Queries for Beltane / May Day

I'm facilitating a year-long group, Personal Growth on the Wheel of the Year, from Fall Equinox 2025 to Fall Equinox 2026.  

We're meeting for Beltane / May Day in the northern hemisphere this week.  

It's half-way between Spring Equinox, when the days and nights are close to equal, and Summer Solstice, which is the longest day -- the day with the most hours of light -- and the shortest night -- the night with the fewest hours of darkness.  It can often really feel like Spring is springing forth! 

May Day is also a workers' holiday -- a time of solidarity, and of resistance to exploitation.  Solidarity forever! 

One Beltane tradition is the weaving of the May Pole -- a tall pole we adorn with ribbons which we then weave together, often while singing songs. 

At Beltane in Roses, Too! Tradition, while we weave the May Pole, we focus on what we are weaving into our lives and into our communities, and the small actions we take, individually and together, to resist oppression -- and, especially right now, the rising tide of fascism.  

And so I share these queries for Beltane / May Day:

• What are the markers of Spring you are noticing where you are?
• What are you weaving into your life this Beltane?
• What are we weaving into our communities this Beltane?
• What acts of resistance are we weaving into our lives, individually and collectively?

a tall pole stretching up to the sky, with three sprigs of lilac at the top, and many colourful ribbons -- especially yellow, light blue, and dark blue -- against a sunny blue sky, with tall evergreens in the background.
May Pole from Ravenna Ravine Beltane 2009, (c) Stasa Morgan-Appel

A blessed Samhain, and Samhain queries

 Blessed Samhain to you.

This is the Witches' New Year, and the Sabbat where we honor those who have gone before and welcome those who have been newly born.  

Some possible queries for you to think about: 

• Who are your ancestors, literal, but also spiritual and cultural? 

• Are there people you've been taught are your ancestors, in any of those senses, who really aren't?  How are you letting them go?    

• Who has gone before whom do you honor?  (Who has gone before whom you don't honor?) 

• What endings are you honoring?

• Who are you mourning? 

• What new beginnings are you honoring? 

• Who are you welcoming?  

Three lit tea light candles in the dark, via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triptic_of_candles.jpg

Queries for Samhain

A blessed Samhain and New Year to you. 

Who are the ancestors you're honoring, physical and spiritual?
Who are the dead you are remembering?
What losses and endings are you marking?

Who are the new babies you are welcoming?
What people and new beginnings have been born in your life this year?

(c) Laura Treadway photography.  Used with permission.  http://lauratreadway.com/