Beltane Dreaming
In the Songs of Remembering calendar, the Song of the Anointer and the Song of the Chosen One are associated with the season of Beltane (May Day).
Beltane, with its traditional pagan associations of fertility and sex magick, is a difficult season for many of us. For LGBTQIA+ people, the cis-hetero-normative imagery of the sacred marriage of Goddess and God doesn’t always resonate well – and, in a worst-case scenario, can trigger feelings of dysphoria and frustration. Regardless of sexuality and gender, this can also be a painful time for people who are single, healing from a break-up, trapped in toxic or otherwise difficult relationships, or – as so many are at the moment – forced to stay apart from the people they love.
For all these reasons, as well as the fact that this time last year I was getting ready to celebrate my own handfasting – in a relationship that ended in heartbreak only six months later – I’ve been feeling a strong resistance to writing a Beltane meditation. My heart just hasn’t been in it. Even the artwork that I’m sharing here, despite having a Beltane theme, was created back in February. But for my own peace of mind as much as anything else, I wanted to acknowledge the struggle rather than ignoring it. Maybe next year I’ll be in a better place to write something celebrating the joy and magic of human love.
Meanwhile, one thing that I have found helpful is shifting from thinking about the God and Goddess archetypes as representing relationships between men and women, to seeing them as metaphors for the conscious and subconscious aspects of being human. I started exploring this theme in the Beltane Eve meditation, and it works here as well. The willingness of the Sacred Masculine (represented in the songs by Yeshua) to accept the ‘anointing’ from the Sacred Feminine (Mariam) can be seen as representing the moment when we start to allow our dreams, intuitions and past-life memories to break through into our everyday reality. This is where creativity begins.
One of my close friends, a writer who recently completed the first draft of a 30,000-word novella in an unbelievably short period of time, told me that the inspiration from the story came from combining two dreams that she’d had in recent weeks. The two central characters at the heart of my novel The Nineteen Songs of Remembering similarly came to me in a subconscious way, in this case through a shamanic drumming journey. Even in science, some of the greatest breakthroughs in history have been inspired by dreams: the discovery of the structures of benzene and DNA respectively, the invention of the sewing machine and the circular saw, and Albert Einstein’s entire scientific career – which he described as an extended meditation on a dream he had as a teenager.
The conception of the ‘Divine Child’ at Summer Solstice represents the creative magic that happens when the subconscious and conscious minds start to work together in harmony. We’re not quite there yet. But for the meantime, Beltane isn’t just about phallic maypoles, Oak Kings, May Queens and fertility rites: it’s also a celebration of the immense power that we can tap into when we learn to put our faith in our own unspoken dreams, visions and rememberings. As the poet Kahlil Gibran expressed it so powerfully in The Prophet: ‘Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.’
Beltane Eve Meditation
On one level, the Beltane Eve Songs of Remembering – the Song of the Shapeshifter and the Suitor – can be read as a mythic love story from the indigenous Brythonic tradition. In order to find out who should become the next King, the Goddess of Sovereignty sets a test for her would-be suitors. She demands that they chase her through a labyrinth and then proceeds to shapeshift into different forms, representing the different elements – earth, water, air and fire – and challenging them to keep up with her. Only the bravest and most committed of mortals can succeed in passing this test, reaching the centre of the labyrinth just in time to catch up with the Goddess before she embarks on her return journey. In return, the worthy suitor is granted sovereignty and crowned as the King of the land.
There are many layers of meaning in this story, beyond the superficial tale of ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy embarks on quest to win girl back’ that has inspired countless romantic movies (and beyond a straightforward role reversal where the Goddess becomes the suitor, as in the Welsh tale of Ceridwen and Taliesin). The key can be found in the line ‘Change is the only way’.
The initiation of Spring Equinox, in which we say a loud ‘Yes!’ and choose to step into our power as healers, is only the beginning of our spiritual adulthood. As individuals, we’re presented with endless possibilities for evolving and adapting – not only changing our physical appearance, worldview, beliefs or spiritual practices, but also discovering new passions, building new skills, and pushing ourselves beyond what we once imagined to be our limits. We can ignore these possibilities and stay in our comfort zone, or we can make an active choice to ‘run with it’ and embrace the changes, trusting that anyone who’s meant to be in our lives will find a way of keeping pace.
