Beltane Breath

A practice for Beltane (High Spring) using the cycle of breath to sanctify desire. Celebrating openness and allurement. Invoking Aphrodite. Draws upon the work of Glenys Livingstone, author of PaGaian Cosmology.

Transcript

This meditation is dedicated to Mother Earth,

The Mother of us all,

And to Beltane,

The spring cross-quarter,

Roughly halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice.

This seasonal moment is traditionally celebrated around the first of May in the Northern Hemisphere,

Around the first of November in the Southern Hemisphere,

And it might be considered high spring in a lot of parts of the world.

In fact,

In the background you're hearing a recording on a spring morning in an open woodland area near a standing stone in Portugal.

So for this meditation you should be sitting comfortably with an erect spine.

If you're feeling a little sluggish,

A little low energy,

A little sleepy,

As we sometimes do,

We can begin with some deep,

Quick breathing to kind of bring some oxygen and energy into our being.

Breathing deeply,

But also quickly.

In through the nose and out through the mouth.

After you do this a few times you might feel a little light-headed,

Hopefully also a little energized.

You can let your breath return to its normal rhythm.

And we can just observe the cycle of our breath.

Just notice how it is,

What it's like to breathe,

To be here,

And to notice how the breath is like a cycle,

Like a circle that goes around and around.

Breathing in and breathing out.

We find the same patterns throughout nature,

Similar cycles.

So in the natural world,

In the cycle of the seasons,

We also see a cycle that's very much like our respiration.

Days growing longer and then shorter again.

Temperatures rising and then falling.

Biological activity in the ecosystem increasing and then waning.

It's like the cycle of every breath.

As you breathe in,

Notice how your lungs come to fullness with each inhalation.

Notice how your lungs are opening up.

Full of air,

Full of life-giving oxygen sustaining you.

You can slow the breath down a little bit.

You can even emphasize this feeling of coming to fullness.

When you reach a point where your lungs feel just as full of air,

Maybe breathe in a little extra to see if you can expand your lungs even a little bit further.

So it hurts just a little bit.

That moment in the cycle of the breath,

We might call that the Beltane moment.

Moment of high spring.

We feel our lungs opening up,

Our chest expanding and opening.

We might,

If we like,

Visualize this with the metaphor of a flower opening up.

Flower blooming.

The petals opening wide with each breath.

We can even,

If you like,

Bring your arms into it.

If you have your hands,

Say,

Sitting in your lap with the inhalation,

Open your arms up.

Breathing up into the air,

Spread out like the petals of a flower and then folding back down into your lap on the exhalation.

Inhaling,

Raising your arms up.

Exhaling,

Holding your arms back down.

Breathing up.

If you like,

You can even hold your arms open as you continue to breathe in and out.

Feel your openness.

Open to what?

Open to the possibilities of this moment.

Open to the universe.

Open to others.

The energy of others,

To the attraction of others.

Of course,

When your arms begin to feel fatigued,

You can blow them back to your lap.

Continue the cycle of the breathing.

Focus on the breathing.

On the inhalation and that fullness of the breath.

And the metaphor of the flower.

We remember that flowers,

Their beauty is not merely an accident.

It's very much a design that's been forged through the crucible of millions of years of evolution.

Plants put forth flowers that are beautiful to attract pollinators,

To attract bees and butterflies.

They find the flowers beautiful as well.

The whole point of the flower opening up is to signal its availability.

That it's open and ready.

We might call this allurement,

Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry in the universe story.

I say that love begins as allurement,

As attraction.

They invite us to think of the entire cosmos,

All hundred billion galaxies rushing through space.

At this cosmic scale,

The basic dynamism of the universe is the attraction.

Each galaxy has for every other galaxy.

And so,

With each breath,

In the fullness of our breath,

We acknowledge and sanctify our desire,

Our sacred desire.

Nature times,

Goddesses like Aphrodite,

Worshipped and revered.

Today we might receive notions of Aphrodite as the goddess of love in a superficial way.

But the ancients regarded her not only as erotic romantic love between humans,

But also as a goddess of the cosmos.

Their wisdom comes to us through the orphic hymn to Aphrodite,

Which states,

For all things are from you,

Who unites the cosmos.

You boil the threefold fates and bring forth all things,

Whatever is in the heavens and in the much fruitful earth and the deep sea.

We recognize also our openness to the possibilities of others,

Of working with others,

Our attraction to others.

We can also take the form of political mobilization,

The same sanctified desire.

We drive our engagement in our communities to work with our neighbors,

Our friends,

Our allies,

Whether it's marching in the streets or working on a press release as we work for a more just and humane society.

Beltane is often regarded as an ancient right of fertility.

We recognize fertility is not just the biological fertility of crops or the bearing of children,

But also what we might call noetic fertility,

The fertility of ideas,

Creativity of our imagination,

Which comes alive with each breath.

Finally,

It's always appropriate to close with gratitude to our ancestors,

Our biological ancestors,

And also what we might think of as our spiritual ancestors.

I want to give thanks particularly to Glenys Livingston.

Through her work,

I've come to the ideas that I've shared with you here.

And I wanted to close with some words of hers,

She writes,

Beltane is an opportunity to recognize and ritualize our desire for life,

Which we feel in so many ways.

And to recognize that it is a holy desire.

On an elemental level,

There is our desire for air,

Water,

The warmth of fire,

And to be of use to earth.

There is an essential longing,

Sometimes nameless,

Sometimes constellated,

Experienced physically.

It may be recognized as the desire of the universe or self,

Desiring in us.

We may remember that we are united in this desire with each other,

With all who've gone before us,

With all who come after us,

All who dance the dance of life.

Thank you.

Bye.

Reviews

Really pleasant meditation! Beautiful way to take the time to honor Beltane!

A perfect way to begin today. Thanks for your meditation on Beltane.

🙏🏻 That was wonderful! Thank you so much!

This meditation in the form of an extended metaphor is so beautifully composed and presented that I don’t want to save it for Beltane once a year.

This connected me with the heartbeat of the holiday 🌍🌷🌞🐝

Thank you so much for a delightful Beltane meditation.

Thank you, and blessed be.

What a rich reflective talk/meditation with a delightful backdrop of summer buzzing beings. Thank you. We’re planning our Beltane celebration at the moment. 💐

Wow. So perfect. This was my first Beltrane celebration. I always celebrated May day as the day to march for worker rights Wells wide. It read so perfect that you so beautifully folded the two. Just beautiful. Thank you. Gracias! Happy May day! Happy Beltane!

✨🌳🌏Thanks for this beautiful moment of breathing and appreciating. It was a lovely way to introduce this celebration to my daughter. I feel so renewed after listening, and especially enjoyed hearing the buzzing of the world. 🐝 ☀️🌜✨Perfect!

Beltane blessings. Was lovely to find this meditation on Beltane. Thanks for sharing. Namaste 🙏

Thank you for this lovely meditation. Very inspirational. Beltane blessings to you! 🙏🏼 🦋 🌷 ♥️