Naturalistic Paganism

Celebrations

Attraction! Our world reawakens, and we see beauty around  us!  How fitting for the planet named after the goddess of sexual attraction is giving us a special show in the sky for Beltane.  Venus and Jupiter approach within less than the apparent diameter of the Moon, getting to their nearest point to each other on the eve of Beltane!  It’s our Beltane conjunction of Venus and Jupiter! You can see them easily – simply look east, just before sunrise, on a clear morning within the next week.  They’ll be slowly getting farther apart as we pass Beltane.  

As if that weren’t enough to celebrate Beltane in our sky, there is a solar eclipse on the eve of Beltane as well!  Here is the video so you can watch it whenever you like. Remember that eclipses always happen in pairs – when the plane of the moon’s orbit crosses the plane of the ecliptic, a pair of eclipses is formed.  So the pair of this Beltane solar eclipse is a Lunar eclipse, which by happy coincidence will happen during the Suntree Retreat!

Some of the ways many of us are celebrating were published a few weeks ago, and now we also have many online celebrations and rituals to attend, as we like (the updated list, with links, is below).

Beltane also reminds us of the symmetry of life and death, – as Glenys does here.   For some of us, the celebrations will be later this week – the actual midpoint between the Equinox and the Solstice is May 5th.  And of course, for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, Happy Samhain!  However you are celebrating, may your be celebration be blessed.

This is an updated version of our annual Spring Equitherm post.