The circle is outlined in candles. We tend to celebrate Beltane at night,
when we do celebrate it – both of us who facilitate the Grove find that
Beltane is a time that makes us both so happy that it can seem simply unnecessary
to have a ritual. The joyfulness is so palpable, seeps into everyday life
so much, ritual almost feels superfluous. Similarly it’s not a time
we associate with community, like the harvest festivals, since it often feels
better shared with just one person. That said, it is an especially magical
time in our Kentish Grove, because the sports of flowering cherry in the north-west
of our little wood of ancient oaks finally come into leaf and hide the Barratt
Homes were sadly built on the grove’s edge ten years ago. The wood suddenly
feels secret, both ancient and primordially young. The mentions of chalk downland
are a reflection of our landscape here in Kent, so can be adapted to your
locale, of course.
The altar is dressed in white, or cream, or left as bare wood, with many
candles upon it. We cover it with may blossom, cow-parsley and bluebells (from
the garden, not picked from the woods), honesty, rowan flowers, elder-blossom.
The smudge-stick is of sweet woodruff, for its gentle sweetgrass-like smell,
maybe with some clear, sunny herb too, like golden majoram. Upon the altar
should be a chalice of red-wine, and also a loaf of sweet fresh bread, with
a decent-sized bowl of honey. Also a bowl of wine too, maybe infused with
something sweet and delicious. Incense if we use it is rich with frankincense
and storax, with a pinch of cinnamon and dried flowers. It needs to be nice
and moist, so we might add a few drops of red wine and honey to the mixture.
A fire is at the centre of the circle.
All pass into the grove.
PRIEST:
Hail Spirits of this place!
Hail Spirits of this sacred place!
Hail Spirits of this place!
We come here in peace and with clear intent,
To celebrate the feast of Summer’s sweetness.
Accept our presence, O Guardian Spirits,
Accept our presence.
The candles are lit, the fire stoked, the incense sparked, and each person
steps into the circle.
The priestess censes the circle’s boundary with the smudge-stick, and
another priestess sprinkles it with water. All imagine a sphere of greeny-gold
(or whatever colour seems best to each) around them, forming itself as the
priestesses pass by.
Calling the Quarters
PRIESTESS:
Close your eyes. You are in a wood of coppiced hazel and sweet chestnut, carpeted
with bluebells. Wood anemones are flowering among scrambling cleavers and
pink campion, everywhere you look. A gentle wind stirs the fresh leaves, and
you breathe in the sweet, clean smell of warming earth and dew. Then the sound
hits you – everywhere, birdsong. Birds are flying, squabbling and singing
all around. You look up and see a blackbird on a grey hazel branch nearby.
Its yellow beak is wide and its throat pulses as it sings, fierce with joy.
It is as though someone has hung the air of the wood with jewels.
PRIEST:
Wild wood
Silver-noted.
Thrush sings
Wet-throated.
Hail spirits of Air!
Come to us,
Be with us,
Tonight.
PRIEST:
Close your eyes. You are again in the wood, and wander to where you see a
pool of sunlight break through the closing canopy. You look up into a kaleidoscope
of greens. As you crane your neck to look up, you see the leaves of hazel
and chestnut moving like fishes in green water. The shaft of sun falls onto
your face, warm and sensual, summer’s caress of light and warmth. You
shift and turn into the light, as if to nuzzle the sun, as if the sunlight
could run down your throat like honey.
PRIESTESS:
Sunlight flashes
green leaves gold –
beckons summer,
Drives out cold.
Hail Spirits of Fire!
Come to us,
Be with us,
Tonight.
PRIESTESS:
Close your eyes.
It is a misty May morning and you are on chalk downland, looking down over
green land. Mist hangs around the hawthorns at the top of the slope, covered
in blossom. You are barefoot and the grass is grey with dewdrops. You kneel
in the rich wet downland grass, which is filled with wild marjoram just springing
up. You run your fingers through the grass until they drip with dew, suck
your fingers, and slowly let the dew run over your face.
PRIEST:
Summer rain
Makes world new.
The silver birch
Wears bracelets of dew.
Hail Spirits of Water!
Come to us,
Be with us,
Tonight.
PRIEST:
Close your eyes.
You are walking through a deep wood, on chalk again, on a hill-slope. Beech-trees
rise up by you, grey-grey trunks from shallow knotted roots unfolding into
a green chancel of leaves. Cow-parsley foams along the sunlit edges of the
wood. Grass is lush and here and there you see the spotted rosettes of orchids
and their purple flower-spikes amid the bluebells. You sit, and enjoy the
feel of your bare feet on the warm soil, digging your toes into the mud.
PRIESTESS:
A world of spices
Breathes from soil.
Buds gasp green,
Shoots writhe, uncoil.
Hail Spirits of Earth!
Come to us,
Be with us,
Tonight.
PRIESTESS:
The circle is cast. We are between the worlds.
PRIEST/ESS: [heaping more incense on the censer]
Ancestors and kindred many,
You whose breath we now breathe,
Whose blood is mingled with this most sacred soil,
We come before you tonight
With clean hands and pure hearts.
