With the veil between the worlds again at their thinnest (just like at Samhain), our Dreams and Visions are able to cross the threshold from abstract thought & desire into 3D reality.
Beautiful people, today is the day we traditionally celebrate the High Holy Day of Beltane in the Southern Hemisphere! Brightest blessings!! (Although, in reality, Beltane is actually held on 8 November, this year. So, there is still time to tend to Ostara's activities, if you haven't quite finished.)
Let's be clear ... it's not Halloween, no matter how much spooky stuff you may see in the stores! Ugh. Goodness, I even saw one article, today, warning us to not accidentally make 'Ghost Water' on tonight's Full Moon. Fear not! ;-)
Please work with the actual flow of Life around us, rather than blindly commit to the calendar of the Northern Hemisphere, which is six months out of step with our actual seasons. I know ... I keep saying the same thing over and over. I'm just trying to beat the point over your head! LOL!!
Okay. Let's recap before we dive in:
(Scroll down, if you'd like to skip the recap.)
We received the vision of how Life could be at Samhain when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest. At Yule, with the dying of the Light of the old Sun, we identified those aspects of our own Light that needed to die, too. Yule is also when the fragile new Sun is reborn, heralding a new Light into the world. So, too, we were invited to birth new aspects of our own Light into the world ... especially those parts of ourselves that are necessary to bring our new vision to fruition.
So far, so good?
During Imbolc season, we were encouraged to get all our 'ducks in a row', and to carefully plan for the year ahead. Imbolc guided us to make sure we have the time, the tools, and the resources we'll need to accomplish our goals.
With the Spring Equinox on 22 September, we arrived at Ostara, a Crisis Point on the Great Wheel. During this past season, our clear guidance was twofold:
a) Take massive, determined action on our goals; and
b) Repudiate the structures, beliefs, and habits of our past that no longer serve us. Remember, if this repudiation is not definite enough, and we're only half-hearted in our attempts to forge a new way forward, we'll undermine this entire cycle of growth.
(We still have until 8 November, 2020, before we truly enter Beltane, so you still have time for Ostara's work, if necessary.)
And now, we're entering Beltane's season - the 5th Sabbat on the Great Wheel of the Year!
Dates: 8 November - 20 December, 2020
This High Holy Day is a celebration of pollination and conception! (Note: not birth, yet.) Continuing with our gardening analogy, let's consider the seed ideas that we planted at Ostara. Have you been taking massive, determined action on those ideas? If so, they will have grown into strong, young plants, by now, covered in blossoms that are ready to be pollinated. This is a time of blessed bees humming in our gardens, both metaphorically and literally. Beltane is a celebration of this fertility and the bountiful harvest it then leads to!
Beltane's magick relates to conception ... the deeper mysteries of stabilising Spirit in matter.
As at Samhain (ie: the Sabbat directly opposite Beltane on the Great Wheel), the veil between the worlds is again at its thinnest. But instead of Life leaving our realm, it is now rushing INTO our dense, material world. Anything that exists in this physical realm was once just an abstract idea or vision. At some point, though, it had to cross the threshold between the worlds and anchor here in tangible, physical form, yes?
Beltane is the Sabbat where "thoughts become things".
Beltane is where we anchor the spark of Life/Spirit of something into dense, physical reality.
For those of us who are more scientifically minded, instead of envisioning something crossing the threshold between the worlds, think of the Quantum wave collapsing into physical form. We're saying the same thing, in different ways. (For those who understand numerology, can you see that we're on 7's continuum here, with the scientists at one end and those who are more spiritually inclined at the other?)
The Fire Society in Edinburgh revived the ancient Beltane celebrations in the 1980s.
© Jeff J Mitchell via Getty Images
Celebrating our Libidinal Life Force Energy!
Beltane is perhaps the most exciting, free, pulsing, passionate, creative Sabbat of all!
This is when we embrace the energising, life-affirming energy of fire. Beltane calls us to wholeheartedly celebrate what it means to be alive! We tap into that instinctive part of ourselves that loves living ... our fiery spark of life/Spirit that is here, stabilised in matter, in our own body!
In so doing, we honour and engage our full libidinal force. We celebrate our creativity and our fertility.
And by intentionally tapping into this energy, we channel it to our Samhain vision, to help it cross the threshold, too. At Beltane, we're co-creating with Life itself. Further, we lend our energy to the Whole of Life.
Traditionally, Beltane is when couples would be handfasted, vowing to be committed to each other for ‘a year and a day’. And it's when young people would go “a-Maying" - ie: they would make love in the woods and the fields, laying directly on the Earth Herself.
Children conceived at Beltane were considered especially blessed.
By intentionally offering our fertility to all of Life in this way, we engage in a form of Sympathetic Magick, ensuring abundant crops for the upcoming season for all of us, for the Whole.
(Note: It's called "a-Maying" because, in the Northern Hemisphere, Beltane happens in May. Remember, we're six months out of synch with each other.)
Purification via FIRE:
At Beltane, whole communities came together to dance around Maypoles as a fertility rite (yes, they were enormous phallic symbols of fertility). More importantly, though, special Beltane bonfires (called Teineigen) were lit for everyone to congregate and dance around. The Celts would build these fires from nine sacred woods: birch, oak, rowan, willow, hawthorn, hazel, apple, grapevine and fir. The flames, smoke, and ashes of these sacred fires were considered to have protective, purifying powers that enhanced fertility.
Livestock would be herded between two sacred fires to cleanse and protect them from illness, as well as to bless them with fertility.
Couples would leap the Beltane bonfire to pledge their love and loyalty to each other, and to enhance their fertility.
And individuals would leap the fire to purify themselves; their hearts/minds; their visions; and their ability to co-create with Life.
