Bealtaine Redux

A year ago, my husband and I “celebrated” Bealtaine by completely upending our settled, deep-rooted West Coast Wine Country lives and traveling across the continent to start anew on the shores of Lake Ontario in Western New York State.

Like its predecessor, this Bealtaine is shaping up to be a center-cannot-hold whopper of a May-tide. Unlike its predecessor, thank Maia and Gaia and all the rest, it appears to be more of a perfect storm than a cataclysmic upheaval (so far, at least); perfect not only in its mad confluence of events, but in its Maenad-frenzy rush to conjure the summer in.

Either this insanity is endemic to the Bealtaine cross-quarter, or I’m particularly susceptible to it. Or … perhaps I’ve been lax in taking the proper precautions?

Sir James George Frazer’s seminal work The Golden Bough contains an astute observation regarding the two great hinges of the Wheel of the Year; the cross-quarter days that turn the Wheel from Summer (May-November: summer and harvest seasons) to Winter (November-May: winter and spring) and back again. In the folkloric traditions of Northwestern Europe, he notes, the rites and rituals that mark the transition from summer to winter (Samhain, Calan Gaeaf, Álfblót) are about opening gates to other worlds and welcoming ghosts and spirits into our halls and homes. Doors, windows, and other points of egress are left unlocked and unguarded by prickly plant life, salt, water, wood, or iron. As the world spins away from summer’s light, warmth, and fecundity and into the darkness, cold, and scarcity of winter, caution is thrown to the winds.

Conversely, as the world spins from winter into summer (Bealtaine, Walpurgis Night, Parilia), banishing misfortune is the tune of the day. (Audio digression, anyone? Check out this grand Malcolm Dalglish-Grey Larsen recording of “Banish Misfortune”, a classic Irish jig.)

Every cross-quarter is a fire-festival, of course. Some protection is deemed wise whenever the veil between worlds grows thin. Bonfires are standard practice, as is leaving the Good Folk a little something to nosh on. As we shift from summer-to-winter, though, fires and snacks are pretty much the all of it. It’s at the winter-into-summer hinge of the year the rites go in big time for defensive magic.

Again bonfires are lit, this time specifically for purification purposes as folk dance around them, leap over them, and drive their livestock between them. Guardian herbs, yellow flowers, and/or rowan branches are tacked to window frames and door lintels to stop evil from entering. Herbs are also used to smudge houses and barns, cleansing them of negativity. Brooms are laid across thresholds to keep ghosts and evil spirits at bay, garlands are strung inside and out to keep homes safe and secure, and loud bells, music, and more raucous forms of noise-making are employed to drive tricksy sprites and fairies away.

My theory (not rocket science; you’ve doubtless already reached the same conclusion) is that bringing the benevolent, helpful elves and pixies, tomtes and nisses, and Seelie Court courtiers with us through winter’s gate equates to bringing the bounty and blessings of the growing and harvest seasons into the dark of the year. The more comfort and plenty we can get across the threshold, the merrier we’ll be in the months to come.

As we pass through summer’s gate, it’s the Lords of Misrule trying to tag along. The Unseelie Court, púcaí, redcaps, the Host are eager to bring their mischief out of the dark times and into the light. In the run-up to Bealtaine and throughout the May-tide, they pull out all the stops.

If this sounds hyperbolic, you probably live in a temperate zone where spring weather is mild and the season fruitful. Where you stopped wearing a jacket in March. Where your April Fool’s Day take from your garden looked like this:

In WNY, spring is slow to arrive and anything but steady. In fact, it snowed here a week ago Sunday, albeit too briefly to put a damper on Spring’s fun. A few trees were already showing buds, the first flowers blooming, birdsong was echoing in the woods, and critters were scurrying out of their winter stupors to reclaim the nuts they’d buried last autumn. Even so, in this part of the world, people don’t put their plants in the ground until May for good reason.

This April (which is about all the spring we get around here) I finally, viscerally understood what I’d long and blithely professed to know: spring is a difficult season. In temperate climes, lucky you, spring is essentially Summer/Phase 1. Peace and plenty, Gaia in all her glory. Farther north, spring is a frantic grab at life – a race to get big enough and strong enough fast enough to survive the predators seeking to get big and strong on you and the sudden-cruel drops in temperature.

Spring out here is vicious, brutal, and breathtaking. The daffodils are still standing tall, the magnolias have bloomed, and now the lilacs are in flower.

Then, yesterday, abruptly and unequivocally, summer came knocking at the gate. The sun was bright, the sky blue with just the occasional cluster of clouds. The temperature shot up to 23C/73F and fell no lower than 14C/57F at night. Chipmunks, squirrels, a fox, and a woodchuck paid us a visit. The dad Robin was plenty irked at me for trying to do my practice on the deck, but with chicks in the nest, and the nest under the eaves right next to the deck … well, I could hardly blame him.

And last night, Bealtaine Eve! The moon waning gibbous (but still darn full at 96%) shone through the tall, lightly-leafed, wind-blown trees while high overhead – beyond all imagining – 2,546,000 migrating birds crossed Monroe County, bringing summer up from the south on their mighty wings.

For all that I agree with the rationale behind barring this gate against the November-to-May ill luck that has plagued us personally (totaled car, totaled phone, a constant barrage of bureaucratic hassles, a constant stream of unexpected major expenses …) and long to bar it against the real-world evils that plague us globally (the edicts of a mad king, his whims that have plunged the world into economic disaster, the wars and war crimes perpetrated in our names and with our taxes, the shameless racism, sexism, and authoritarianism of an unjust high court …), for all that, I could not find it in me to close my heart against the night.

So I lit a candle, set out a midnight snack for my unseen neighbors, and wrote a blog instead. Whatever she brings, whatever comes with her, I’m welcoming summer in.

Now welcome Summer with thy sunne soft,
That hast this winter's weathers overshake,
And driven away the longe nighties black.

from "Roundel" by Geoffrey Chaucer

May peace and plenty and all the blessings of the season be yours.