Beltane (1 May 2018)

Beltane (May Day) is an ancient Celtic festival; one associated with fire, sex, fertility, and renewal. It is the day the Maiden goddess comes together with the Green Man - they fall in love and consummate their union to become the May Queen and May King. The Wheel of the Year turns, and so we move from the tenderness and tentativeness of Spring into the fullness and vitality of Summer. 

Hawthorn, or May flowers. Hawthorn, birch, and rowan are the trees sacred to Beltane. Hawthorn is the tree of sexuality and fertility, while birch represents love and fertility. Rowan is the tree of healing and protection. 

The Beltane Fire Festival, in Scotland. 

May Day was the traditional time for handfasting ceremonies, where couples would come together and declare a betrothal period of a year-and-a-day. After the time was up, they could choose to part without any stigma or community ill-will. 

I'm near my year-and-a-day mark here in Boston (May 23). There have been many times this past wheel-turn where I would have broken the union if I could. Boston, for all its historic charms, is as uncomfortable as an ill-fitting wool sweater. I'm not happy here. This is not my home. I think that as long as I live here, I'll still feel temporary. 

But I want to feel temporary here. I want my bones to know that I feel their ache: the way they separate, pulling West; the way they burn cold at the touch of the Atlantic, like a heathen at a baptism. The ache means we haven't settled. And that's settled two ways: we haven't dug in, found permanence, and we won't acquiesce to a place that doesn't feel right. 

The violets here are different than the ones out west, but I still love them. 

I have been hibernating here, or something close to it. I enjoyed the brief Boston summer last year, and the gentle if short autumn. But I haven't been happy often. I know I'm depressed, but it's not a sadness. More than anything it's a grayness, a total lack of motivation, and the gnawing of anxiety. I feel paralyzed by doing anything that adds at all to my schedule, not wanting to go out with the friends I have here or make plans with friends from afar. I let my work with The Vaude Villains wither, relying too heavily on Crystal to carry us. I let my work with Ouija Broads dwindle to the bare minimum, again relying on my creative partner Liz to hold our weight. 

Carry. Carrying. To carry. 

In the Greek Persephone Myth, Persephone is carried to the Underworld against her will by Hades. Hades falls in love with Persephone, the wild springtime goddess and daughter of Demeter. He abducts her, taking her to the afterlife to be his wife. Persephone's mother, the now righteously distraught harvest goddess, refuses to let the Earth's plants grow in her anger. It's only when Earth's people begin to starve and beg Zeus for help that he commands Hades to return Persephone to her mother and the world above. But Hades tricks Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds before Hermes rescues her. Since she has tasted the food of the Underworld, she is now tied to it, and must return for some months each year. Winter is Demeter's mourning of her stolen daughter, and Spring is a joyous celebration of her return to Earth. 

Magnolia tree blooming at Granary Burying Ground, with Franklin's obelisk in the back. 

The past season, the grayness has carried me. I eat too much and gain a lot of weight. I shop online a lot, but don't spend too much money - usually just putting items in an online shopping cart and leaving them there for a few hours is enough dopamine for me. I make two international friends and we become pen-pals. But it takes me longer and longer to respond to each, and now I find myself embarrassed at how late my response is that I put off writing back to them even longer. 

Cherry blossoms just down the block from my apartment. 

I've gotten such wonderful letters and care packages from Washington from so many friends. The guilt that I'm not reciprocating enough is consuming though, taking little bites of my joy each day. I forget important things many of my friends tell me, and end up having them repeat their conversations to me each time we connect. I hurt the feelings of a dear friend in Seattle when I say now's not a good time to visit. What I want to say is that I'm too depressed, too sad and easily overwhelmed to be a good host. But that doesn't get translated well and it just comes across as a callous dismissal of her and her offer. I commit to art exchanges with some Washington artists, but then scramble to come up with ideas that are "good enough" for my part of the bargain, and put them off, too. They pile up, reproaching me from the desk, the coffee table, the chair. I am 5 months late on making my parents' 40th anniversary gift. I am 6 months late writing about my wonderful trip to Ireland. I used to clear out my email inbox daily: now, my inbox has at least 30 unread messages that I feel too much guilt over neglecting to confront. 

Forsythia. Growing up, our neighbor Ava had beautiful, full forsythia bushes and so they always make me think of being 5 years old and home again. 

I reach out to one of my pen-pals, apologize for my lateness of reply and talk to her about feeling depressed. She immediately validates my feelings, and shares that her March was particularly difficult too, that she's just as deep in it as I am, but that we can rise out of it. I tell her that we are two Persephones, maybe struggling to lift ourselves out of the Underworld but making a damn honest effort at it. I think about painting her some pomegranates, and how I would gild the seeds within. 

That's all I can do, really. I mean, I'll continue to take my anti-anxiety medication, monitor my depression, keep pursuing therapy and doing small acts of self-care. But for being wedged in a place where I don't fit? I'll notice the flowers blooming. I'll stop and watch the still-novel red streak of a cardinal moving through the trees. I'll look for the neighborhood rabbits at dusk, and I'll feel the comforting roughness of 300 year-old bricks in the buildings downtown. I'll gild the seeds of Boston in every way I know how, and hope that my loved ones can be gentle with me as I come back to them. 

