Beltane Ritual

To prepare the self:

Bathe as usual and anoint with oil of an appropriate scent for the season. Wear fire-safe clothes in colors of green, soft pink, blue, yellow, or white. Wear magickal jewelry and possibly bells on your heels and a daisy chain necklace, and flowers or a hair wreath made of plants of the season.

To prepare the circle:

Sweep. ¤ Lay out cord. ¤ Position altar with blue or red-fruit-themed cloth. ¤ Position God and Goddess candles. ¤ Position other God and Goddess representations. ¤ Add Earth bowl and salt at north. ¤ Add incense burner and incense. ¤ Add candleholder and green, soft pink, blue, yellow, or white candle at south. ¤ Add goblet and water at west. ¤ Put pentacle at north. ¤ Put wand at east. ¤ Put athame at south. ¤ Put chalice at west. ¤ Add bolline to south. ¤ Add matches to south. ¤ Add match holder to north. ¤ Add wet napkins to west. ¤ Add bell to west. ¤ Add libation bowl to north. ¤ Add any decorations for the season. ¤ Keep handy a guardian broom, statue, or other object that can serve as a “protector” of your home. ¤ Keep blessing oil on the altar. ¤ Have rose petals or rose-scented potpourri ready to put in the cauldron to burn. ¤ Have your altar-sized maypole, unwoven and ready to weave again. ¤ Place a single green candle behind the cauldron. ¤ Have a gold candle and a silver candle (or other candles that symbolize the God and Goddess) unlit and in holders on the altar somewhere. ¤ Have four large walnuts or other large nuts. ¤ Have materials for wish tree and the leafy tree from Ostara at the left of the altar, and dragon’s blood oil or other catalystic oil. ¤ Put an apple on a plate on the right of the altar, and have handy milk and wine or punch. ¤ Have yarn ready for finger-knitting. ¤ Complete with feasting foods of the season.

Begin ritual:

Cast the circle. Sit inside and focus, and invoke the God and Goddess.

Meditation (to seasonal music if desired):

The God is full-grown and the Goddess is ready for Him; they embrace and engage in lovemaking for the first time. She conceives at this time; like the Earth itself, She is fertilized by Her own bounty and later bears His children. We embrace our own unions and the special relationships we have from which we reap less literal goods, and we ask for fertility that the harvest may grow. Our lives begin to flourish and grow, and magick is afoot.¹

Opening Honor:

Begin by having a dance or circling to invite the quarters into your circle and your life. Bow or nod to each quarter as you skip or walk around the circle, merrily acknowledging their presence and importance. You want to do this in order to stir up excitement at the stretch toward Midsummer and to simply exult with the elements that make up our world and nourish us.² The bells you might wish to wear on your heels are to scare away bad influences that are afoot on this day.

Honor the God and Goddess as the protectors of your house by choosing or buying a guardian broom, figure, statue, or other inspiring object. It is to be blessed by placing it on the pentagram on the altar and anointing it with blessing oil. Give thanks for the deities’ protection of yourself and your home; this is the time when most people begin to reap the benefits after a long winter, and therefore have more to lose. Ask for the blessings of the deities to keep you and yours safe from harm and to protect your home when you hang or place your guardian figure back in its place.³

Take the single green candle, symbolizing the young man God. Carve a fertility or sexual potency rune on it with the bolline, such as URUZ, and then place the candle in the cauldron to symbolize the God’s coupling with the Goddess. Now take rose petals or rose potpourri and use the God’s flame to burn enough to make ashes or at least small crumbs that can be scattered. Burn it in the cauldron. You can do this best by catching several petals on fire and throwing them into a large quantity. Always have a cover for the cauldron to douse the flames if for some reason it gets out of hand. Then take the four walnuts, anoint them with blessing oil in the form of a protective rune (ALGIZ works), and roll the nuts in the ashes. Hold these in a bowl separate from the libation bowl and after the ritual is over they can be buried at the four corners of the house for protection.⁴ (You will take the rose ashes later and scatter them on crops or plants.) Dedicate them to the God and then put the green candle out.

Beltane Activities:⁵

Wish Tree can be worked on now. Add flower buds to the tree and anoint the branches or buds with dragon’s blood or other catalystic oil; meditate on each wish as you do so and think about what you are doing and what you have done so far to make these wishes flourish.

An altar-sized maypole can be wrapped at this time to symbolize the union of the God and the Goddess.⁶

You may remove the corn dolly’s bridal veil, and add more nuts for fertility to hang from her arms, and add seasonal flowers and red and white ribbons to her hair or dress.

