As I was allowing myself to sink into reading other people’s essays and writings about Beltane, and as I was preparing for my own workshop coming up that will include some of the themes of this seasonal celebration, I had a realization that this year feels like a Beltane year for me. And then I asked myself what I meant by that. 

As I reflected a bit more, I remembered how enamored I was with Imbolc last year. Not that it didn’t play as much of a role in my consciousness this year, it did; but there’s an energy around Beltane this year that marks it a little differently. I wondered if I am going through my own seasonal cycles; last year was an Imbolc year, this year a Beltane year… what will be next year? Perhaps the cycles are not only what is reflected in the world around us, the natural world and ritual world, but also reflective of what is happening in our inner cycles and movements. 

Maybe I am beginning to feel the light of the bright fire inside this year. Maybe my senses are waking up a bit more this year, or I am tuned into the sensual aliveness of the natural world. Maybe creative ideas are coming into more full color and light.

I had an energy work session recently that sparked an insight around moving from a needing/doing/proving space within myself to a having/being space. Beltane feels like a having and being kind of season. 

Part of what was arising during this energy work session was the reckoning with how the absorbed messages from patriarchy and capitalistic society (just to name a few) around success, achievement, not enough, keep doing more, have impacted how I feel about myself, how I operate in the world, and what I expect from myself and others. It’s a tricky message because while it encourages us to do more, it simultaneously tells us to not get too big or too much, to function inside limitation. What a dilemma! 

I can sense hints of the dissolution of this old paradigm within myself, small examples of moving beyond it – some that come from gaining experience and insight through my own therapy and healing practices; some from life events, deaths and changes that catalyze things into a different perspective; some might just be part of aging and seeing enough of other ways of being that they’re beginning to take hold.

There are stronger moments of tapping into an experience of expansion, of broadening into a different approach to my own life and what difference it makes inside and out to begin to let go of the old obstacles and binds. But as it goes, there are also familiar and occasional pulls to contract, to question and doubt; the old messages say stay small, be careful, better to doubt yourself than to take on too much. Oh, they are so painful!

I can feel my whole energy field collapse around me, the sense of possibility begins to shrink and my system resorts to an old way of operation that being fearful, worried and cautious is how you stay safe. I can see how that threat response is so informed by familial, societal, and historical influences and patterns. The way to stay safe is not to venture too far out of the barriers, the predictable window, the known parameters. Something gets passed down in us and reinforced by societal messages and impositions. We develop energetic/nervous system/emotional/physical habits around “avoiding threat and danger.”

Personally (and professionally) I believe it can be part of our growth and work as humans if we want it, to find where those habits of survival and perceived safety are not necessary and may actually be holding us back from being and having. We can become curious about the places where there’s some flexibility in our system and potentially start to shift the outdated patterns. (Caveat: Not every protective mechanism can or should be released, especially in a world where danger and threat does exist for so many; and not everyone has to want to do this work.) 

If it does appeal to us, what better season to make a practice of receiving through our senses, letting in the smells and colors of the natural world around us, feeling the warmth of the strengthening sun and allowing ourselves to have it. How can we lean into this season of coming into light and growth and blossom, and begin to gently untangle where we have been living in limitation, expectation and demand? If I can lean into the sensual and fire-y aliveness of Beltane, even consider that it might be okay for me to have and be, what will come next? It is often in the in-betweens, as Beltane sits between spring and summer, where we can find an opening for something different and new.

How is the season of Beltane showing up in your own life? What old patterns are you untangling, creating new space for aliveness?