Beltane and Shabbat
Am I the only one who finds the rituals of other spiritual paths so much more poignant and worthy than my own? And then I guilt trip myself!
Friday nights at our home are laced with remnants of Jewish ritual. We light long stem candles, bake a braided challah with poppy seeds and sing a shabbat prayer to my fathers’ melody, the one he learned as a child at cheder in Lithuania. I don’t think much of it, but when we have guests over they remind us of how special the tradition is. Sometimes I detect a longing, a wistfulness in our guests. As if this is something they dream of for themselves too, some day, some place. The Hebrew prayer carries an extra helping of gravitas because, well, none of us understands it, and that must mean it is VERY deep. Of course.
That same wistfulness washes over me when I go Pagan. Like this last Sunday. Beltane. First of May. First day of Summer, celebrating the greening of the world, the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice. We gathered in the meadow at Sacred Groves. For those who have not been there, this is a 10-acre magical forest with pixie peeps living in gorgeous yurts and retired school busses. A stranger might think this to be a neo-pagan haven, shrines and alters with candles, beads and wreaths popping up with delight under the dark green canopy.
We drummed and danced the ribbons of the Maypole into a huge colorful braid, surrounded by well loved old firs and cedars. It is a celebration of fertility and bursting life, skirts gathered up, heels kicked high as friends fly freely over leaping flames. Strangers flirt sweetly under garlands of spring flowers and all bow to the moist earth.
Sounds a bit dreamy right? A joyful and delightful way to celebrate this sweetspot in the earth’s rotation. No big book, no masculine superforce, no baggage from years of dressing up in uncomfortable smart shoes and standing in the pews. No underlying conviction that Eden is lost. In this fairytale landscape surrounded by friends with no apparent dogma, I am a stranger, and also more at home than ever.
Pagan 101? Nature is divine. We humans are full members of the natural world and we are therefore bound in kinship to all life and the Earth itself. That is all I know. And it feels true.
Now, to be clear, I would never discard my Jewish heritage. And fortunately I don’t have to. I can skate between worlds comfortably. But if I were ever faced with a zero sum choice for the future of our planet, I would surely take off my shoes and leave the pews.
So, Happy Beltane! And thanks to my friends Sandra and Kayla (priestess power), and V (the wise jester) as well as Terese and Tere (the devoted stewards of the Sacred Groves).
