There are rhythms to everything we experience, the day we live through, our work, leisure and pleasure, the things we create, the emotions we own, the meals we prepare.
These rhythms exist to give us insights into ourselves and as a way to share together with others.
The most ancient of all these rhythms are the seasons of the year. Each cycle following on from the last in a prescribed pattern. As night follows day, we know that summer follows spring. Cycles exist in all levels of our lives, but it is through the seasons we sense our own place in the rhythm of the earth and our part in the wider sphere.
We have always found a way to mark these seasonal changes, to come together as people and celebrate the changes that make up the year. These are referred to as solar festivals. By marking them ourselves, we not only connect in a deeper way with the natural world but also with ourselves. We are able to work on our own sense of self at a deeper level, in tune with the natural processes that exist to support us.
I have celebrated these festivals for years and they are a constant source of personal joy, delight, insight and enlightenment.
At the time of each festival I will post here a description of my insights and observations, what it means for us today and any events I am originating to form part of a collective celebration.
Beltane Solar Festival.
The Festival of Beltane or the Festival of Unification(May 1st) celebrates the start of the season of summer. We see the conclusion of spring and we welcome in a new season and the period of elevated growth.
It is the time we make vows to ourselves and traditionally it was a time of marriage and so those vows were made to each other. We have seen, with each festival, the nature of what we are working with become elevated from dedication, to promise and now vows.
It is a time of great joy as we see the streams of all our work come together and we can put our energy behind everything we want to grow in the certain knowledge that, with our work coming to culmination, we can see our path ahead and join together in moving forward with flow.
Traditionally, this moment symbolises this joining or unifying with the maypole. We see those ribbons that symbolise the different strands or our being, woven together into one pattern of beauty within a rhythm and a collaboration that creates this moment of joy and harmony that we take forward into the summer.
We approach this festival on the first day of the month, after the preparation of April has given us the gifts of foresight as to the vows we must make and cleansed us, with its April showers, of all that is not dedicated to this final focus. We arrive spring cleaned and ready for growth.
Jeremy Rye 