unpredictablebijou
Peril!
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2007
- Posts
- 5,507
For a few of us, tomorrow is a major holiday. Here's the inevitable Wikipedia link on it.
Beltane is a very old fertility holiday. Generally, folks would go out on Beltane Eve to "gather flowers" (ahem) in the fields all night, and return to town in the morning, having made sure that the crops had gotten a nice dose of sexual energy all night long.
Interestingly, plants are now known to respond strongly to sexual thoughts or activity - it's documented in the book The Secret Life of Plants, among other places. So Beltane shenanigans probably DID make the crops grow better.
In any case, it was a tough holiday to dissuade folks from celebrating even when most of the other pagan festivals had become Christianized. There's at least one document from the early 1500's of a Catholic priest being reprimanded for dancing around a Maypole with his parishioners. The Catholic church, realizing that they weren't going to get rid of the holiday entirely, established Roodmas, a festival celebrating the Cross, as a substitute holiday; they essentially said 'you can still have the Maypole, but you have to put a crosspiece on it and stop carving it to be anatomically correct.'
Conceptions during Beltane were so common that there was a special name for children engendered during this holiday; they were referred to as "merrybegots" and considered to be potentially more magickal or psychic than normal.
So besides my recommendation that on this Beltane Eve you gather your houseplants around the bed and give them a nice dose of Miracle-gro, this thread is also for wishes, spells, charms and perhaps some of those reverdie and spring poems I've been hoping to see.
There was a cool set of traditional games played at these festivals too. One of my favorites featured the men sitting around in a circle passing a lighted candle. The women would stand behind them and try to blow the candle out as it went by. If a woman succeeded, the man who had the candle had to pay a forfeit; she could demand a kiss or a lock of his hair, or a song or poem or story praising her beauty.
O I could go on and on about this holiday, but I think that's plenty. As to the thread itself, it's mostly just a little momentary playground for wishes, dreams and flirtation. I will personally print out any wishes folks leave in here and take them to my own Bale-fire on Saturday night for extra mojo.
So. Ways to play:
What's your wish for this year?
Which activities or projects would you like to make more fertile?
Name three things you'd like to honor by decorating them with flowers.
Write a mad bad crush poem.
Write a reverdie.
Write a floral poem.
Write about losing your virginity.
Write about sex in the great outdoors.
Post a picture of your maypole.
Post a picture of someone else's maypole.
Write a hymn to something tall and firm and monumental.
and whatever else you'd like to do in here. My own big group Beltane gathering will not be til Saturday, so I'm partying steadily between now and then.
Blessed, Blessed, Bright and Beautiful Beltane to one and all!
bijou
Beltane is a very old fertility holiday. Generally, folks would go out on Beltane Eve to "gather flowers" (ahem) in the fields all night, and return to town in the morning, having made sure that the crops had gotten a nice dose of sexual energy all night long.
Interestingly, plants are now known to respond strongly to sexual thoughts or activity - it's documented in the book The Secret Life of Plants, among other places. So Beltane shenanigans probably DID make the crops grow better.
In any case, it was a tough holiday to dissuade folks from celebrating even when most of the other pagan festivals had become Christianized. There's at least one document from the early 1500's of a Catholic priest being reprimanded for dancing around a Maypole with his parishioners. The Catholic church, realizing that they weren't going to get rid of the holiday entirely, established Roodmas, a festival celebrating the Cross, as a substitute holiday; they essentially said 'you can still have the Maypole, but you have to put a crosspiece on it and stop carving it to be anatomically correct.'
Conceptions during Beltane were so common that there was a special name for children engendered during this holiday; they were referred to as "merrybegots" and considered to be potentially more magickal or psychic than normal.
So besides my recommendation that on this Beltane Eve you gather your houseplants around the bed and give them a nice dose of Miracle-gro, this thread is also for wishes, spells, charms and perhaps some of those reverdie and spring poems I've been hoping to see.
There was a cool set of traditional games played at these festivals too. One of my favorites featured the men sitting around in a circle passing a lighted candle. The women would stand behind them and try to blow the candle out as it went by. If a woman succeeded, the man who had the candle had to pay a forfeit; she could demand a kiss or a lock of his hair, or a song or poem or story praising her beauty.
O I could go on and on about this holiday, but I think that's plenty. As to the thread itself, it's mostly just a little momentary playground for wishes, dreams and flirtation. I will personally print out any wishes folks leave in here and take them to my own Bale-fire on Saturday night for extra mojo.
So. Ways to play:
What's your wish for this year?
Which activities or projects would you like to make more fertile?
Name three things you'd like to honor by decorating them with flowers.
Write a mad bad crush poem.
Write a reverdie.
Write a floral poem.
Write about losing your virginity.
Write about sex in the great outdoors.
Post a picture of your maypole.
Post a picture of someone else's maypole.
Write a hymn to something tall and firm and monumental.
and whatever else you'd like to do in here. My own big group Beltane gathering will not be til Saturday, so I'm partying steadily between now and then.
Blessed, Blessed, Bright and Beautiful Beltane to one and all!
bijou
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. I'm sure you'll like the ovals with the red seals. Much like all men eat Santa's cookies, I expect your uncle has it right, no point in wasting Elijah's wine.
. night
