Last night we had our Honouring Beltaine Ritual - 8 adults, a maypole and coloured ribbons to dance around it, a series of deepening-heart exercises and a feast.
The maypole worked beautifully - a youngish camphor (a pest tree in this region) my partner and son cut down and then set into the middle of the lawn… Now woven with different coloured ribbons in a beautiful pattern. Before we did the dance, we each created charms, carrying our hopes and wishes around love - we cut them out of coloured cardboard and threaded them onto our ribbons, so that as we danced, and wove, our wishes ended up bound into the weaving. It’s now like a decorative sculpture in the West (to the West of the house) and we’re thinking just to leave it there…
Part of our ritual was also a beautiful men’s-group/women’s-group section, where the groups speak one at a time, with the other group surrounding them and therefore hearing - but not participating in - what is spoken. This is a lovely way of sharing both amongst the sexes and between them, as each group gets to hear the others’ experience. In this case, both groups were sharing their deepest experiences of love… hopefully some insights were gained!