From the perspective of the Suitor, this presents a dilemma: how do we know who, or what, is worth pursuing? How can we keep up with someone we care about – whether that’s a love interest in the romantic sense, a spouse, a close friend, a mentor, or even a current or prospective employer – without sacrificing our own authenticity? At what point do we give up and abandon the chase? Is that decision motivated by the fear of fully embracing our own power, or by the recognition that we’ve been going in the wrong direction all along? Has our pursuit of someone else’s approval been taking us further away from our truth, instead of empowering us to grow into our best self?
The songs of Beltane Eve cast a new light on the overused phrase ‘You have to love yourself before you can love someone else’. People often squirm at this, imagining it to mean that if they don’t love every aspect of their current appearance and personality, they’re doomed to spend the rest of their lives alone. Viewed through the lens of the Shapeshifter/Suitor story, we can reframe it like this: ‘Before you commit to chasing someone or something, you need a clear sense of what you love about yourself and what you aren’t willing to compromise.’ We can recognise that the current version of ourselves is a work-in-progress, but remain acutely aware that there are some core beliefs, practices and dreams that we’ll always refuse to sacrifice, even if that means letting someone go their own way. The American ecopsychologist Bill Plotkin makes a similar point by saying that there are two important questions in life – ‘Where am I going?’ and ‘Who will go with me?’ – and most people make the mistake of getting them in the wrong order.
As with all the Songs of Remembering, the archetypes in the Beltane Eve songs can also be taken to symbolise different aspects of our own selves, giving us yet another lens for understanding their meanings. The Shapeshifter archetype represents the subconscious, with its ever-shifting moodscapes of emotions, memories and dreams. It symbolises the intuition that takes us into new and uncharted territories, reminding us of half-forgotten childhood joys from our Visionary days, which often have their roots in creative activities or connection to Mother Earth. The Suitor is the conscious, rational mind that weighs up the pros and cons and asks, ‘Really? Am I brave enough to go there? Can I take this risk, chase this dream, follow my heart – or am I better off staying here in my comfort zone? And if I do decide to commit to this thing, what will that look like in practice? How can I turn this dream into a reality?’
When we lead with the heart and follow up with the rational mind, that’s when miracles start to happen. The combination of deep inner knowing, on the one hand, and systematic plans of action, on the other, leads to the conception of something entirely new. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s Summer Solstice, which is another story for another day. For Beltane Eve, what matters is the chase itself…
Go to The Song of the Shapeshifter
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Ostara (Spring Equinox)
After the bright childish energy of Imbolc comes Spring Equinox – the time for coming-of-age, or initiation into adulthood. This is when life starts to get serious: we find ourselves challenged to show up in new ways and demonstrate a strength of character that we never even knew we had. The Song of the Healer and Song of the Wounded Hero are associated with this season in the ‘Nineteen Songs of Remembering’ calendar.
For many people, the Equinox seasons are the most intense and difficult times of the year. In the run-up to Spring Equinox in particular, we often feel as though the Universe is testing our endurance levels to the limit. We find ourselves screaming, ‘Stop! I can’t take any more!’ and the Universe responds with, ‘Really? Try this, then! And while you’re at it, take this…and this…and this!’
Responding to these challenges calls for a balance between recognising our power and acknowledging our vulnerability. This is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve by ourselves. On discovering our power, it’s easy to fixate on trying to ‘rescue’ others, to get stuck in co-dependency and even to become manipulative; and on learning of our vulnerability, it’s easy to lapse into a downward spiral of self-abuse and eternal victimhood.
The story we tell ourselves at Spring Equinox, which is often called Ostara in honour of the Goddess of spring (recalling the Pagan roots of the Christian festival of Easter) is this:
I am a powerful Healer with the skill of ‘walking between the worlds’ to revive those who have lost their souls, or lost touch with their own dreams, memories and emotions. I embody the Earth – loving, generous and nurturing, and yet able to manifest the invisible power that restores the dead to life every spring. Through full acceptance of guilt, shame and grief, and a faith that endures through even the darkest times, I learn to stand in my power and break free from limiting beliefs.
