Beltane and May Day: A Sacred “yes” to Aliveness

May Day and Beltane both mark the season’s turning, when earth blossoms and life begins to quicken. While May Day is often celebrated in folk traditions with flowers, Maypoles, and dancing, Beltane has deeper Celtic roots as a sacred festival of fertility, fire, and vitality, both invite us to honour the aliveness of this moment - the warmth returning to the land and the stirring of something within us, too. As someone on a faith-shifting journey, I find resonance in both. Together, they invite me to find joy in life springing all around me and the rekindling of my own aliveness - to listen to the rhythms of my body, to embrace joy, and to see all of it as part of the sacred whole.

This moment in the year is halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice—a threshold moment when the earth pulses with life, passion, creativity, and connection, reminding us that life longs to express itself fully. May Day and Beltane invite me to gather the embers of old fires and kindle new ones—to rediscover what sparks joy and brings me to life. Renowned psychotherapist and author Esther Perel, whose work explores the intersection of relationships, desire, and vitality, speaks of eroticism not simply as something sexual, but as a deep quality of aliveness and vitality, an inner spark that fuels creativity, and keeps us connected to a sense of wonder, imagination and possibility. As she puts it, eroticism is “the antidote to death” - anything that makes us feel more fully, vividly alive.

Bonefire at night

Beltane for me, is an invitation to reconnect with that inner spark—an essence of vitality that stirs just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. For some of us, especially those shaped by certain expressions of Christian purity culture, this spark may have dimmed beneath messages that framed the body and desire as things to suppress or fear. But Beltane, with its ancient celebration of fire, fertility, and life force, invites a sacred yes to embodiment and aliveness, to gently reawaken to that aliveness within—to explore what brings colour, warmth, and joy to your days. It might be through movement, stillness, touch, laughter, solitude, connection, presence or time in nature. It is a call to come home to your own body and breath, and to honour your longing as something sacred, something that enlivens your being.

In this season, may we feel free to say yes to this kind of aliveness, not in rebellion, but in reverence as a response to the Divine.

Moment of Reflection:

What brings me joy?
What makes me come alive?
What do I long for?
What wants to awaken in me?

How can I set some intentions to do more of this?

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive"

Attributed to Howard Thurman, an American author, philosopher, theologian, Christian mystic and civil rights leader.

Happy May Day and Beltane, summer is on her way :-)