Beltane - In My Hands

The Pagan celebration of Beltane, May first and second in the northern hemisphere, is a fire festival and also a very earthy and bawdy celebration of physical love and pleasure. It's easy to think of Beltane in big terms: huge bonfires with whole communities dancing in ecstasy, both vertically and horizontally. For the moment, though, I'd like to put it in smaller terms based on something I discovered recently: the motion I make when I cup my hands around a candle to protect it from the wind is the same as the gesture I use to cup my beloved's face before a kiss.

The full moon after Ostara was a "supermoon" when the moon was full at nearly the same time it was at perigee;[1] its nearness to the earth made the full moon bigger and brighter than usual. I decided to do my personal ritual marking the full moon outside, on the rooftop patio of my apartment building. I took my portable altar kit upstairs and and settled down to watch the sun set and the moon rise. I was a little irritated by the fact that the densely urban area where I live creates a lot of light pollution, so the supermoon wouldn't be as impressive as it would be elsewhere, out in "real nature."

Well, Mother Nature must have heard me thinking, because she decided to remind me that even in the middle of a very human-constructed and human-influenced environment, she can still play tricks. Thankfully, she was gentle and only sent wind, but it was an erratic wind that snuffed my candles at frequent but irregular intervals, spaced out just enough to let me think I could relax and meditate a bit before another gust came. It became something between a game and a competition as I frantically relit candles from each other, and finally I let two of my candles go out, but sheltered the third one in my cupped hands to keep it going until the moon rose, majestic and beautiful and just exactly the same shade of ruddy yellow brilliance as the flame.

This was a good reminder to me not to let myself get caught up in "living room Wicca," where we practice indoors and all too seldom actually experience the nature that we claim to revere. Living room Wicca leads to all sorts of silliness, especially from ultra-urban Wiccans who can get all overly romantic about the purity of nature. I've got news for people who think that way: the idea of the wilderness, and especially the idea that it is in some way better than the settled areas, is a social construction from the Romantic period. After the atmospheric nuclear testing of the 20th century affected the distribution of isotopes in the air and water of the world, there is no place on earth that is completely unaffected by humankind's actions. Even the moon in which I admire one face of the Goddess has had men walk on it.

The purity of nature as distinct from humanity is a myth, just as the idea that humanity is distinct from nature is a myth. Humans are creatures of flesh and blood, bone and sweat, tears and urine. What wildness does exist is valuable and a vital part of the planet's biosphere, but it's not necessarily nice or comfortable or beautiful, any more than humans are necessarily rational and logical creatures.

Anyone who actually lives there will tell you that it takes a lot more work to live in less-developed areas. It's even a hard place to do ritual: the flames get blown out, nothing is level, the rocks are sharp, the ants carry off the sacred bread, you discover what a dead frog smells like, and when you start chanting "We all come from the Goddess / and to her we shall return / like a drop of rain / flowing to the ocean," she takes you at your word. People who succumb to living room Wicca run the risk of being like the young Wilderness Explorer in the movie Up!, who complains that the wilderness is just too wild. It takes a keen appreciation of the ridiculous, as well as deep familiarity with your environment, careful planning, and a high degree of flexibility to do ritual outdoors successfully.

In that way, it's actually a lot like making love. Robert Farrar Capon wrote that "the unrehearsed and unrehearsable ritual by which two people undress each other for the first time" was one of the few things "not worth describing seriously," what with all the fumbles and uncertainty and mishaps: clothing gets tangled, zippers stick, and jewelry breaks. Even after that, our bodies don't always keep pace with our thoughts and emotions, sometimes zooming light-years ahead, sometimes lagging, frustratingly slow to respond. It almost never happens smoothly, as if choreographed; sometimes it hardly seems like it's worth the trouble, and that it might be slightly ridiculous to bother about it at all.

And the ultimate ridiculousness can be found in Beltane's opposite - Samhain, the festival that recognizes death and its place in our lives. After all, as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, "In the long run we are all dead.[2]" So why should we bother, why take the risks, why expose ourselves emotionally to the dangers and difficulties of loving, let alone physically struggling with the acts of love?

And yet somehow, we still keep trying, and we believe it's worth the trouble. Because here and now, we are alive, and in love.

These two great mysteries, love and death, are closely intertwined, although we try to separate them, to idealize the one and ignore the other. But no matter how much we try, they exist in dialogue with each other. The only real response to the fact that death happens is, "I love you." And all I have to believe is that that's enough. All I have to believe is that love can be the basis for me to build a meaningful life and relationships.

And this is true: we have proof that love is amazingly, tremendously powerful precisely because it happens in the face of silliness, and ridiculousness, and impermanence, and death. It is worth the trouble of popped buttons and of broken hearts, because love is what makes new life possible. This is true in the literal sense, obviously, of creating new lives, but it's also true in a metaphorical sense.

