There is a question on the forums asking about folk will be doing for Beltane/Beltaine, but what I would like to know is what does this festival mean to you within your path? And has how you view it changed over the years?

The way I celebrate it is probably rooted in the way we used to in my Catholic school, as a reaction to the stuffy awed singing and processing to church. Then, it was about virginity and purity.

Of course, it's anything but. Though some elements remain of course - anyone else remember having to hold those posies contained with doilies on the back with sweaty hands, whilst having to not trip over their white dress?

It's more - well, chaotic, and wild, and free than that. Exuberance - everything springing into heady life at last, with those giddy perfumes from the flowers, lambs ganging up in the fields and racing about, bats catching midges in the evening air. The variety and giddiness, and fertility of life. It's a time to take in rich deep sniffs of the warm earth and feel exhilarated by it.

It's a counterpoint to Samhain - instead of reflecting, considering, and honouring those gone, it's a time for getting out there and living. Though by doing this we are honouring those gone really, just in a different way!

That sums it up for me, I think.

The only thing that's changed really is that I'm thinking, considering and trying to distill my thoughts a little more. Specific to Beltaine, I suppose that means a little more poignancy - heh, I passed a group of teenagers on the way back from the woods and they were giggling like anything. I'm only ten or so years older than them but it's good to look at it from the other side of things and see others oblivious to the thinking behind it and just enjoying the moment, which is after all the point behind it for me really!

I hope that made some sense.

Beltane is my favorite Sabbat, it always has been. The fragile, green leaves- a light brush over the forests and landscapes, the herbs emerging, offering their healing and magick. My garden coming alive, the first handfulls of crisp veggies picked minutes before they are served. My greenhouse flowing over with new plants for my garden and clay pots. The birds flying in and out of the nesting boxes feeding their young, the bees buzzing in the flowering appletrees.
Watching butterflies flutter by....

Hmmm.
Difficult.
I like the longer days and warmer (ish) weather and nature up and about all around.
But from a personal level,i dont feel i fit in much with Beltane celebrations.
It's a time for fertility and sexuality.Having no partner and never having had sex,it does tend to make me feel an out sider.
It's probably not really the case.Perhaps i read too much in all those pagan and goddess books.

i prefer the summer solstice.
good excuse to be hippyish.

The start of Spring. Nature waking up again after Winter.