Beltane ~ also known as May Day

Thanks to the inspiration of our amazing friend Jenny, we were able to prepare and celebrate Beltane. Because of Jenny's amazing blog and recommendations, I bought the book called Celebrating the Great Mother by Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw. It's such an amazing book, so full of fun activities to help children be more connected to our Mother Earth...I really love it. Our personal celebration was very impromptu, but we pulled it together and it was a fun day for us girls at home. I don't think Adelaide even understands what the Earth is...but I tried to at least introduce her to the idea. We kind of made the day our own, and decided that this year we really wanted to focus on making an Alter, and our own goddesses to have in our gardens at home and our community garden, to bring their magical energy for healthy crops.

Adelaide started the morning by drawing goddesses on paper with her oil pastels. I was really amazed because one of them was done with lots of bright Red, a beautiful face, and then a big black scribble of a baby in her belly. It as perfect! Too perfect to hang outside actually, so we had to come up with more. We started outside with her basket to gather rocks, sticks and anything else that reminded us of a goddess or looked like a goddess to us.

We also gathered some of my FAVORITE lilac flowers, as well as some of our blooming wisteria, and some fresh herbs. Once our basket was full we made our way back inside. It was COLD and rainy. Emmylou came along, snug in the Maya wrap.

One we had our supplies we got out ribbon, paint, clay and some sequins to adorn them. They were beautiful!!

Once our goddesses were all ready, we got our alter together and added them to it. We hung the goddesses painted in the morning, we added our flowers, all of the little goddesses that we had hiding around the house, and all of our red and orange candles to represent fire. We even made the alter on top of our wood stove, also to represent fire. Once everything was ready, Adelaide rang the singing bowl bell, and we lit our candles.

We then held hands and danced in circles singing our own songs about goddesses and our Mother Earth. We talked about what was "blooming" in our family, and then Adelaide rang the bell once more, and blew out the candles.

 We then marched our goddess out to their gardens to bring us fertility in the coming harvest season.

Two of my most beloved goddesses, both given to me by goddesses themselves. Thank you! xox



And our goddess in the making....