Capon argued that grace, which I regard as the ultimate manifestation of divine love, makes sin utterly irrelevant. For Capon, the grace of the divine love is forgiveness that not only settles the score but throws out the idea of keeping score at all. Although the concept of sin is no longer particularly meaningful for me, the concept of forgiveness still is, because forgiveness is an example of how love renews life.

For me, the most incredible forgiveness happens when I love someone enough that I want my relationship with them to go on, regardless of what has happened to hurt me. I'm so in love with them that I'm willing to let the old me die, so that the me who was owed a debt by the offender is simply gone, and the debt will never be called in. If we go forward into that together, our love can create a new life for us both, and for our relationship together.

That's why this year, especially when Easter and Beltane are so close together, it seems appropriate that Beltane occurs at the new moon, not the full moon. It's a reminder that both are celebrations of love over death, reminders of the love that transcends death and helps us make life meaningful, in the face of all the fumbles, and the pain, and the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Beltane and the love it embodies are about light, and fire, even in the darkest moments of a moonless night. After all, that's why it is called the new moon and not the empty moon.

Even in those very dark moments, I find the newness of life in the simple motion of cupping my hands. I light a candle rather than cursing the darkness, and cup my hands around it, nurture it just a bit more, get it to glow a little brighter. I cup my hands around the face of a child and wipe away the tears, and replace them with kisses, nurturing the young life that is just barely taking hold but promises so much potential. I cup my hands around the face of my beloved and nurture the flame of our love. And when I do, that brilliance blazes up into a light that illumines my life, and I have the answer right there, in my hands.


--Literata
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[1] See Does this perigee make my Moon look fat? and Super Full Moon for pictures, videos and scientific details about this phenomenon.

[2] Keynes, J. (2000). A tract on monetary reform. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books. pg. 80*

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Comments

[Laiima]

Literata, that was utterly marvelous! and that is a word I do not use lightly.

This is the first year since I started celebrating Beltane where I have to find a new way of celebrating it, and I haven't quite figured out what that will be yet, but I'm open to the universe and the new me figuring it out together.

Happy Beltane to all who celebrate it!

[storiteller]

That's really lovely. I especially enjoyed the "cupping of the hands" imagery and how is used for so many different actions that all require gentleness.

The idea of wildness without "wilderness" reminds me of Michael Pollan's book Second Nature. Before everyone knew him for his food writing (Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, etc.), he wrote this book. It's a series of essays about how we should approach nature as a garden rather than a wilderness. He argues that this approach allows us to respect and appreciate all of nature, even urban and other developed areas. Although I don't think we should treat nature like a garden in the sense that most people think of a garden - all straight lines - I do think it works really well with the idea of permaculture. Permaculture is the idea of integrating humans into the patterns of nature, so that we can meet our food and other needs in a way that is just and ecologically sound. Do you know if there is a Wicca or other pagan discussion around permaculture?

[Laiima]

@storiteller, Starhawk is a proponent of permaculture, through the Reclaiming movement. I'm sure she is not the only prominent Wiccan or Pagan to be interested in the topic, which seems to be everywhere these days (finally!).

Thanks for the book recommendation. I've been struggling with that same issue philosophically, but coming from a different background I would guess than Pollan, and I haven't yet resolved what I think about it.

[Laiima]

http://www.starhawk.org/permaculture/permaculture.html

[Lonespark]

No Unsacred Place is a new blog/community/thing from the Pagan Newswire Collective that might have things to say about stuff like permaculture.

[alienbooknose]

This really struck a chord with me.

In college I took an awesome class on the *entire* history of Brazil. One of the first books we read was about the history of human habitation in the Amazon, which emphasized the fact that even the places those of us in the developed world tend to think of as the wildest places on earth, like the Amazonian rainforest, are highly influenced by humans. We often characterize aboriginal peoples as somehow "closer to nature" and thus assume they had little or no impact on the environment, but the reality is that the footprint of humankind can be seen as strongly in the rainforest as anywhere else if you know how to look. The book really profoundly affected my suburban-kid thinking on nature, exposing a lot of my ideas for the Romantic silliness they were.

[Nenya]

This is really fascinating to this city girl* in love with a lightkeeper. :-) And really beautifully and thoughtfully written, Literata.

(*who was, however, actually raised in the backcountry for the first half of her life, though not quite so wild as her love's home)

[Kit Whitfield]

Something I believe is that perfectionism is the enemy of the soul. The approach to nature - get out of your living room and get rained on - very much reminds me of this: nature is perfect in its imperfection, its variation, its inexorability. We benefit from remembering that 'perfect' doesn't mean 'trouble-free', and that the best place to start is our own reactions - to learn how to enjoy a bumpy ride rather than panic about it not always being smooth.