I am a Wounded Hero returning home from my adventures – exhausted and scarred by betrayal at the hands of my so-called friends, humiliation by my adversaries, and a crushing sense of defeat. It’s in accepting not only the pain, but also my own vulnerability and neediness, that I finally surrender to the loving touch of the Healer and set out in search of my own soul. I recognise the need to ‘die’ to my old self and then rise from the tomb in order to be reborn as the person I was always meant to be.
In the Songs of Remembering, initiation into adulthood – both in the sense of standing in our power and accepting our vulnerability – is associated with the theme of death and rebirth. Many Indigenous societies still have rituals in which initiates symbolically ‘die’ as children and, after a short period of separation from society, are ‘reborn’ as adults. In some mystical and gnostic forms of Christianity, this process of initiation is symbolised by the myth of the death and resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) through the intervention of Mariam (Mary Magdalene) as a priestess-healer. It also represents the need for the conscious/rational mind to surrender to the subconscious – the realm of dreams, memories and emotions, of music and images, of bodywork and dance and reconnection with nature – in order to heal from the ‘wounds’ that we all sustain in the course of daily life.
In societies where initiation is still practiced, young people often have several mentors – older adults, usually of their parents’ generation or above, who were committed to helping them to develop new life skills and persevere on the path of the soul. To paraphrase the well-known Serenity Prayer, a good mentor can help us to discover the serenity to accept what we can’t change, the courage to change what we can – and, crucially, the wisdom to know the difference.
The mentorship of wise elders has been one of the greatest casualties of of western capitalist society’s obsession with youth and physical beauty. Teachers, counsellors, chaplains, priests, vicars and mental health professionals might all do their best, but the constraints of their professional roles or personal belief systems make it almost impossible for them to support young people in the ways that a traditional mentor might. We will return to these themes of elderhood and mentorship at Autumn Equinox, which is directly opposite Spring Equinox on the Wheel of the Year.
Imbolc Meditation
Imbolc speaks in the voice of Snowdrop, awakening the powers of the higher heart: inner sight, forgiveness, unconditional Love, gratitude, and the ability to surrender. These powers, fused together in the Equinox fire of initiation, will soon mature into an ability to heal ourselves and others from pain and trauma that once seemed unbearable.
In the returning light of Imbolc the way is still overgrown, and we feel overwhelmed and lost; sometimes the cold is still too bitter, and the darkness too deep. But even in those moments of doubt, even when nothing is visible yet on the surface, spring is already stirring beneath the ground.
Frail and delicate as they may look, Snowdrop has the power to push through frozen ground, and – in the harshest of winters – even through a blanket of snow. Their courage and resilience remind us that all is not lost and that spring never fails to return. The path that they carve out will soon be followed by other gentle visionaries: Primrose, Wood Anemone, Violet and Celandine, the soft flowers of early spring.
We are called to love more deeply, even though it breaks us wide open and leaves our trembling hearts exposed and vulnerable. We are summoned to trust more fully in the things that bring us joy, even when the prospect of leaving the old familiar roads terrifies us. For the Mother will never forsake us, and the soles – or souls – of our feet will guide us in ways that we never knew were there, and the path is made by walking.
Walking the Land at pilgrim’s pace is a re-membering, a re-embodiment, of Sacred Union. When we stop rushing and find our in-breath, we can learn to draw energy up from the Earth and down from the Sky, until the essence of both is mingled within the heart and gives birth to a Love that is not of this world. And with the next step, the out-breath, we send out that Love in a pulse that connects Earth below us and Sky above us instantaneously, with the heart at the centre of a figure-of-eight – a symbol of infinity. This is how we bring ourselves back to life, and life back to our Selves, after the long winter. This is the first tentative step on a path that will help us, with practice, to awaken the dragon without being devoured by it.