And I'll remember that I've eaten a whole fucking lifetime of Washington seeds, and that one day soon I will carry them back home. 

A beautifully ornate doorway in Brookline. 

Food-baby-merman detail.

Beltane

Beltane is an ancient holiday, celebrated in one form or another by cultures around the world. Modern American calendars usually mark it as May Day on May 1st. It's a celebration that marks the half-way point between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. For ancient Celts, it was the start of summer season, when they drove cattle to the summer pastures and looked forward to warmer, brighter days. They had feasts and bonfires, performing rituals for growth, for the protection of their cattle, and to appease aos sí. The feasts began at sunset the night before Beltane, bonfires were lit, and people drove their cattle between the fires, harnessing the symbolic power of the fires. 

May Day illustration by Walter Crane

Ancient people really cared about their cattle and dairy products. I'm reminded of Iceland. When I researched Icelandic runes, I came across a beautiful stylized star: the Smjörhnútur  or butterknot. The symbol ensured that your butter was procured through non-magical means. Gaelic farmers were also very concerned with the non-magical nature of butter: they thought dairy products were particularly at risk from magic and harmful spirits, so blessing the cattle was very important. I can identify with the ancients: I'm very serious about my cheese. 

Icelandic butterknot

I remember leaving flowers in little paper baskets on neighbors' doorhandles for May Day when I was little. Spring is my favorite season in Seattle- everything is so bright and colorful and the city smells so good. The flowers, good lord the flowers this place can grow. Flowers are traditional Beltane decorations. Irish and Scottish celebrants used to put yellow flowers like gorse, hawthorne, hazel, and marsh marigold on their door steps and windowsills. Earlier in the week, Maggie pointed out some gorse plants, and we found white hawthorn as well, which feels very apropos. 

I'm celebrating Beltane in my own heathen way this weekend. Jason is at MRO Saturday, so I'm alone with the pets for a day. I work on my thesis in the morning, sitting at Starbucs and Zoka with Becca and Michael. Bailey and I take a walk in the evening, and we're both excited to be outside. We stop and look at all of the flowers, or at least I look at the flowers while Bailey eats grass. Everyone smiles at Bailey when he passes, and it makes me wish he wasn't so afraid of strangers. 

Bailey

Lavender and leaves

Sidewalk chalk art in the neighborhood

Irises

We try to visit Paul, but he doesn't get my text until long after Bailey is tired of waiting in one spot and has moved on. We go to the small community garden by our house. Jason and I  have our own tiny porch garden, and I'd love to have a bigger plot here. The path is lined in lily of the valley, my mama's favorite. 

Lily of the valley

At the back of the garden

Forget-me-nots

Bailey liked all the smells

Onion or chive blooms

The community garden

Bailey found a fairy garden

Bailey on the bench

Back at home, I check on our own plants. I think one of my pumpkins has come up, and I'm worried the slugs are going to get it. I need to find a way to keep them out of the garden. Our corn looks pretty good, and the peas are growing so fast. Two of the sunflower seeds we put out for the squirrels have planted themselves and sending up shoots. Our peppers and sweet peas are still sleeping, and I wish they'd show their little green selves. I love how much Jason loves this garden. He fusses over the little peas, tying them up so they grow on their lattice, and makes sure they have water every day. I want a little farmhouse and a plot of land with this man. 

Tiny porch garden. The geranium in the front is 4 years old!

Peas, peppers, garlic, and corn

I light some candles and fuss with my crystals, talking to the Universe about what I want for this summer and the ways I want to grow. I scrub with salts from Bree, symbolically washing off the old to reveal the new. Keeping with the theme, I try a new craft: weaving. I use yarn from both Becca and Kate and think again about the friendships I've made in the museology program. 

Weaving

It's Sunday, and Jason comes home today. We are going to celebrate Beltane with a feast outside. I have grand ideas of making picnic foods, bringing candles and flowers and having a little ceremony. Instead, we get burritos and go to a park and it's perfect. I make sure to get sour cream and extra cheese since diary is important. I would have ordered sour cream and extra cheese anyway, let's be honest, but this time it's for myself and the gods. Mostly me, though. 

Wild rose

Foxglove

Tiny little daisies

We go to Matthew's Beach. I found this place yesterday trying to find a Starbucks. There was an old man at a stone wall on the edge of the parking lot, feeding a dozen squirrels and birds. Jason and I bring a bag of corn, sunflower seeds, and peanuts to try and make new friends. A squirrel is very interested in Jason and the peanuts. He won't eat from Jason's hand, but he comes within 4 feet of us, waiting for Jason to toss nuts to him. 

Squirrel friend

On the way home, we see a little dog in a basket on the back of his mom's bike and it makes us really happy. It's a good start to the summer. 

Little rider