The countryside awoke a few weeks ago. No longer desiccated, the fragrant landscape now erupts with life. Earth opens her furrows to the seed of man and we are again swept up in the blazing procreative surge that is Beltaine, the advent of the Celtic summer on May 1.
Elemental fire roars at the heart of the Celtic festivals of Beltaine, Lughnasadh, Samhain and Imbolg. Since time primeval, fire has fascinated and frightened humans. Myths relating the theft of fire from the gods have been told throughout time. Physical fire warms our frail bodies, cooks our food and illuminates the darkness. Spiritual fire sparks our creativity, ignites our passions and defines the shadows of our souls.
Though today we tend to associate fire with the sun (and solar deities such as Jesus Christ, the western Christian sun-god), it was not always so. The celebration of fire as the earthly correspondent of the sun is reserved for the lesser solstice and equinoctial festivals. These festivals, commencing with the winter solstice, serve to observe and stimulate the sun's annual journey.
Though the sun shone brightly on primitive man, many believe that early humans looked to the moon as their earliest deity. As Marija Gimbutas wrote, the Paleolithic depiction of lunar cycles denotes "an early philosophical connection between cyclical lunar time and the regenerative role of the Goddess in the cycles of birth, death and rebirth."
In the darkness of an ancient night, with a fire at their feet and the moon in their eyes, our forbears may have found it easy to connect life-giving fire with the transforming essence of the moon.
As humans became less nomadic, settlers used fire to clear tracts of land for farming and settlements. On that same ground generations later, ceremonial sites were erected to tend to the dead and their ancestors. In some locales, timber circles with central fire pits were used for centuries before being replaced by stone circles.
Neolithic communities committed deceased loved ones to fire by cremation, burying small quantities of their ashes with pottery sherds in small nearby pits. Bits of charcoal and red clay found within the pits may have forged a sympathetic bond between the dead, the fire that consumed their physical remains and the earth who finally received them.
These indigenous peoples were the first to observe the occasions that later became the fire festivals of the Celtic year. Societies throughout the ancient world were transfixed by the power of fire. Both consuming and rapturous, flame became the living, formless symbol of the Goddess (or God). Flame and smoke were used for ritual purification and carried prayers upward to the diverse, non-human agents that populated the ancient world. Ash promoted the fertility of both landscape and household. Libidinous as well as sacred, elemental fire bridges the gulf between the mythic and mortal worlds, the "quinta essentia" upon which our world rests.
From the Celts come vestiges of the great festivals as they once were celebrated. The term "bonfire" refers to both a "bone-fire," wherein horse and cattle bones were incinerated, as well as the "boon-fir" for which materials were ritually begged for as a "boon" or gift to the community bonfire. The bonfire was a "Tein-eigin," or "need-fire," kindled only by the friction of two pieces of wood. In old Irish, one of the meanings of "Bel" is "bright" and "Teinne" denotes "fire," joining to form "Beltaine"
In Celtic mythology, "Aed" refers to "fire" and an early fire deity associated with the Assaroe Falls near Ballyshannon, Ireland. Two better known characters, Lugh and Balor are solar gods who arrived with the Celts. Within the dark of the sidhe mounds lay the brilliantly lit palaces of the fairy folk. The gentry themselves are often described as radiant beings. This underworld of brilliance was later demonized as Christian "hellfire." Even today, individuals who encounter Otherworldly or deceased spirits describe them as luminous figures.
In Ireland, the central site of the Beltaine festival is the Hill of Uisneach, in County Westmeath. Twin fires lit atop the hill signaled to fires on neighboring hills, forming an enormous bonfire web through which those assembled could see and be seen by the Goddess of the land, Aine. Then as today, ritual contact with the spiraling forces of life restored vitality to the participant and renewed the divine ligature between worlds.
It is easier to experience a flame in the dark, easier to feel the shadows and hear them whisper. The Celts and their forbears understood that light comes out of the darkness; hence the measure of their day began at dusk. The great festival bonfire is a literal expression of the cycle of life--eternal light will always be found in darkness and fertile darkness will always be found within that great illumination.
Beltaine is a time of darkness within the season of light. Sixty four hundred kilometers below our planet's surface beats the earth's flaming heart. As above our Beltaine bonfires evoke the season, so below the living planet answers with a promise of transformation from within the fiery darkness. Welcome Beltaine, the wheel turns.