Bright Beltane Blessings!!!
I led the following Beltane ritual on calling more joy into your life for my Pagan group last Sunday. Today (May 1st) is traditional Beltane. Astronomical Beltane (the official calendar midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice) falls on May 4th this year. To me, Beltane is a season – I celebrate for about a fortnight centered around the beginning of May.
For this ritual, you will need some loose paper and a writing utensil. You may also wish to have your journal to write down your thoughts and answers to the questions found throughout this ritual about your relationship with joy.
You can start and end this ritual with casting/taking down a circle if that is a part of your practice.
Quarter Calls
Earth
We call to the North, to the Element of Earth, to join us in our Beltane rite. We call to the stable ground beneath our feet, to the steadfast mountains, to the growing green plants, to the world awakening with life and joy. Element of Earth, Hail and Welcome!
Air
We call to the East, to the Element of Air, to join us in our Beltane rite. We call to the warm winds of change, to the crashing thunderstorms, to the creatures in flight, and to the freedom of wide open skies. Element of Air, Hail and Welcome!
Fire
We call to the South, to the Element of Fire, to join us for our Beltane rite. We call to the warmth of the summer sun, to the blazing balefire, to the pulse quickening in all living things, and to the passion burning within each of us. Element of Fire, Hail and Welcome!
Water
We call to the West, to the Element of Water, to join us for our Beltane rite. We call to the fresh water that nourishes us, to the refreshing salty spray of the ocean, to the gentle afternoon rains, and to the depths of our own emotions. Element of Water, Hail and Welcome!
Invocation of Aphrodite
I call to the Glorious Aphrodite! Radiant Goddess of Love and Laughter, I invite you to join in our Beltane celebration. Please surround us with your joy for life and your all encompassing love, so that we may see the best in ourselves and others. Please empower us to fill our lives with pleasure, to embrace what makes us happy, and to infuse our days and nights with vibrance and joy. Hail and welcome!
Introduction
You deserve joy.
Joy and pleasure are as much your birthright as breathing air and drinking water. Joy is an inherent part of our being. You deserve joy simply by existing. It is a simple fact, a universal truth, but one that we frequently don’t acknowledge in our lives.
So let’s take Beltane, a holiday filled with joy and pleasure, to examine how joy shows up in our lives and how we can welcome it more fully into our spiritual practices and everyday routines. Beltane is a time to celebrate the joy of being alive and what makes us feel truly connected to our Divine spark!
So what is joy? What does joy mean to you?
To me, joy is that feeling of fulfillment deep in your soul – when your heart can’t help but sing. It is pleasure, ecstasy, elation. It is delight, bliss, and a bone-deep satisfaction. It is more enduring than transient happiness, though it can absolutely inspire happiness.
It is unfortunate, but in our society, we often treat joy as an afterthought. We plan our days around what we must do, instead of what we want to do. We do things to stay alive instead of feel alive. Some of this is unavoidable – We need money for food and shelter, we may have other people that we need to take care of, and those dishes in the sink aren’t going to do themselves.
We may also put off joy, even when we don’t need to. We think of joy as a reward instead of an integral part of our lives. We may feel like we have to “earn” joy, and thus we place all these limitations on it. We have to fulfill our duties as a good “insert life role here – parent, breadwinner, spouse, partner, friend, caretaker, and so on” before we allow ourselves joy. But joy isn’t tied to any life role we play or how well we fulfill it. That’s an illusion society has forced upon us, and you don’t have to play by those rules. In fact, I encourage you not to.
We may place other limitations on joy and when and where it is appropriate to feel it. Joy will come after we get that promotion at work, or after we find our ideal relationship. We may think joy is something that we can only have if our life looks a certain way or if our body looks a certain way or if we finally arrive at being “good enough.”
But joy doesn’t work like that. There are no prerequisites for joy. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to do anything to deserve it. You don’t have to do or be certain things to have it. You can just… experience joy.
