All year, as each of our eight great holidays rolls around, I always find the sabbat of the season to be my favorite. But Beltane is above and beyond special. It seems as if the Beltane season lasts for at least a week, with rituals and parties and maypole dances daily through the first few days of May.
My Beltane celebration began early this morning when I crawled out of bed at 4:30 a.m. so I'd be able to get to Inspiration Point in Berkeley's Tilden Park well before dawn. That's where I joined about 200 Pagan stalwarts and the Berkeley Morris to sing and dance the sun up, to wish everyone "Merry May," and rejoice in the verdant beauty of the fullness of springtime.
The Berkeley Morris always begins the celebration with the 800-year-old Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. A fiddle and a mandolin playing in a minor key lead a slow procession of dancers bearing horns who advance and retreat, gently clicking the horns together as the two ranks of dancers come close to each other face-to-face. This was well before dawn, so my first photo shows only silhouettes against the first light in the sky.
Then the light level increased slowly, allowing me to capture some of the color, but not all the motion. I like this rather ghostly shot of two dancers in mid leap.
Poppyseed cake is always offered to all spectators and participants from a flower-bedecked container.
All the dancing stopped for one magical moment when the sun burst above the hills. We sang a few May carols and watched the rising sun turn everyone's face golden.
Some Pagan families have celebrated Beltane at Inspiration Point for more than two decades. You can see from these photos what a wide range of ages showed up: everything from all-a-wonder four-year-olds who weren't quite sure whether Lucy the bear was real all the way to silver-haired crones.
The Fool is an important personage in any Morris. S/he acts as the liaison between the dancers and the spectators, making the presentation participatory for everyone. This particular fool uses a blown-up surgical glove decorated like a chicken for his fool's bladder. It's an object of great fascination to the children.
My coven sister Becky partnered with the Fool in the grand circle dance.
This was a clear but chilly Beltane morning, with the non-dancers bundled up in parkas or huddled under blankets.
Beltane clearly brings out the fey in our community. It's one of our "fun" holidays, as opposed to a solemn and somber ritual.
At the conclusion of the dance, the Berkeley Morris posed for a score of photographers, including one of their own.
Afterward, many of us traveled over to a friend's house in Piedmont for a sumptuous breakfast, and a performance of several more May carols by Women and Song. And finally I persuaded the hostess to come out into her fairytale garden for her own Beltane morn photo. Yes, it's true, Pagans have more fun. A whole lot more fun!
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