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!)

(5/15: Note the tension between the pentagram and the roughly pentagonal spray of flowers. Doesn't it feel like they're straining to come together?)

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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.)

* The traditional rose pentacle is both a very old and deeply embedded meme, uniting the Philosopher's rose and the rose of Aphrodite/Mary with the mason's star, the golden path of Venus, and the holistic, all-powerful nature of the Pythagorean hygeia (which we might refer to as the living grace). I believe they appear most often in medieval churches and cathedrals specifically devoted to Mary.

These philosophical keys, however, are only made perceivable in the traditional, geometrical design - the design I was immediately drawn to (inset left is an earlier stage) - wherein the pentacle and the 5 or 10-petaled rose are aligned symmetrically to produce a kind of dial... alluding to the harmonious synchrony of time, motion and structure.

** "Nothing noteworthy during her lifetime, nor her birth or death-dates, caused any association between St. Walburga and Walpurgisnacht. What supposedly brought about the association of her with that date was that after her death, a miracle-working liquid or oil began to flow from the tombstone placed over her remains, which caused healings and was the reason for her canonization as a saint, both occurring on the first of May. Later Walburga's body was broken into pieces and buried at different places--as far away as present-day France and all over Germany--so that other churches could get the benefit of the holy oil as well. The church later tried to downplay the association of the oil and the saint with the Heathen-contaminated Mayday, but the connection remained in people's minds."

"Christian fears, mythology and superstition have separated the "white lady," the supposed St. Walburga, from the darkness of the Wild Hunt, and have set her as a charm against ills such as bad weather and mad dogs, often thought to be caused by "witches." Yet on her own holy night, it is the supposedly dark witches who have power, who gather in ancient places of sacrifice to do what is needful to be done, even when the folk no longer consciously remember that is the case. In reality, there is no separation here between the dark and the light, life growing out of death and decay, brightness arising from danger and fear, sacrifice given for fertility."

- From the excellent article Waelburga and the Rites of May by an author devoted to "heathen" philosophy, Winifred Hodge Rose. Also, see here. Inset left is a copper-plate print of one of Albrecht Dürer's "witch" images - Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat. I have theories regarding these images, and those of one of his students, Hans Baldung, which differ somewhat from those that Margaret A. Sullivan expressed in The Witches of Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien, (2000):

"...the purpose in this study is to suggest that this new and fantastic subject is better understood as a response to humanist interest in the literature of the ancient world. Durer's introduction of the young female witch in the Four Witches of 1497 and the old and ugly witch in Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat from around 1500, precede by more than a generation the widespread persecution of witches and sorcerers. Hans Baldung Grien's Bewitched Groom, the last work to be considered in this study, was probably created a year before his death in 1545, and it is only in the latter part of the sixteenth century and during the seventeenth century that witchhunting became widespread and virulent."

While I agree that Dürer's images may have served a humanist interest, I can't say Hans Baldung's were created in the same spirit. More to the point, while "witchhunting" may have peaked in the late 1500s and 1600s, it began earlier - as early as 1400 - and gained much momentum with the publication of Malleus Maleficarum written by clergyman and German inquisitor Heinrich Kramer in 1487, a book which may have inspired Baldung's visions... and his contempt of "evil" women. For more information see this article where a quote from Kramer's nightmarish tome can be found:

"What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours. (…) Women are by nature instruments of Satan — they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation.”

Suffice to say, Dürer and Baldung had a relationship which seemed to go beyond what we'd expect from a teacher/student relationship. It was described as a "close friendship" in the Wiki entry - apparently Baldung was gifted with a lock of Dürer's hair after his master's death... which might imply a deeper intimacy. While this doesn't bother me, unfortunately, Baldung does. Something about him rings of deception... or maybe I just find his creepy "witch" art offensive, misogynistic, and fitting propaganda for the femicide which soon flared up in Germany and elsewhere.

(Later note) That being said, my interpretation of Hans Baldung and his artistic legacy is, more or less, a feminist's knee-jerk reaction to one example of his work. And, as it happened, I very quickly learned that Baldung was not alone in his  "witch" portrayal, nor the only propagandist to condemn this almost fictional stereotype. Francisco de Goya was another and there were several others. Baldung's images, however, (up to and including a number of his religious paintings) were especially erotic for his time... or, maybe just weird and a tad sinister. Example: Madonna with Child and Parrot.

In any case, Dürer championed his student's work. We'll leave it at that. (Inset right - Death Chases a Maiden - 1515,  Hans Baldung.)

*** "Coming back to life," brings to mind a previous post about a painting which comes to life; that is, the Mona Lisa. My fantasy is that if one could closely watch the painting for a period of time: one "uninterrupted moment" between April 30 12:00 am and May 1, 12:00 pm, one might just witness the Mona Lisa laughing and wiggling her fingers. Really. ;-)