The Flower Maiden was radiant in her light green flaxen wedding dress made by the nature spirits that came alive in the newly flourishing landscape and wore around her delicate shoulders a cloak of light blue in honour of the sky. She gently gripped a bouquet of early summer blooms, a spread of the vivid colours of bluebells, buttercups, cowslip, herb Robert, thrift, vetch, sorrel, thyme, dandelions and primroses. She looked and felt beautiful.
Beside her stands her husband to be, the handsome Divine Son dressed regally in a gold suit under a blood red cloak. He had tucked into his leather belt a silver sword, a gift from the gods as a wedding present.
It was their destiny to meet six weeks earlier when the Divine Son arrived into our world during a cosmic boar hunt at the Spring Equinox. He fell in love with the beautiful maiden as soon as his eyes meet hers and they chose Beltaine, the start of summer and the beginning of the light half of the Celtic year to marry.
The Flower Maiden was called Brigit and was the goddess that triggers nature to reawaken and grow. She was about to become Mother Earth. The Divine Son is Maponos, the light and warmth of the sun allowing nature to grow and bloom. He will soon be Father Sun. Together, after the Sacred Marriage they will fertilize the land once more.
The wedding procession is led by the Fool, the agent of transformation who leads by example rather than duty. The Fool does not follow blindly but shows the way with vision and passion; he is a free thinker and knows his own mind. At his command the bride and groom followed by family and friends, acquaintances and well wishers follow the Fool into the slowly regenerating forest rich with new life and vibrancy. New buds and fresh leaves are bringing the forest alive and beams of sunlight flood through the branches, lighting a path towards a hallowed clearing in the south, the direction of the goddess and the creative fire.
Suddenly a mysterious woman cloaked in brown jumps out in front of the procession screaming and spitting with aggression, halting the sacred march in its tracks. The old Crone throws off her cloak to reveal her true self; she is Brigit’s dark twin sister Cailleach, the Queen of Winter and goddess of the dark half of the Celtic year. She is determined to kill the light force of the Bride before the influence of summer could be felt in the land and flies towards Brigit with her staff. Maponos steps forward bravely and with one thrust of his sword slices the belly of the would be assassin open releasing all the eggs of fertility that the Crone had hidden inside her sending it spilling onto the ground.
With the old witch dead the Fool continues the march to the clearing and performs the sacred marriage between Heaven and earth that symbolically weds the Tribe to the Land and spirit to matter. Beneath a birch tree the sacred couple are married. The birch is the embodiment of the Mother Goddess and is associated with beginnings and regeneration. Her spirit offers opportunities for growth.
Unseen in the crowd surrounding the ceremony stands the Stag Lord freshly arrived from the Otherworld bringing with him the vitality that animates the new born beasts in the forest. He is Cernunnos, strong and fertile and has taken a fancy to the new bride.
The ancient Celtic festivals began at dusk with the dark night representing the passage between the womb and the world. Daybreak represented rebirth of the sun with its light and warmth allowing life to exist on the sacred planet.
This Beltaine eve was welcomed in at an old ruined church five minutes’ walk from my home. It sits on a cliff edge overlooking the English Channel in a valley that has a castle on each hill top. To the north is Rufus Castle originally built at the same time as the church soon after the Norman invasion as protection to the sacred land and the island population. On the southern hill sits Pennsylvania Castle constructed at the turn of the nineteenth Century to profit from the ruined church in its newly acquired grounds on the east cliffs of Portland.
As the sun set a circle was created, the elementals called in and the gods and goddesses asked to witness the recreation of the Sacred Marriage, the coming together of the Flower Maiden and the Sun King that will ensure the continued union between Heaven and Earth.
Blessed Beltaine.
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