Beltane, 2026 (Revised May 11, 2026)

 

(May 2, 2026 - I always associate Beltane with the symbol of the rose pentacle now. I would've liked to post a photo of a cast piece of my own design here, and I would have, if one existed. Alas, no. That project has been stalled for, at least, 2 years.

However, I did find the GIF above - with a pentagram inside a circle, accented with a spray of five roses - which we can consider an interpretation of the more traditional rose pentacle symbol.*

It was found in this collection. I am unsure of it's maker but, it goes without saying, it's very nice!)

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"Also known as Cétshamhain ('first of summer'), it marked the beginning of summer and was when cattle were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect cattle, people and crops, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, whose flames, smoke and ashes were believed to have protective powers."

- From the Wiki entry for Beltane, it would seem that for the early Celts and Germanic people, the first of May and the beginning of summer was a very beautiful and, yet, vulnerable time of the year. The world had come back to life and rituals were performed, not only to celebrate that life but to nourish and protect that life from harm.

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“In the face of so much destruction of the natural world and so much disregard for life, Beltane is also an act of rebellion against the status quo. It says about us–as simple people, as a growing community–that we don’t give in to the death cycles imposed on us from Away, not in this season. We plant and know that the harvest comes – not in the stately march from Lughnasadh to Samhain but bit by bit and day by day."

- Byron Ballard, from Summer is Come, sourced from the wonderful Beltane page at Wild Hunt, as is the following quote and the Walter Crane illustration below, inset left.

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"The flesh is understood to be the place where evil resides and from which torment wreaks havoc upon the mind. The flesh is temporary, so it must be trivial. The flesh will not remain, so we must not give it credence. The flesh will pass unto the earth, rot in the ground, turn into dust. We are told again and again to dismiss the flesh. But Whitman says, ‘And your very flesh shall be a great poem.’ Yes. Our very flesh shall be a great poem. That is the message I’d like to offer on Beltane.”

- From Beltane 2013: The Great Poetry of Flesh by Teo Bishop (Matthew Morris).

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A very nice Wheel of the Year found (for sale) at Maine Corner.

(May 3, 2026)

I enjoy the Sabbats. There's, undeniably, a special energy in the air on those days; a kind of clarity. Time seems to savor these days; it moves more slowly, stretching just a fraction, but, enough to experience a sense of unity... with the Earth, with your past, and with the very long past we know as "tradition."

Maybe all holidays do that; act as milestones.

April 30th (May Eve) - May 1st (May Day) is a holiday that emerged in Celtic and Germanic Europe: the Celtic Beltane or the Germanic Walpurgisnacht. Apart from it's pagan, Earth-religion elements the holiday is, in the Christian tradition, marked by May devotions to the Virgin Mary and the Saint Walpurga.**

It is also an official holiday in Europe; similar to the American Labor Day. International Worker's Day in the States is celebrated by rallies held across the nation for working class Americans. As you might expect, the gatherings were massive this year. Inset left is a May Day tribute to "the workers" by English illustrator Walter Crane. Crane's work often is orchestrated with the movement of the pentagonal Golden Spiral. Can you find it in this image? (Hint: start with the triangle.)

The full "Flower" moon rose over the Sandias on the evening of May Day. It was a pale, lemony rose color... crisp and bright, before it was made spooky by a transparent plume of clouds. A second full moon will rise May 31st. The month of May is virtually bracketed by full moons. I think there's a message here: the time is ripe to banish our bogeymen and truly come back to life.*** We've got the whole month. Get moving. ;-)

Here's to a merry month of May! 💮

(Footnotes appear below the jump.)

Just another mad, mad day

"I got silence on my radio

Let the air waves flow, let the air waves flow

Oh, I'm sleeping under strange, strange skies

Just another mad, mad day on the road

My dreams are fading down the railway line

I'm just about a moonlight mile down the road"

- Lyrics from Moonlight Mile, 1970, credited to Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor; released on the album Sticky Fingers. The video was found on this Rolling Stones' channel.

