Beltane 2008

What an amazing day today has been - which was just as I expected!

I was awake and getting dressed at 04.50 and left the house at 05.30 to pick my friend up and set off for Chalice Well. Glastonbury for their Beltane Ceremony.

Chalice Well is a scared place and this is something that is tangible as you enter the gardens. Today, as I walked in to this now familiar landscape, the energy of the season was evident. New growth, buds bursting open, flowers welcoming the morning sun. The sky, although cloudy, was blue, the sunrise simply incredible and the birdsong was a chorus of praise to the Goddess and God. One just had to join in with them! Seriously, I've been singing all day!



Arthur's Court and was strewn with little tea lights as people lit them when passing by. Each one a small fire representing the Beltane Fire and carrying the intentions of each person who carefully placed them there. The Wellhead was also alight with tea lights.

People were gathering with expectant hearts and it was just so wonderful to see how many different people were there. People from so many walks of life, with so many rich, varied and unique experiences of life, on many different and varied spiritual paths, yet united in spirit.



As the ceremony commenced and the directions were being called in I was so aware of being sacred. That sounds such a pretentious thing to say, and I really don't mean it like that, but I just knew that I had no reason to be cowed or bowed because I was part of the universe! I had such a sense of being a 'star' as Crowley says, and being part of the All. I was one with All Nature because I am part of All Nature and this is what I was always intended to be. I had a powerful sense of taking up my rightful place in the Order of Things and, although I have a lot to learn and a very long way to go, where I am now is more than okay because I am where I am supposed to be! The sense of joy this created within me words cannot express.

I love private and intimate ceremony, but I also love taking part in these public events because there's something very wonderful about sharing with others and knowing and experiencing that deep connection we have with each other. Celebrating the fact that we are all One, we are Sacred, we are Goddess and God because we are in Them and They are in us.



This joy was celebrated by all as people jumped the Beltane Fire and weaved the ribbons of the Maypole. It was a joy to me that the ceremony focused on the Divine Union of Goddess and God, as this has been something of a personal journey for me. It's an area where, as a gay man, I have struggled over the years and the comment 'we all have masculine and feminine within us' however well intentioned can sound trite at times. But today the sense of that amazing spiritual creativity that is a powerful force within me was so tangible and real as this simple ceremony cemented that divine truth within me. For that I am both grateful and humbled. A simple truth, something I have known for more years than I care to remember, but something that today at Chalice Well seemed to come home to me in a more powerful way than ever before.



So, as I sensed, this Beltane has been a powerful and renewing experience for me. I'm looking to the rest of the year with a sense of anticipation. One cannot walk a path such as this without the continual process of deep transformation and so I know that change is a constant. She changes everything She touches, and Goddess has certainly touched me!