And even more Beltane

Our Beltane baby has arrived.  Beltane night we danced around the fire pit at the Emeryville Marina, in hopes that Sarah's still-in-utero daughter might be inspired to show up and join the fun. She waited until very late the next day. But finally she's here: the first baby born to anyone since the coven was formed.

We'd been calling the baby ``Ziggy''--short for zygote-- ever since we knew Sarah was pregnant. Sarah and Todd were closemouthed about what her real name would be. So we didn't find out until after she arrived that she is Aradia Zorah.  Which is certainly an appropriately witchy name for coven's first daughter. But I find myself wondering if she'll ever really shake off Ziggy, as we've all called her that for so long.

She's an 8 pound 12 ounce baby who was 21 inches long when she was born. That's nearly as big as my largest baby, and my kids all grew up to be over six feet tall. So it will be interesting to see what she grows up to be.

With Ziggy safely arrived, I felt no compunction about heading off to Bodega Bay yesterday for yet another Beltane event, the maypole dance hosted annually by my friend Anne Hill.  My dancing days are over because of my cruddy crone knee and its myriad problems, but I went anyway, glad for another chance to celebrate Beltane, see friends, and enjoy the long green drive through western Sonoma and Marin counties.

Bodega Bay is where Hitchcock shot The Birds, that very scary 1950s film about the birds that take over the universe.  I did see a lot of birds on the way, including turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks riding the winds, and red-winged blackbirds perched in the skeletons of last year's wild fennel plants.

This particular maypole is about 25 feet tall, a sapling of some kind that was cut several years ago. It's topped with a bouquet of flowers. The dancers all hold ribbons attached to the top of the pole and dance and dance until the pole is tightly wrapped in a multicolored weave of ribbons. This takes a bit of time as people weave in and out and round and round.

Afterward, the pole seems to hum with the energy and intentions of everyone who danced around it.  It's like a conduit between the energies of earth and sky. Which makes sense as the may pole is intended to evoke the Yggdrasil, the world tree.

We haven't had much late rain this season, so already the fields and hillsides out in the west counties are turning golden. The wild radishes, California poppies, vetch and wild lupine are all abloom everywhere.  Hilllsides were dotted with black and white Holsteins or flocks of sheep, complete with gambolling baby lambs. Farm stands were selling organic strawberries, and the roads were filled with bicyclists enjoying a mild spring day. It was a good day to spend far away from both the computer screen and the very big media company.

maypole Beltane Pagan Paganism California spring Bodega+Bay Marin Sonoma dance