I rarely feel nostalgic most days... figuring what's gone is gone (for the most part) and, in the last analysis, the (alleged) "good old days" were never all that good. But, every now and then, some old tune pops up out of nowhere and takes me back to a less complicated time in the long past when merely being alive seemed to be enough. Yes, I was very young then. But, in ways, I knew my priorities far better then than I do now.

I never saw the Stones do a live version of this traveler's tune. But, hearing it again kind of soothed my "savage beast." Maybe it'll soothe yours, too.

Namaste.

(Blogger's note - April 29, 2026: Yes, I realize Valentine's Day of the Dead (Part II) is long overdue, but I am continuously interrupted these days with topics I am compelled to address. One recent topic has just been investigated on Post-Mac Blues: The Mar-a-lago Messiah - reverse engineering a hazardous meme. Also, I will be cross-posting the Day of the Dead story and the first installment is likely to be found on PMB.)

Coming Back to Life (Revised)

A Pentagonal Movement (and a reposted image)

She was once a real person with a real sort of life. However, like real people everywhere, she eventually died.

But, that wasn't the end of it.

Because, particles of her presence survived in one magical image a renowned master craftsman had once devised; a craftsman who knew well the essence of life. And, although the girl sat quite still for her portrait, the master painted a nuance of amusement in her mouth and eyes; a strange animation.

As it was, the craftsman was an old, funny kind of guy. It was difficult not to laugh outright at his humor. And, it was this laughter he captured in the sparkle of her eye. She was bubbling with merriment, and, so, she would remain.

As it happened, the image, (with it's sparkle) would outlast both the girl and the crafty, old master and, in time, would attract millions of spectators from all around the world... who came to gaze at this forever-girl as she sat, mysteriously and motionless in her special place upon the wall.

Hundreds of years would pass; each day the same... the golden light, the shadows, the frozen folds of her gown... the stiff pose of her lifeless hands and the unwavering line of her mouth. Oh, how she longed to lift her arms again and wiggle her fingers. And, how desperately she needed to release the laugh she'd held inside for so many years.

Then, one spring day, while no one was looking, there was a movement in the painting.

Perhaps, it had been stirring inside the brush strokes all along.

And, she came back to life like a spring unwinding... for one uninterrupted moment in time. Just like that.

So, is it that joy lasts forever... and laughter will out? Or, are there loopholes in the way things are made... and/or recorded? Who can say?

The wise plant seeds. :-)

(The adorable GIF featured in the post is AI created and was sourced from Tenor.)

A (Belated) Valentine's Day of the Dead Interlude (complete)

(March 4, 2025. No one is more sorry than I that this post has been so stalled this past week. In my defense, the Spade symbol is the heaviest and most complex I have ever encountered. More importantly, geometrically, the Spade is a pentagonal construction, and, come to find out, an important - although hidden - element of the Golden Meme. And, in the context of current events, a Key. Bear with me. Information will be posted continuously until completion. 🌺DS)

The White Rose & the Ace of Spades

A white rose ghosted over a darkened plane

is a sigil of love transformed.

Yes, even the darkest of shapes,

the Ace of Spades,

- a black heart impaled on a single thorn -

can't hide the light of its central, star-like eye

which, in the dead of night,

 opens and closes.

- 2026, DS. (revised March 2, 2026)

Rosa Mystica

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"The story of St Valentine’s Day begins with some unknown medieval birdwatchers, probably in France rather than England, who reckoned that birds begin mating in mid-February, and decided to give this a precise date: 14 February. (They may have followed some folk tradition – in Slovenia this is still said to be the first day of spring, when plants start growing, and birds mate.) As was normal at that period, they expressed the date as the feast-day of a saint; in the Catholic Church every day in the year celebrates at least one saint, and for a public who had no printed calendars it was easier to remember dates by names than by figures. It happens that 14 February is dedicated to one or other of two early Roman martyrs, both named Valentinus, believed to have died on that date."

