Happy Beltane

At last the leaves are properly out on most of the trees. There are bluebells everywhere, but there is still cherry blossom. The chestnut candles are poised to burst into flower. Beltane is in the air. It's my favourite festival because it seems to me to embody in many ways what Paganism (or at least its contemporary revived form) is about - the simple joy of being alive, relating to other people (including other-than-human people) and the Earth and Nature.

"Oh, do not tell the Priest of our Art,
For he would call it a sin;
But we shall be out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring summer in!

And we bring you news by word of mouth
For women, cattle and corn
Now is the sun come up from the South

With Oak, and Ash and Thorn!"

-- A Tree Song from Rudyard Kipling's Weland's Sword story in "Puck of Pook's Hill"