Beltane - celtic spring festival

Beltane is the traditional Celtic fire festival. It is a fertility rite, for people, for cattle and for the land. A huge bonfire is lit, the goddess and the god are invoked, and the fire energy absorbed for purification, for inspiration, for creativity, and for passion and pleasure.

May 1st was always a holiday, a time of sacred play. In recent decades our culture reversed this meaning, making the 1st of May the celebration of work and the workers. The sacred fire of the goddess, symbol of fertility and of the spark of life itself, had earlier been inverted to celebrate the fire of death, the enemy of the goddess and of her wisdom, in the form of the inquisitorial fire that burned to death as witches hundreds of thousands of innocent women in an attempt, largely successful, to exterminate the goddess culture and the power of the feminine.

Together we will celebrate Beltane in Celtic style, through a celebration of the fire of spring by combining rituals from both tantra and shamanism. On Beltane night we will invoke the god, Cerunnos, the horned one, the lord of the forest and of the animals, the god of male sexuality, akin to Lord Shiva or Pan in other traditions. With him we will celebrate phallic energy and leap around and over the fire. In the morning we will invoke the goddess, both as Bridie goddess of fire and as Blodwen, goddess of flowers, and dance the gentle, harmonious rhythms of feminine energy, of love and of the womb and the heart.

This workshop is perfect for those who want to celebrate life over death, play over work, love over war, and reconnect with the energies and spirit of nature and the natural world. It is suitable for beginners and experienced couples who wish to celebrate and strengthen their relationship, and singles who want to meet their inner man and their inner woman. It is for shamanic people who wish to taste tantra, and tantrikis who are interested in shamanism.