Consider ...
a) What holds us back from attaining our goals? From truly co-creating with the Life-force itself? Whatever it is, can we willingly surrender this to Beltane's fires so that we may be purified and made ready? So that we can burn away any resistance we might have to the growth that needs to happen during this phase? So that we can be perfected as vessels for our ambitions?
b) And where can we purify/improve the structures we've been building to make sure they're also worthy vessels to express our dreams and vision through?
Hold your intentions clearly in your heart and mind, and leap the fire - literally or symbolically! (If you don't have access to a real Beltane bonfire, perhaps visualise a purifying fire ritual for yourself.)
May we only allow that which serves our vision to be part of this new conception. Surrender everything else to the Beltane fires.
Working with the Devic Realm:
Instead of our beloved ancestors (as at Samhain/Halloween), at Beltane we invite the Fey or the Fair Folk to visit us - ie: the nature spirits from the devic realm that support all of Life to grow and flourish on this side of the veil. We seek their wisdom, their support, and their loving blessings for a fruitful year ahead.
While the veils are thin, we can also seek visions and guidance from the Otherworld, along with the blessings of the Deities we work with. Pay attention to your dreams. Consult the tarot. Drum and enter trance. Sit in a fairy ring (if there is a gateway open, welcoming you in). Whatever calls to you!
Throw on your gorgeous fairy wings and a stunning crown of flowers, rather than a ghoul's mask, this Beltane. Go, dance around a sacred bonfire and make merry! Purify yourself and celebrate your powerful life force.
Blessed Beltane to all of us!
Activities for Beltane Season:
If we're not already, it'd be a great idea to establish the following two practices while the veils are thin - ie: Visualisation combined with a Daily Gratitude Practice.
Visualisation:
By visualizing our dreams and ambitions as though we've already accomplished them, we're rehearsing our future and creating an internal map to get there, to paraphrase Dr Joe Dispenza. We're accessing the Quantum Field of energy ... beckoning beyond the Veil to the Otherworld of Spirit, while the veil is thin ... and calling our dreams forth into Reality.
It's the whole 'Thoughts become things' magick of Beltane.
Manifesting. The Law of Attraction.
Dr Joe asks us, "Does your thinking create your environment or does your environment create your thinking?" Excellent question, right??
He tells us that through visualisation we can:
"... install the neurological hardware in our brain to look like the event has already occurred. Now, the brain is no longer a record of the past ... Now, it's a map to the future.
I think the hardest part is teaching our body emotionally what the future will feel like ahead of the experience. You can't wait for your success to feel empowered. You can't wait for your wealth to feel abundant. You can't wait for your new relationship to feel love. You can't wait for your healing to feel whole. That's the old model of reality of cause and effect ... waiting for something outside of us to change how we feel inside of us. Under this old, Newtonian model, when we feel better inside of us, then we pay attention to whatever caused it in our environment. But what this means is that most people live their whole life living in lack, waiting for something to change "out there".
This is the difference between living as a victim and living as a creator of your world. Instead of saying, "I am this way because of this person, or that thing, or this experience. They made me think and feel this way." This is disempowering. When we switch this around, though, we become the creator of our own world. Then we start saying, "My thinking and my feeling is changing the outcome of my life." Now, this is a whole different game. We start believing that we're co-creators of our reality. And we are."
So, visualisation offers a number of very important benefits:
* It helps empower us as a co-creator with Life.
* It activates an internal map to our future, freeing us from our commitment to the past.
* It activates our creative subconscious, which will start generating creative ideas to achieve our goals.
* It activates the Quantum Field, thereby constellating our charts, and drawing into our life the very people, resources, and circumstances we need in order to achieve our dreams.
* It keeps us focused on our goals and builds our internal motivation/discipline so that we'll take the necessary actions to bring our dreams to fruition.
* It channels our libidinal, creative, Life Force energy to our dreams and ambitions, clearing and smoothing their path to this side of the veil.
As Jack Canfield says, "Visualization is really quite simple. You sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine — in as vivid detail as you can — what you would be looking at, feeling, and experiencing, if the dream you have were already realised. Imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal result."
Do this meditative, visualisation process multiple times a day, every day. Before you go to sleep. First thing when you wake. During your meditation.
Final words from Dr Joe: "If you're not being defined by a vision of the future, then you're left with the old memories of the past and you will be predictable in your life."
Gratitude Practice:
Let's offer our gratitude (in advance) for the blessings, both seen and unseen, coming our way. Give thanks for our dreams and ambitions coming to fruition, in advance.
As Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People sing in Black as Night,
"I believe in the good things coming."
Actually, a great mantra to sing this season (indeed, all the time) would be Beautiful Chorus' Thank You for Your Blessings. It's such a beautiful, simple mantra to repeat as often as possible throughout the day. If you're unfamiliar with their work, they sing entrancing meditative songs, in a cappella. (Love their work!)
Here are the lyrics:
Thank you for your blessings.
Thank you for your blessings. Your guidance is wise indeed.
Thank you for your blessings.
Thank you for your blessings. Your lessons live on in me.
Click here to listen to their beautiful song.
Importantly, may we thank the Great Mother for the bounty she continues to grace us with, year after year. And may we honour Her bees ... yes, Her literal bees who pollinate our gardens, but also the Great Mother's Priestesses, who exist in many forms among us. May they grace our Path and help stabilise our dreams on this side of the veil.
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life
was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
– Meister Eckhart
I hope this has been helpful in understanding the energy of this moment, here in the Southern Hemisphere, and how best to engage it. If it has been of service to you, please feel free to share this within your circles and to subscribe to my newsletter. If you have any insights to share, or questions, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you!
Peace
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