The Wild Reed: Beltane: A Time of Hope and Renewal

Sunday, May 01, 2022

Beltane: A Time of Hope and Renewal

This is the time when sweet desire weds with wild delight. The Promise of Spring and the Power of the Waxing Year meet in the greening fields and rejoice together under the warm sun. The Tree of Life is twined in a spiral web and all of nature is renewed.

– Starhawk
Excerpted from The Spiral Dance
p. 188

Today’s ancient Gaelic festival of Beltane celebrates the renewing energies of spring and the coming summer. As Brigit Anna McNeill so beautifully reminds us, Beltane “honours the life force in all wild ones, the fertility of the wild, and the medicine that is abundant at this time. Beltane means bright fire, which for me is the fire that ignites life.”

Now, I have to say that, compared to this time last year, there isn’t much to be seen of spring’s emerging life force here in Minnesota. Indeed, for weeks now, the weather has been cold and rainy.

Undeterred, I chose to mark Beltane today by lighting a candle (right) and praying that all my be open to the transforming presence of the Sacred in their lives and in the natural world. I also began attempting to save a jade plant that my dear friends Noelle and John had given me a while back, but which has been slowly wilting away since being in my care.

This involved re-potting the few remaining parts of my jade plant that appear healthy (opening image). As I did so, I pledged to do my best to nurture them back into full life. I’m usually good with indoor plants, but I’ve discovered I have a hard time keeping any kind of succulent healthy and alive.

I also marked Beltane by spending time in the damp garden, seeking out and celebrating any and every sign of renewal I could find.

On this gray, soggy day I commit to continue to seek out and celebrate signs of the return of spring. And I’m going to do this as I seek to be, in my own unique and quiet ways, an embodiment of hope and renewal – in both my own inner life and the wider life of the world.