Yet another merry May!

There's nothing quite like the way we celebrate Beltane here in the East Bay. We get up at 4 a.m. and head up to Inspiration Point in Tilden Regional Park. This part straddles the Berkeley Hills, and Inspiration Point has a clear vista to the east, the better to see the dawn.

I'm sure they didn't have the Pagan community in mind when they laid out the park 72 years ago, but Inspiration Point could not be a better site for our May day rituals. People gather in the pre-dawn darkness, some wrapped in blankets, parkas, or heavy sweaters. I wore my heavy black witch cape that I always wear on Samhain, which will come again in half a year.

Some of us crone types bring along our own lawn chairs, which we drag to the perimeter of the parking lot. When civil twilight starts to change to ordinarily twilight, we hear a minor-key fiddle tune off in the distance. Then two-by-two dancers from the Berkeley Morris process slowly into the  open area, each one carrying a set of deer antlers. They perform the slow and stately -- and very ancient -- Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, slowly advancing and retreating, clicking sets of horns together when they meet face to face.

Here's a video of a group--not the Berkeley Morris--performing the dance at a festival in the UK. This is exactly how the music sounds, but the version we see on Beltane is  danced more slowly and reverently.  And here's the tune being played on a concertina.

Often the dancers appear in a swirl of mist, but today it was clear and not nearly as cold as it's sometimes been in the past.  After this dance is completed, the Morris dances all the lively traditional May dances. They wear white trousers, and long-sleeved white shirts, dark red vests, leggins covered with bells, and black hats adorned--each to his or her own fancy--with ribbons, flowers and feathers.

In addition to the fiddle there are several concertinas or diatonic accordions, a mandolin, a muffled drum and an instrument that looks like an oboe but has a deeper sound. 

Sometimes the dancers wave white handkerchiefs or knock sticks together, Sometimes they form elaborate patterns like a windmill.

Lucy the Bear, who is coaxed forth from her den by the inner fires of Beltane makes an appearance, as does the fool, who wears a top hat, and smacks people on the head with the modern day equivalent of the jester's bladder: an inflated rubber glove painted to look like a chicken.  And they bring around trays of May cake, a lovely poppyseed cake, for everyone. Here's a link to a whole page of short amateur videos of the Berkeley Morris at Inspiration Point last Beltane.

When the sun actually peeps up on the horizon, the dancing stops and everyone joins in singing May carols. Yes, there really is such a thing as a May carol. My favorite is Jack o' the Green.

Then we have more dancing, finishing with a huge circle dance in which everyone participates.  And then we leave the park and head over to a friend's house for a fancy breakfast: crepes, strawberries, lemon sauce, almonds, muffins, fruit compote, sausage, bacon and probably a few other things I've forgotten.

Today after I left the breakfast, it was too lovely to go back home. I ran a few errands, then found a park on the Oakland harbor and sat there for a couple of hours, watching the sea birds and celebrating this wonderful holiday by being happy at being alone with myself. (Beltane is generally associated with couples and coupling and all sorts of goings on in the forest, to celebrate the beginning of the lusty month of May, so it's a real achievement to feel quite wonderful about celebrating part of the day in solitude).

Tonight I'm off to a bonfire/picnic with my coven sisters and a band with a seasonally appropriate name, Beltane Fire.  We're still waiting for Ms.  Ziggy to appear, and are hoping that the festivities tonight might convince her that life is a lot more interesting out here in the daylight rather than in utero.

I just realized I haven't yet hung the Green Man I made in pottery class out in the garden. Today would certainly be the day to bring his magic into the garden. I was waiting for the companion piece-- a head I made of the Roman Goddess Flora--to be finished, but she still has one more firing to go.  Definitely the two of the belong in the garden, today more than any other day.

It's been a lovely day, and it's the very first day off I've taken since I started working at the very big media company last September. All the sweeter for its rarity, I guess.

May May+Day Beltane Pagan Paganism Berkeley Park Tilden+Park Morris+Dance Horn+Dance Berkeley+Morris California Religion Sacred Celebrate Holiday Sabat

Comments

[Macha]

Not to be a pill or anything, but Jack in the Green is really a Spring Equinox song. There are lots and lots of Beltane songs, and we use Jack in the Green anyway, but technically it's not for Beltane. i.e., "...the Sun if half up and it tokens the hour..."