#beltain

[babywitchofthesouth]

Spring Samhain/Halloween Decorations Inspo 🌸👻

Floral Broomstick - created with dried flowers and twigs, tied with a linen bow around a larger stick (1 for an instructional video, 2 for more inspo)

Painted Pumpkins - paper maché pumpkins, white or pastel orange, painted with floral designs and leaves (1 for the maché, 2 for the floral designs)

Crochet Ghost Charms/Garland - mini crochet ghosts on a green crochet vine for your phone or to hand (1 for the charms and ghost pattern, 2 for a vine garland)

Crochet Witchy Frog/Duck - crochet amigurumi frog/duck (or other spring animal) wearing a witches hat (1 for realistic-ish frog, 2 for cute frog, 3 for cute ducks, 4 for tiny witch hat)

Floral Spider Wreath - twig wreath with paper or died flowers, mini plastic spiders and fake spider web through the centre of the wreath (1 for spider wreath inspo, 2 for flower wreath inspo)

Here’s the explanation for fellow baby witches:

Alright so every Australian knows Halloween happens in Spring. Pumpkins are crazy expensive since they're not in season, we have no orange leaves, and Samhain meaning ‘the end of summer’ is not accurate. We also have like, nothing to harvest (as Samhain is a harvest festival) except flowers, because it's still basically winter.

I've mentioned before that if I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, I'll generally celebrate it opposite to the Northern Hemisphere. But I've decided to mix Beltain (celebrated on the 31st of October in the Southern Hemisphere if following the seasonal calendar) and Samhain (celebrated on the 30th of April, reasons as above), so I can still express Samhain through Halloween with the rest of the world.

So these are some basic and creative diy ideas for a Spring Samhain and Beltain crossover, all inspired by brookestyless post on instagram.

Not sure if I'll have the chance to try all of them, but if you do, add the hashtags #springsamhain and #springhalloween so other Southern Hemisphere witches can be inspired! Also, feel free to tag me because I'd love to see how you all celebrate.

[pigeonflavouredcake]

Happy Beltaine, I made cake 🌹

[princessmia-tarot]

[deepintheground]

what are y’all’s plans for beltane?? my family always has a traditional bonfire and the weather is shaping up to be perfect for it, i’m also looking to do some spirit work to check in on some of the connections i made back during samhain. i’m still looking for some ideas for general housekeep and any spells that might be good for this time of year and i don’t want to be caught with my pants down lol

[princessmia0204]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[from my flickr files :: My Great Aunt Anna’s albums from Carnegie Tech::1910]

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Tonight some of the Celtic (and sundry miscellaneous pagan) folk will be lighting bonfires. It is the eve of Mayday, the usual date of celebration of Beltane - a fertility and fire festival held at the approximate midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. On the actual day there is likely to be prancing around maypoles.. In the Christian calendar, the festival is associated with St Walpurgis, an 8th century Anglo-Saxon missionary to the Frankish Empire. She no longer gets an official feast day, but Walpurgisnacht involves the lighting of bonfires on May Eve... 

[Ian Sanders]

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“Nothing is ever lost as time passes, it merely metamorphoses into something as wonderful or, in some cases, into something even better than before.”

― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

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“At Bealltainn, or May Day, every effort was made to scare away the fairies, who were particularly dreaded at this season. In the West Highlands charms were used to avert their influence. In the Isle of Man the gorse was set alight to keep them at a distance. In some parts of Ireland the house was sprinkled with holy water to ward off fairy influence. These are only a mere handful out of the large number of references available, but they seem to me to reveal an effort to avoid the attentions of discredited deities on occasions of festival once sacred to them. The gods duly return at the appointed season, but instead of being received with adoration, they are rebuffed by the descendants of their former worshippers, who have embraced a faith which regards them as demons. In like manner the fairies in Ireland were chased away from the midsummer bonfires by casting fire at them. At the first approach of summer, the fairy folk of Scotland were wont to hold a "Rade," or ceremonial ride on horseback, when they were liable to tread down the growing grain.”

― Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins

[thirtheenprimes]

On one hand I love pre-Christian religions and mythologies, their holidays and practices and all of it is interesting. Especially historically Gaelic stuff because I've got a lot of ancestors from there and even though I have negative connection to them or the culture, I still think it's neat and I love it.

On the other hand I am unbelievably autistic for astronomy and the modern scientific seasons don't mesh exactly with ancient Gaelic seasons.

So happy Beltain to those who care. Have a wonderful first day of summer even though we're in the middle of spring. Based off my research I'm chalking the discrepancy up to precession (the slow wobble of the earth over the course of centuries that move the seasons around) and ancient Gaelic societies casting more about the natural world and weather patterns than technical orientations of the earth and its tilt when determining seasons. And honestly, every unique climate and geophraphical location experiences different seasons.

But also, modern Earth can't just say this is the first day of summer! At least acknowledge that isn't quite accurate in the modern world. The middle of spring is definitely way more full of life than the beginning of spring, but it's still spring these days. I think this calendar shift can also explain why the summer solstice is commonly celebrated as the middle of summer even though it's the first day of summer.

Idk, I love celebrating the earth and her natural world, the seasons, and all of that, and I love historical holidays and celebrations, but I get pulled out of the immersion when the first of May is celebrated as the first day of summer.

Its like the difference between geographical north and magnetic north, or between enjoying a fun movie about fairies and getting hung up on them showing a full moon on the horizon when the plot says its almost midnight. Or saying the thumb isn't a finger because it is anatomically different from the rest of your fingers even though language was created for day to day functioning before science and this the thumb is functionally a finger.

Honestly, ignore this because belting actually being the beginning of summer and putting the solstice as the mid point would make so much sense too. Then the 'dog days' of summer (when Sirius the brightest star which happens to be in canis major the big dog is first visible in the early morning, lining up with the flooding of the Nile, the hottest days of summer, and the beginning of harvest season in lots of places in the ancient world) would be near the end of summer.

So yeah, happy Beltain for anyone who cares.

[ofallingstar]

Blessed Beltane!

To celebrate this day, I thought of sharing my two Witchy Vibes ✨playlists:

Witchy Vibes, Part 1

Genres: Folk, Celtic, Neo-Pagan, Medieval

Featuring: Cécile Corbel, Blackmore’s Night, S. J. Tucker, Heather Dale, Lila, Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Spiral Dance, Lisa Dancing-Night, Celtic Woman…

Witchy Vibes, Part 2

Genres: Folk, Neo-Pagan, Metal, Darkwave

Featuring: Inkubus Sukkubus, Wendy Rule, Trobar de Morte, Karliene, Gåte, The Moon & The Nightspirit, Myrkur, Tarja, Faun, Daemonia Nymphe…

Each has 60 songs. Enjoy! ☀️