[Mark Temporis]

Kit, that's something I've been trying to learn ever since I was diagnosed a decade ago as a perfectionist. Not the functional kind, who often succeed in the business world, but the type who never do anything because they are afraid to fail. I can't initiate any sort of social connection for fear of rejection: not just lovers, but friends or even business. It kills me to even apply for a job.

As you might see, this lesson isn't quite learned. Perfectionism has more or less eaten my soul entirely.

[Lonespark]

Ah, Mark, I am sorry to hear you struggle with perfectionism to that degree.

I have also had huge problems with it. It is very difficult to start any action when I can always think of seven different factors that might influence the "best" approach to take. And I apply for very few jobs, because I always feel like I don't have the time to write the perfect cover letter. Or I do write the letter, but I just keep editing it, over and over, and never send it...

On that last point I knew it was too much of a liability, and my new method of basically ignoring my internal standards, and more or less closing my eyes and hitting send, helps some but can lead to ignoring things that shouldn't be ignored.

I take medication and (should be doing) counseling to deal with the obsessive thinking, and that helps.

[Literata]

Thanks, everyone! storiteller, I'll have to look that up - I love Pollan's work, and actually based a recent blog entry on an excerpt from his Botany of Desire. Kit, that's been an important lesson for me too. Mark, thank you for chiming in with your perspective; I'm sending you "good vibes" to keep up the work to get some of your soul back.

[Literata]

I'd like to thank TBAT for all the wonderful feedback and help they gave me for this piece. I can't say enough how much I appreciate all you do for us, TBAT.

[Albanaeon]

I really like this. Particularly as it resonated well with my studies into Taoism right now. Definitions of "this is Nature" and "this is Human" when you really look at them, break down pretty quickly. They show themselves to be separate, yet inseparable, and each contains a bit of another.

Speaking of nature being uncooperative, there is nothing like trying to do yard work in the early spring out here on the plains. At first it seemed like their would be no point since we hadn't had any significant moisture, except for one snowstorm, since late December. So my plans revolved mostly around making sure we were protected from any grass fires. Then the Winds started. It's hard not to get annoyed when the day is nice and sunny and altogether perfect except for gusting winds that make doing anything unpleasant. Finally we started getting rain, over about a week, making everything extremely dreary.

But then, you get these perfect days, with sun, light breezes, and everything becomes worth it. The soil is moist to allow you to dig without problem. You project just comes together as you feel energized with purpose and sun and breezes and the view and the sky and green coming out everywhere and just life... It's been a very clear reminder that Taoist aren't supposed to fight Nature, they are supposed to be like Nature, and always remember to work when it is the time to work, rest when it is time to rest, and avoid struggling against things you cannot fight to begin with...

[Lunch Meat]

What a wonderful post! Thank you, Literata--I feel really uplifted right now.

[Kristin]

Wow... Thought this was beautifully written.

[Rowen]

Nice post! I've been struggling with nature and spirituality for a while now. I used to live in Texas and plenty of pagans, and trees and ants and things. Then I packed up and moved to NYC, and lost all connection to my "natural" roots, and for a while, felt like it was because I was living in a highly urban environment. I've been slowly learning how to be a pagan in a city, as opposed to a city pagan, or a living room pagan.

[Zigforas (who is not late to the conversation today)]

The only real response to the fact that death happens is, "I love you."

Beautiful. Thank you.
Your words remind me of this from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey:

But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

[Karen, who is still stoked about getting a Slactiverse link]

That was beautiful Literata. I love that the Slactiverse publishes works for every holiday members celebrate, too.

Mark, thank you for reminding me that perfectionism is principally a pathology, not something to be celebrated. Far more people suffer than benefit from it.

[Lonespark]

Happy Beltane, Walpurgisnacht, International Workers Day, etc., etc.

[Lonespark]

Slactivites, I am here with my husband and no kids. He's like, writing his autobiography, IDEK, but we're totally in the same room and it's awesome!

He does have an extraordinary story. He's overcome so @#$%ing much to be doing well in medical school, to be there at all, and I'm so proud I can't find the words.

[Lonespark]

Slacktivites, I mean.

Damn it.

Hail Freya.

Peace out.

[Literata]

Zigforas, thanks for the recommendation! Karen, thanks - I think we're still working on a few holidays, but I look forward to reading Eid al-Fitr posts here too eventually.

Lonespark, that's awesome. Hail Freya and all the Powers, and a blessed Beltane indeed!

[Luna]

This was really lovely. Thank you for sharing.

[Brin]

Let's see what the spammers have for us this time.

Unsubtle. So confusing I suspect it's a deliberate attempt to get people to click through just to try and figure out what they're talking about. I give it a 2.5.