Beltane Approaches

Merry Meet!

It seems like yesterday I was writing about Yule and talking about presents and wintertime. Now it is Beltane and I am planning my herb garden and my flower beds and waiting for that last frost and spate of cold weather to finally go away.

For witches of Wiccan and Pagan traditions, Beltane is the time of Mother Earth renewing herself in nature and gowning herself in the greens and riotous colors of spring. Spring is the season of renewal and witches renew themselves and their talents and energies. It is the time that they clean not just their cupboards but their souls, too, set new goals, rid themselves of regrets for things done and undone and look forward to the growth of living things.

Gaelyn and I are champing at the bit to busy setting up his herb garden and cleaning his herb racks. I have herbs growing already in little biodegradeable pots, sunning themselves by the light of a grow lamp. I can already smell the fragrances from their new leaves when I lightly stroke them. Lavender, rosemary, thyme and catnip, St. John's Wort and mint and sage fill the little house he is renting with the smells of nature and magik.

I will watch them grow and become full and in August they will be mature enough to harvest and bind with twine and dry out on the drying racks and when we use them in magik, I will pull a few precious dry leaves and smell them and remember them as they grew. But I will also know that these herbs, though they are dry, are still alive with the energy of the earth, the elements, and the love I gave them as I watched over them as they grew that whole summer. And they will carry some of that summer inside them, even in the snows and cold and wet of Yule.

Thanks be to God who empowers all living things and thanks be to Mother Earth for her bounties and the promise of new life. May the sacred spirit you praise and honor do the same for all of you who practice the Way of the Wise.

Brightest Blessinsg Be
Aslinn