Your Beltane Wedding
Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway is excited to offer traditional and interfaith Beltane Weddings and Handfastings.
By Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway
Many couples choose to celebrate their love with a sacred love ceremony on the Celtic holiday known as Beltane.
I wanted to learn the ancient tradition and was honored to be the first U.S. Officiant to complete the "How to Conduct a Handfasting Ceremony" Training with the Sacred Celebrant Academy in Glastonbury, England.
You can have a handfasting ritual as a committment cermony or as part of your wedding.
Also known as the Celtic May Day festival and a Gaelic May Day festival, Beltane is about halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. It traditionally begins at sunset on April 30th and lasts all day on the first of May.
Beltane is a time to celebrate the rites of spring with frolicking, fun, and expressions of love.
Ancient Beltane celebrations included dancing around a maypole made of oak and ribbons, dancing around bonfires, straying into the woods with romance in mind, and going "a-maying" to gather spring flowers.
Beltane Celebrations for Modern Couples
You can call upon seasonal energies to create meaning for you and your partner.
1. Plan a release ritual on April 30: Beltane Eve is a particularly potent time fro releasing the old and welcoming the new.
2. Partake in dewy delights at dawn: Go outside early the next morning, let your feet touch the grass, and take in the good energies of this sacred day.
3. Perform your Beltane ritual for couples on May 1st: If you and your significant other are long-term partners, this is a time of renewal and rededication of devotion. If you're dating and in love but not ready to marry, consider the old handfasting custom, whereby you commit to love one another for a year and a day (to be renewed next year). Feel free to create an indoor or outdoor altar with May flowers and items that represent the elements, or just use the outdoors and nature as a living altar.
*Thanks to Danielle Blackwood, author of A Lantern in the Dark: Navigate Life's Crossroads with Story, Ritual, and Sacred Astrology, for sharing these tips.
This History of this Holiday of Love
Beltane originated among the Celtic peoples of Western Europe and the British Isles, particularly Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, home of my ancestors.
In ancient times, two great fires would be lit, made with healing herbs. The light would guide the townspeople through the night, and some would jump skyclad over the flames and or rides their animals between the two fires to be blessed by the sacred smoke.
Beltane heralds the beginning of the bright time of year, a time when we emerge from the darkness of winter into lighter, airy days. Makes us want to open our hearts and feel the warmth of the sun.
The ancients had been cooped up in doors for a long winter. Beltane came at the peak of spring, and brought life back to the people and the land.
In Beltane: The Lovers Entwine, it's explained this way: "Beltane, or May Day, as it also known, occurs at the peak of Spring. This is the time of year when the earth basks in the gentle embrace of the sun's warmth. The warmth of the sun helps plants blossom, crops fertilize and the rivers overflow with the melted snow of winter past. Animals frolic about searching for mates. People fall in love and consume each other in fiery passion."
The reason this holiday is so sexy yet sacred is that it is symbolic of the passion and love between the Goddess and God. Divine passion, it was believed, was evident in all of nature's bounty springing forth this time of year.
The ancient custom in villages was to have a youmg couple to represent the King and Queen of the May. Dancing around the maypole was a focal point of activity. The Maypole was made of oak, and had ribbons of many colors. Women would grab a ribbon and dance around it and the last woman left holding the ribbon would be crowned the May Queen.
It is said that a wedding feast, symbolically honoring the Divine, was prepared in advance of the dance around the may pole and that all would partake.
Bringing in the May
A beautiful customs associated with this festival was called "bringing in the May." The young people would go out into the fields on April 30th and gather flowers with which to bedeck themselves, their families and their homes.
They would process back into the villages, stopping at each home to leave flowers, and to receive the best of food and drink that the home had to offer.
They were symbolic messengers of renewal and this also represented the ritual sharing of food -- the substance of life -- and the ideal that this generosity must keep circulating.
We can all go "a Maying" by doing something nice for others or sharing a spring ritual with the one you love!