At Imbolc we sing the Song of the Visionary and the Adventurer; but if we expect grand visions and adventures that will change the world all at once, in showy and dramatic ways, we’ll be left disappointed. The spring flowers speak in soft, subtle whispers, calling us to take the smallest of steps to restore and revive ourselves. This is the time of holy well and sacred flame, not of vast oceans or raging wildfires – and with Spring Equinox and its initiatory challenge just ahead of us, that’s probably just as well!
Our growing hunger for adventures needs to be kept in check by a parallel calling to go inward, to hold ourselves and others with tender compassion, and to set aside enough time to sleep and dream. Without vision, we can become Daredevils, pushing beyond our physical limits or taking dangerous risks in a vain attempt to ‘prove ourselves’ to others. Spiritual progress is not a competition, and our worth is not measured by the height of the mountains we’ve scaled or the breadth of the oceans that we’ve swum across. Action is needed too, of course, to avoid dreaming our lives away; but it’s at the midpoint between action and vision that we ultimately discover our balance.
Go to the Song of the Visionary
Imbolc Eve Meditation
The season of Imbolc Eve – the last days of the time-before-the-beginning – speaks in the voice of Lichen.
In the forest, the mosses and lichens are thriving, casting a vibrant green mantle over trunks and roots, evoking memories of something ancient and sacred. They call gently to that sore place in the soul, the place that’s aching so much that it wants to die: Come and rest here for a while. Rest your cheek, the cheek that’s been yearning so long for the caress of your lost lover, against this softness. Hold me and I will hold you.
The frustration, at this time of year, can be overwhelming. You’ve grown too big for this womb; you’re beyond bored with this darkness. You’re all elbows and knees and feet, kicking and jabbing and fidgeting, and you feel as though you’ve been stuck in this tiny little space forever. You know that there has to be an end to it soon, because the life you’re trying to live now is just not liveable.
Accept everything, says Lichen. There is no other way.
Accept who you are.
Accept where you are.
Accept the fact that it’s still dark and uncomfortable, and everything hurts, and you still can’t see the new destiny that’s being shaped for you. It’s almost time: you’re almost ready. Be patient and soon you’ll see wonders that you never imagined.
The day will come soon enough when you’ll be propelled into your new life, whether you like it or not. After complaining all this time that you want out, when the day comes, you’ll make a fuss and insist you’re not ready. But there will be no way of staying put, when all the unimaginable powers that surround you are conspiring to deliver you into the new world.
I have to be honest with you: the pain will get worse before it gets better. If you think it’s cramped now, just wait until you’re in the process of being birthed. You’ll be squeezed into spaces that you never thought it possible to fit into. You’ll be moulded into a new shape before you can emerge on the other side, naked and bloodied and screaming in indignation at the shock of the cold air in your new-born lungs. But I promise it will be worth it.
The time for emerging into brightness will come soon. But meanwhile, accept where you are: still within the space of Deep Mystery, held and protected in the darkness, as you keep transforming and growing. This time, frustrating and even frightening as it might be, is pregnant with possibilities.
* * *
Mariam, the Magdalene, is the Black Madonna: the hidden Mother-of-Holiness, the one they never sang of. She is the Grail Queen, the Lichen Queen, who knows all the ancient sacredness and deep mystery of the time-before-the-beginning. In the wild places of southern France, she makes her home in caves and in the forested valleys, where the future waits to be born.
She knows it well, the challenge of nurturing that which is not yet visible. Waiting patiently for the right time, knowing that things will undoubtedly have to get worse before they get better.
It has taken two thousand years for people to even begin to understand. Two thousand years to remember that her blood was shed for us too: people have a strange habit of valuing the blood spilled through violence more highly than the blood that is spilled to bring new life into the world. They treat one as sacred, and the other as shameful and unmentionable. They talk of ‘remembrance’ for those who died in war, but what about remembering the birth-givers? What about remembering the Great Mother, the fertile Earth from which we are all born, the Goddess who has suffered so long for our sins?
