Beltane 2010 - a reading (on YouTube)
As frost retreats from sunlight, winter trickles into spring. Snowmelt fills the northern passes as torrents of wildflowers flow down the mountainsides like honey drizzled into tea.
The sweet scent of whitethorn battles with the juniper heaped upon the need-fires whose smoke weaves a web of protection against the Otherworld as we approach the Eve of May. Bonfires besiege the forest where the dark horned king calls his spirits out. He seeks the pattern in the burlwood, the grain in wisps of smoke. He performs divinations in a mat of pine needles, interpreting how one lays atop another, enchanting sacred pools and casting for a reflection of his fate come fall.
Shrouded in brightness and morning fog, an ivory maiden becomes the huntress in white doeskins as she stalks the trees in search of a sacred hart. Last night, her lover was stolen by the Wild Hunt, transformed into the stag she seeks to pierce with a faerie arrow loosed from her tiny, elfin bow. Pursuit by Wodan's wolf pack has left him weary and marks him easy prey.
With the stinging note from the pluck of one high harp string, they are forever intertwined, the huntress and the forest king, ancient avatars of the Great Mother and the Antlered God who shield their unruly brood as they hold the moon at bay. With a little luck, their lesser children might glimpse the stars this night and know from whence they came.
© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III
As frost retreats from sunlight, winter trickles into spring. Snowmelt fills the northern passes as torrents of wildflowers flow down the mountainsides like honey drizzled into tea.
The sweet scent of whitethorn battles with the juniper heaped upon the need-fires whose smoke weaves a web of protection against the Otherworld as we approach the Eve of May. Bonfires besiege the forest where the dark horned king calls his spirits out. He seeks the pattern in the burlwood, the grain in wisps of smoke. He performs divinations in a mat of pine needles, interpreting how one lays atop another, enchanting sacred pools and casting for a reflection of his fate come fall.
Shrouded in brightness and morning fog, an ivory maiden becomes the huntress in white doeskins as she stalks the trees in search of a sacred hart. Last night, her lover was stolen by the Wild Hunt, transformed into the stag she seeks to pierce with a faerie arrow loosed from her tiny, elfin bow. Pursuit by Wodan's wolf pack has left him weary and marks him easy prey.
With the stinging note from the pluck of one high harp string, they are forever intertwined, the huntress and the forest king, ancient avatars of the Great Mother and the Antlered God who shield their unruly brood as they hold the moon at bay. With a little luck, their lesser children might glimpse the stars this night and know from whence they came.
© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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Once again, short, but I'm not sure I had much more to say.
I'm not sure I should even try to explain this one. Suffice to say, most of the symbols are Celtic, based either on the Gaelic Beltane or the Welsh Calan Mai (or Nos Galan Mai, kind of a Halloween of spring). With the exception of the Wild Hunt, which is Norse along with Wodan, and the Great Mother and the Antlered God whose torrid relationship predates recorded history.
So do these messages reflect what I believe? Unlikely. They are just nice Jungian symbols that resonate somewhere deep in the primitive center of my brain, the part that feels the invisible eyes watching from the forest, the part that alternately fears and embraces a moonless night.
I hope you enjoy the first of May with whatever meaning that it brings.