Beltane

 May is the time of fertility and new beginnings after a long winter. The Faeries are afoot! They dance in the hills and roll in the grass, reveling
in the joy of warm May breezes. Our spirits are high with the lust and
heartiness of spring. New life is stirring and appetites are keen. -Laurie
Cabot, Celebrate the Earth

In Celtic tradition, the two greatest festivals of the solar year are
Samhain and Beltane, celebrations of death and rebirth, respectively. Love
is in the air at Beltane. In our rituals, we celebrate the union between the
Great Mother and her young Horned God. Their coupling brings fresh new life
on Earth. Some form of this Great Rite is enacted on this sabbat in nearly
every modern pagan circle. The Great Rite symbolizes the sacred marriage, or
sexual union, of the the Lord and Lady. Often the rite is performed
symbolically by a male and female who place a knife (a phallic symbol) into
a chalice (a female or yonic symbol). In Old Europe, whole villages would
celebrate May Day by slipping away into the woods for indiscriminate sexual
encounters. Any children conceived during this occasion were known as
"merry-begots" and were considered children of the gods. These "greenwood
marriages" were acts of sympathetic magick believed to have a positive
effect on their crops, animals, and themselves. (In this age of AIDS and
other sexually transmitted diseases, however, we must exercise
responsibility -- by means of safe sex, monogamy, or even abstinence. Use
your better judgment.)

Crop fertility was a strong theme at this sabbat. Besoms were ridden
hobbyhorse-style through fields by women in symbolic fertility rites.
Menstruating women ran and danced naked in the newly-sown fields. Cows were
led to the fields to calve, and ritually consecrated chalices of sheep's
blood and milk were poured on the crops, as were ashes from the balefire.

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