Blood-kin and Soul-kin
Guardians and guides,
We ask for your blessing and your presence.
A period of silence follows. All sit.
PRIESTESS:
We stand at the dawn of summer. Day is long in the fresh woods, lavishly green
are the gentle breasts of the hills. The woods are bands of leaping green
horses, running wild through the sunlit thickets, where the slim trees foal
their shadows. Slender rowan and shaggy hazels breathe streams of cow-parsley
from their nostrils. Summer has saddled his horse of green, and butts and
burrs, rears and dips for joy. We call to the Lady of the Land, to the Lord
of the Green we call, here in this sweetness, here when the whole land heaves,
their bed of love.
Now we have a piece of poetry from the great Welsh master Dafydd ap Gwilym,
Chaucer’s older contemporary, by way of an invocation. He is the great
poet of love and summer (though not that alone) and it irks me that I can’t
find one of his poems that fits perfectly whole into a modern Druid ritual.
Unfortunately, there isn’t one, so with apologies to his spirit I’ve
adapted a few lines from a poem of his and threaded them together to evoke
something of his perception of summer, at once earthy and ecstatic. This is
not literal and I have often missed out clauses, altered emphasis or moved
the syntax around. [see R. Bromwich, ‘Dafydd ap Gwilym: a Selection
of Poems’ (Llandysul 1993) p. 8 for the text]
PRIESTESS:
You, O Summer, haughty father,
You sire this woven web of shady branches.
Fair wood-ward, master of the dense wooded slopes,
You are a tower above us all, a thatcher of each hill.
Unbeaten lord, a pledge of your virility,
You are the cauldron of the world’s rebirth!
And a thing that make us gasp in wonder,
You are the house of every growing herb.
A balm for growing, growth twice over,
A balsam for lovers’ meeting in the woods.
PRIEST:
Your hand can truly make
The greenwood branches spring and surge,
Best inward urge of the world’s four quarters.
By your gift too there grow so wild and wonderful
The birds and the sweet earth’s crops,
birdflocks in flight, and moorland hay
in meadows glassy-topped,
beehives and noble swarms of bees…
O wiseman of the waysides,
fosterfather of the earth’s heaped harvests,
of the garden’s load of green,
You are the builder of my fair bower,
A lovely grafting from a web of leaves.
Offerings
The awen is called three, then six, then nine times. The priestess raises
a bowl of wine infused with herbs (sweet woodruff is traditional) and offers
it, saying:
O Lady of the Land,
of white mist after wind,
of wild woodlands tapestried in gossamer
and green, where the slender keels of beeches
breast the waves of leaves -
The summer moon is your full breast,
And honey is trickling over your beautiful face.
Bloodflowers, rose-petals,
are flaming beneath your skin.
You are the blossom and the bee,
You are the nectar and the sting.
Your sweetness has snared us,
And now you are all our desire.
We offer this wine to you in reverence and respect.
She pours the wine onto the ground.
It seems wrong to have Beltane as too formal a ritual, so at this point we
all sit round the fire, and sing or recite bits of poetry. (I’ve often
thought a fantastic Beltane ritual could be made out of the Biblical ‘Song
of Songs’ – it’s probably been done. In the past we’ve
had bits of Sappho, e. e. cummings, Ted Hughes, Gerard Manley Hopkins…)
The priest or priestess stokes up the fire, and as people egg each other on,
they leap over the flames, through the smoke, with the intention of purifying
themselves for summer. Bay clippings go very well indeed on a Beltane bonfire.
The priestess then takes the bowl of honey, and blesses it. She tastes the
honey, and says: I give thanks for all my gifts of sweetness. The bowl is
passed around the circle and people taste the honey and name or not as they
choose the gifts of sweetness for which they are giving thanks.
Feasting
The priestess blesses the chalice of wine and the bread, saying:
Lord of Summer,
Lady of Sweetness,
Feed us from the hive.
Now the world is wide and wild and sweet,
May we know the nectar of joy,
The blessings of summer’s smoke and sap.
Give to us hearts of honey.
The bread is broken and passed around. The wine is shared with the blessing
‘Sweetness of summer!’ Offerings are made to the spirits.
The ritual then tends to carry on until the fire is fading and the woodpile
in the circle has been exhausted, or until people are very hungry…
Closing
The Priestess stands and says:
Ancestors and kindred many,
We thank you for your blessing and your presence,
unseen but not unfelt.
May you always have peace and light.
May your souls shine brightly in all future lives.
Hail and farewell!
Blessed be as blessed is.
PRIEST:
Thanks be to you, Spirits of Summer!
Brightner of heaven and wild beauty of earth.
Givers of sweetness and the harmony of hearts.
Hail and farewell, Lord and Lady of Summer!
Blessed be as blessed is.
The quarters are uncalled by the simple technique of the person concerned
kneeling at the quarter-point and touching their praying hands to their hearts,
their foreheads, and then bowing their heads and raising their hands up and
forward as a gesture of respect. We’ve found that the stillness and
poise that this gesture requires means the spirits are respected, the four
quarters are consistently uncalled, and an atmosphere of reverent stillness
is preserved, making the opening of the circle less jarring.