Death and rebirth are two halves of a whole. We forget that too: that in every ending there is a beginning, and in every beginning an ending. The new world may be brighter, but we’ll no longer be so safe or so nurtured. The price of being allowed our own visions and adventures is that the joy of being unseen, unheard and unrecognised will be forever lost.
Perhaps the place we are in now is not so bad, after all?
Yule (Winter Solstice) Meditation
Yule speaks in the voice of Mistletoe, the Keeper of the Mysteries and the Deep Mystery at the heart of all elements; the Trickster, the Joker-in-the-pack, the Love-beyond-all-names, the Divine Mother-Father-Both-at-once-and-neither.
They tell me: Beloved child, be patient. It is not yet time for you to know what will become of you.
Of course, patience is not my strong point, and I wail that I want to know everything now-now-now. What am I being shaped into? What should my goals be? Will my visions come to fruition? Will I be calmer, happier, more emotionally stable this year? Please, let it be so! Will this pain ever end? Will I survive, and will all my loved ones survive, to see another Winter Solstice?
But they persist: This is not the time of answers, but of as-yet-unimagined possibilities. When acorns feel the quickening of life within the deep dark earth, when mistletoe-seeds sprout on a branch of an oak, when embryos take form within the womb, do you think they understand what will become of them?
This is not the time of vision, but of invisibility.
All I will tell you is this: The place that has been forged for you, through fire and tears, is a place that fits you perfectly. A place designed to hold you and nurture you and keep you safe, through this cold time of unknowing, until Imbolc brings enough light to see yourself by.
There will be time enough for new dreams, plans and projects when the Light-Bringer comes. But for now, my darling, rest in the knowledge that you are loved, and that your essence is Love, whether you can feel it or not. Beyond the work that you must do to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, all your work should be dedicated to nurturing this tiny spark of Mystery that has rooted itself in you. Spend time with the people and places that feed your soul and make it sing; and then rest, my love, rest and be patient. You will have your answers soon enough.
This is a time for celebrating the abstract, the formless, the fluid; a time for staring into the cauldron and finding joy in the patterns as they shift and transform. Bubbles rise and burst, to be replaced with other bubbles. Illusions are revealed as illusions, the opaque becomes transparent, matter is revealed in an instant as nothing but condensed energy, and then it all returns to illusion once again. Images swirl, awakening ethereal memories of long-lost times and long-forgotten places: memories that, despite all your best efforts, stay frustratingly below the surface of conscious awareness. Let go of the curiosity, release the frustration, and be content that they will surface in their own time.
I ask them: How can you be Trickster and Love-beyond-all-names at the same time?
Because you have learned to associate trickery with deceit, and love with certainty. But Love is a joyful game of hide-and-seek, a labyrinth that leads you into endless twists and turns before it finally brings you – exhausted but trembling with delight – back to your very centre.
Love roots itself, if you let it, in those parts of your heart that you thought were impossible to reach. The key, though, is ‘if you let it.’ I’ve seen the tears that you cried, all through the season of Samhain when the Deep-Mystery-as-Destroyer tore your cherished dreams to shreds. I’ve touched your scars, souvenirs of your battle with the darkness that nearly broke you. I’ve heard the fierce wounded animal in you, spitting and cursing, flinging insults in the face of the Mystery: ‘Never again! I will never love anyone, anything or any place, ever again! I am the lone wolf, the maverick, the untouchable, the unreachable, the unlovable! Let everyone stay far away, for I am dangerous, and those who become entangled with me will lose all that they hold dear!’
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There may still be darkness and heartbreak, but the darkness is full of potential and the heartbreak is necessary, just as the tough outer coat of a seed must be split before it can germinate. Be still and be patient through this time of the Trickster, the Master-Mistress of infinite possibilities. Before you know it, the wheel will turn again to the Deep-Mystery-as-Creator, and soon it will be time for new visions and new adventures. Meanwhile, don’t yield to the temptation to wish away winter. It belongs on the Wheel of the Year, just as the spring does.
Blessed Be, my darling; rest well and heal well in my presence, for I am the All-Heal.
The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me!
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
The Way of the Rainbow 