing fertility and the sovereignty of the land, offered men the power of kings through sacred marriage with her.
The ritual involved the drinking of mead wherein the man to perform the roleof king would become so intoxicated that he would be granted access to the otherworldly knowledge needed to rule a kingdom. Only the kings chosen by medb were recognised by the people. Then if the king was no longer fulfilling his duty as ruler and husband, this failure would be reflected in the land, and a new king would be chosen.
The most famous of our ancient tales is The Táin Bó Cúailnge, A story that can be interpreted as expressing the changeover from the stone age veneration of the Mother goddess and the beginning of the Bronze age into the patriarchy.
The story begins where Medb is challenged by her chosen King, presenting his bull Finnbennach(a symbol of wealth and fertility) as the most powerful bull in the whole land, ‘nothing and no one can come against my bull. So I no longer need you to rule this land’. To which she retorts but I am the land how can you rule the land without me. So in order to maintain balance and her place as Sovereign of the land, she initiates the quest to bring the brown bull of Cualinge to Connacht, and so ensued a most bloody battle and the rest is ‘History” as they say.
But the story that we read in the manuscripts written by the early monks, tells of the warrior queen, Mebh, being a greedy power hungry warrior queen, who brings about this terrible battle so she can compete with her husband. Due to jealousy of her husband’s superior materail wealth, she is the cause of the death of both her beloved son and foster son. However in this vernacular version carried by my teacher Amantha Murphy, who heard it from her grandmother and her cronies, we hear a version which tells of the struggle to maintain the old matrifocal order, where the land was personified as the mother Goddess and the domination of the new warrior king culture that came in with Bronze age, the mining of metals, the creation of lethal weapons, the domesticated horse which ensured superhuman speed. This story msot likely dates back to the time when we begin to see the incremental but systematic suppression and denigration of women, the stories feature the fallen female archtype who is jealour, competative and angry, the deteriorating relationship between men and women which has reached a cresendo in todays world.
So what can Medb’s powerful story speak to us of? It is a reminder for us to hold our ground, live our passions, to express our creativity, which is our superpower and the expression of our own divine essence,
So lets remember Bealtaine as far more than a historical festival to re enact, but a living teaching that is living in our consciousness, through the generations and changing cultures. It reminds us that we are not separate from the land, our mother earth, her cycles, but integral participants with her, with urgent responsibility to help restore balance between the masculine and feminine parts within ourselves firstly and as it is expressed in our communities. To heal our relationship with the natural world and the unseen forces, the great operating force, known in so many indigenous cultures world wide as the Great Mother and to bring healing to the shadow aspects and restore a positive connected and reverence for great father.
A tool for modern spiritual practice
So as we light the fires to celebrate Bealtaine, hold that fire within with awareness, it is that regenerative force that keeps us connected and alive, participating in this earthly journey. In the lighting of a sacred fire we are called into the awareness of our interconnectedness. This internal flame, our electromagnetic pulse, our frequency, powering our creativity and it is this that is our vital contribution, strengthens and brings wholeness. When we walk with awareness, honouring something greater than our own individuality, we honour those ancestors who knew that together with strong intention and care for community, and the land, trusting and celebrating the renewal and regeneration force that is nature, a unity consciousness is possible where the heart and the hearth are essential ways to unity, where we can unite our fires and rise together through the heart for peace and harmony. Blessed be.