- Via an article from the Folklore Society.

 Possibly the sweetest thing about Valentine's Day is that it likely began with the recognized mating habits of birds... avian love... the kind of love everybody can celebrate. The martyrdom of saints, however, is an element we might want to dismiss. Well, most of us anyway.

February 26, 2026,

Perhaps, I should explain.

The poem, The White Rose & the Ace of Spades, was initiated days ago... specifically 13 days ago, on Friday the 13th... which, as it happened, fell on Valentine's Day Eve this year (2026). Apparently, the last time this "holiday" conjunction occured was in 2015. The next occurs in 2032.

I see now that it was extensively joked about on social media prior to the event with many mashups involving Jason from the slasher film franchise Friday the 13th, with a few Goth-inspired offerings announcing Darkwave raves. Somebody even made up a new holiday: Valloween! Gotta love it.

To add to our dark pleasures, the latest remake of Wuthering Heights premiered this Valentine's Day raking in billions of $$$. "Wuthering Heights" (with apostrophes) is (allegedly) heavily erotic... which could be a good thing. But, Catherine Earnshaw has been morphed into the requisite, vulnerable blonde and, being more or less a WH purist, I find this as problematic as I would a blond Heathcliff. Obviously, I've yet to see the movie though, so, no review is forthcoming. However, the review I linked to had this to say: "So essentially what we're getting at is that Wuthering Heights is a smutty fan fiction fever dream written by a 14-year-old."

In other words, it can't be all that bad! ;-)

In any case, something tells me that the darkly romantic Love-Beyond-Death meme is in full swing this year, so allow me to elucidate...

(Elucidation lies below the jump) ;-)

The Subtle Anarchy of Fuzz Culture

 

Interestingly, many of the creatively gifted individuals mentioned by the creatively gifted Arsh Sharma, a musician, during the course of his spot-on exposé were not merely artists, but what we can refer to as pathologically creative artists, thinkers and musicians. Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Poe, Nina Simone... men and women who were so consumed by their creative flames, that their attention to their own survival was compromised. In a sense, the pathologically "gifted" are often savants, unable to successfully maneuver through the maze of the official world while absorbed in exploring dimensions of experience outside of the official playbook. That their visionary explorations - dismissed in their own time - were eventually appreciated (and capitalized upon) by those of future generations is an ironic twist. While it lends the artists a kind of immortality, in societies in which commerce is king, money trumps all (pun inevitable). In other words, when money talks, the world listens. Well, that is, apart from the dead artists... who are unlikely to hear the "ka-ching," and,  like the anonymous meek, have inherited little more than a silent, earth-filled grave.

But, Arsh Sharma takes the tragic artist meme one step further, in that, he proposes the artist's plight arose from the subtle antagonism society felt towards those mad members of the creative sector. And, he makes a good point. He has certainly has created the nucleus of a more thorough investigation into this unfortunate element of art history and culture and the ways in which it effects us today.

Fuzz Culture features a number of unique, alternative essays in video form. This one - redefining the word delusional - is one of my favorites. But, don't miss The Real Reason Artists Create (And Can’t Stop).

Thank you, Fuzz Culture; your insight is most welcome in a world which has somehow lost its way - and is desperately trying to find it!

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On a related note, we have more artist/madness material from Big Think:

Did Friedrich Nietzsche’s own philosophy drive him insane?

"A number of studies have shown that creative people are twice as likely to suffer from conditions like depression and anxiety compared to the general population. At the same time, the rate and intensity of these symptoms vary depending on outlet or discipline, with poets and writers proving more likely to suffer from disorders than, for example, scientists."

This is a very interesting article for the most part, but the paragraph above presents data that is fairly elementary. That poets should tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more than scientists is not terribly mysterious. Scientists generally work within established professional and academic structures, often funded by governments, the military, Big Pharma, and various medical institutions. Take that security away - and MAGA is doing it's very best - and I think you'll find many more depressed, anxiety-stricken scientists.