| The sacred wheel of the year has brought back again to Beltane. Beltane or May Day celebrated on May 1st signifies the mystical union of the Goddess. This is the time when the plant life is in full growth and in harmony with the environment. The name Beltane contains the element which means five, which one can see everywhere, in the growing warmth of the sun and in the various bonfires in which we all delight in. The chosen stone of the month of May is the emerald. The sacred color purple. The willow is the tree from the first of the month until the twelveth where the hawthorn tree which is sacred to the Goddess finally takes over. The hawthorn is called the white-thorn and the May tree when it is flowering. The Goddess calendar month of Maia fills the first half of the month until the fifteenth. She is then followed by Hera which begins on the sixteenth. The month of May is named after the Goddess who is chief of the Greek Seven Sisters, the Pleiades, and mother of Hermes. In legend it is said that Hermes himself bestowed his mother's name upon the month. Maia Majestas, Goddess of Spring. The Irish Celtic Queen Medb (Maeve) was an incarnation of this Goddess who later became the Queen Mab known in Shakespear's works. The Anglo-Saxon name for May was Thrimilcmonath, milk month because cows give three times daily during May. May twenty-fourth is the sacred day of the Mothers, three Goddesses worshiped in Celtic countries as bringers of prosperity and a good harvest, which we traditionally celebrate on the second Sunday of the month, as Mothers Day. Beltane is a time where the mother aspect of the Goddess is easily perceived around us. She is in the newly green leaves, the twittering of the birds and the new life giving birth all around us. |