Ritual Core:

Set aside a special cake and pitcher of milk for the faeries if you believe this will appease any mischief against you. (This should be given respectfully and set outside later on a windowsill or safe place.)

Then do the rekindling of the Bel-fire: Light your gold candle and silver candle (or other representations) and blend their flames together to symbolize their union. Then snuff them at the same time, and re-kindle them with a new match.⁷

Enact the Great Rite, which can be done in solitary circles by using the athame and the chalice as male and female symbols. Slowly lower the athame into the chalice and then bless the union by drinking a toast of wine punch and pouring a libation.⁸

BANISH THE OSTARA SEASON AND INVOKE THE BELTANE SEASON with banishing and invoking pentagrams. Ring the bell and say “it is done” or “so mote it be.”

Follow-up:

Greet the new season with a toast and pour a libation. Now celebrate the deities’ coupling with a feast. Begin the feast by cutting the apple, separating the stem from the bottom, to see the five seeds inside arranged in a pentagram. Eat one bite from both sides, acknowledging your acceptance of both sides of life: Light and dark, male and female, life and death. Put the remainder of the apple in the libation bowl.⁹ Now begin the feast. Make sure to share everything you’ve eaten with the libation bowl.

Finger-knit and tie your rope to the previous years’ ever-growing rope. Meditate on the meaning of this weaving to symbolize the journey. Think about previous Beltanes you might have celebrated, and what has transpired in your life since you finger-knitted for Ostara.

Closing:

Thank the God and Goddess for coming and put out their candles with a pinch or a snuffer, and thank all elementals, then earth and close the circle. Put anything that was given in the cauldron into the libation bowl also, with the exception of the candle and its holder. When the circle is broken, the first thing you should do is go outside and bury the contents of the libation bowl, then commence cleaning up. Document anything important in your Book of Shadows. Change any decorations around your house that you have to reflect the new season.

Alternatives and Additions:

If you wish, you may leave goodies out for the little people, animals, or whatever you choose. You may dedicate this food to them before the ritual’s core.

This Sabbat is conducive to magickal workings having to do with spells for fertility, love, spiritual communion with deity, safety, prosperity, and conservation. If magick is to be done, do it right before the feast.

If dancing, singing, or any other personal or individual merriment is scheduled, it can be done either after the feast and the core of the ritual, OR it can be done after the circle is broken.

Footnotes:

1--Groups can alternate speaking lines of this as a chant, and use “we” instead of “I.”
2--This should be a merry affair; in a group there is much fun to be had by dancing to each quarter or holding hands in a ring and circling clockwise, so that everyone passes through every quarter several times and gives thanks. It can be a thanksgiving led by a High Priest or High Priestess, or it can be silent. This works best with music.
3--In a group or couple situation, this should definitely be a shared guardian unless everyone brings their own from home, in which case the High Priest or High Priestess should lead a blessing over each one with anointing oil and then have a collective thanks and blessing askance. If it is a shared guardian, everyone in the group should take turns drawing a blessing rune with oil on it, if it is such that it can be anointed.
4--A community cauldron of rose ashes should be used with groups, and nuts can be thrown in, four by each person, and distributed among the members later to be placed around homes. OR they can be used to guard the four corners of the meeting place or coven’s circle.
5--With groups, it may be preferable to do these activities outside circle, or in such a way that the High Priest and Priestess lead and allow everyone else to contribute in a small way, so that it does not take up the entire ritual.
6--If in a group situation it is infinitely preferable to have a “real” big maypole that everyone can dance around. There is no individual or couple substitute for this, but the symbolism can be preserved with the small model. Working partners or very small covens can mimick this by wrapping the ribbons by handing them off to each other. 7--This can be made into a huge affair in coven situations. Play-acting works very well here, as does theatrical behavior by the High Priest and High Priestess. The re-kindling of the Bel-fire has different traditions for every group, and it is best to read a few accounts of it (such as the one in the Farrars’ A Witches’ Bible), and invent your own.
8--The Great Rite historically involves ritual sex. If working partners are also sexual partners and would like to celebrate this holiday with sexual intercourse, that would be appropriate, but might not be exactly convenient in a circle. In a coven situation or a group situation where sex is not appropriate or desired, it is good to have a male and a female (or one sex role-playing) join the chalice and the athame while holding hands. In some cases a sword plunging into a cauldron is a larger visual symbol for large groups of the figurative coupling.
9--Working partners should each take a bite of the apple and then switch; in coven situations, just pass each piece around to make sure everyone gets a bite.