Love and Joy at Beltane!

Well, now Beltane really is almost upon us and the blog will enter a temporary lull as I go off to celebrate at Camp. When I looked out of my office window yesterday at the sweeping vista of the Kennet valley I was struck by the sudden acceleration in the greening - even over the last two days a growing green blush has spread over the landscape and it held me in a moment of sheer euphoria.

The gift I offer for Beltane is an extract from a meditation which I adapted from a piece written by Mike Scott of the Waterboys - I really love the Universal Hall album which was inspired by Mike’s time at the Findhorn Community on the Moray coast in Scotland. The meditation seems to hold within it the joy of this time of year, and the power of Love as an all-pervading and emcompassing ecstasy, which could be interpreted as having a sexual or a divine focus:

“It is a bright spring day, just before Beltane. You can feel the pulsing of the Earth’s heartbeat beneath your feet and new leaves are unfurling on the branches above you – enchanting you with the intensity of their new colour. Breathing deeply, you can smell the burgeoning green all around you, mingling with the richness of the earth here, nourished as it is by the trees themselves. You sense the blessings of the pulsing Earth, and look upward to the clear sky - all things coming into the centre of your being within the beauty of the wood.

Then you begin to notice that something is happening. You feel different, something more intense than before. This feeling is sweeter, it emanates from inside of you, from inside your heart. You can hear your heart beating. It’s like an engine burning in your chest. It feels vast, an ocean of fire. Then emotion runs through you, like a quickening. Its like all the loves of your life rolled into one. You feel spectacularly and absolutely alive.

And now the wood looks different. Everything seems even more alive. An invisible and great spirit is here and all is transformed. Suddenly the woods erupt with the sound of running feet. You turn and look. Your friends are running towards you. They slow and stop, excited and breathless. Again, the woods fall silent, until in words etched out of the air and silence your friends speak:

“Do you feel it too?” they say, and as you look into each other’s eyes, reality melts. The wood explodes into fragments in front of your eyes. And then you find yourself standing in the centre of a very bright light. It doesn’t hurt your eyes; it feels warm and welcoming, and indescribably blissful. You and your friends are standing at the centre of Love. You are made of Love. The wood is Love.

Everything is Love.”

Many blessings upon your Summer