Joy is something that we can create for ourselves! There are no requirements – no rules you have to follow or standards that you have to uphold.
Joy is just joy – it’s as simple as that. Even if untangling yourself from everything society has told you about when and how you deserve joy isn’t quite so simple.
Society places a lot of guilt around joy. What is there to celebrate if your life isn’t perfect? If you aren’t perfect? Why are you happy when others are suffering?
I’ll let you in on a little secret – Your joy makes the world a better place. Joy nourishes us and fulfills us. It inspires us to be better people. It helps us feel peace and ease.
And this is a beautiful feedback loop. The more joy we feel, the more joy we create in our lives and in the lives of others, and the cycle continues.
So why not feel joy? Invite it into your life with a smile and see what happens. Release the limitations and conditions that you place on joy in your life. Go out of your way to infuse your day with joy. Even if nothing else happens, you’ll still have created some happiness for yourself. And how could that possibly be bad?
Magickal Working
To support our journey into joy, we are going to do a little magick!
Beltane is inherently a magickal, liminal time. As the holiday opposite Samhain, Beltane is also a time when the veil between the worlds is thin – but instead of looking to the past as we do at Samhain, at Beltane we look toward the future. We see the great field of possibilities, of things yet to come into being. The space between what is and what will be diminishes, empowering our magick and bringing us closer to our hopes and desires.
What does it feel like to live in this realm of potentiality, where everything hums with the vibrations of life and growth? Where your path forward consists of an infinite number of trails? Where there is not just one door of opportunity, but twenty? Where everything is moving, growing, spiralling upward? Where joy feels abundant and easeful?
Take your loose paper and your writing utensil. In the center of your paper, you will draw a representation of your hope, your passion, your joy, your fire for the future. How will you bring more joy into your life? Around this image, you will write your words of magick, calling that thing forth into being. Wind your words around your image in a clockwise spiral, starting in the center, from that pure depiction of your joy, and winding them outward into the universe, to the edges of your paper and beyond. Write as much or as little as you feel called. Write until that song inside your heart is set free.
If you wish to see an example of how this might be done, here is mine, but in no way let this limit your creativity. Yours does not have to look like mine or anyone else’s. It is yours. Make it so.
First, take three deep breaths to bring yourself more fully into your own being.
Where is joy already present in your life? Where would you like to welcome joy in? What limitations do you place on when or how you experience joy? What can you do to let go of those limitations? What would happen if you dropped the guilt from your “guilty pleasures”? What is a small change you can make towards joy? How about a big change? What feels most vibrant and alive to you right now?
Think about your relationship with joy, and how that can inform your magick today. What you draw and write on your paper is something that you want to manifest around joy. It should use positive language like “I open myself to new possibilities of pleasure and joy.” It can take the form of a prayer, a series of affirmations, or whatever you feel called to write.
What lights you up when you think about it? What makes you smile? What makes you feel alive? What gives you bliss?
When you have finished, take your paper in your hands, and marvel at what you have written. It may be simple and small, or it may be grand and extravagant. Whatever it is, let it be yours.
Say this aloud as you visualize your desire coming true:
May the Divine bless this wish, crafted of humble paper and pen, but infused with the power of the heart. May its energy grow inside me, in all of its magnificent splendor. I awaken the magick within to create abundant joy throughout my life.
So mote it be!
You may also want to ask for your own blessings – from your Gods, from the Earth, from yourself.
Now read the words you have written aloud. With each spoken word, with each turn of your paper, call it into being. Sing it into being. Dance it into being. Let your wish fill your heart, and make it so.
You can read your words aloud at regular intervals to further empower the magick. This could be daily, weekly on a day that corresponds to your desire (Friday is Aphrodite’s day and is a wonderful day for calling in joy), on full moons, or on some other schedule that works with your spiritual practice.
Gratitude to Aphrodite
O Glorious Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Hope, thank you for your presence with us today. We celebrate your compassion and your kindness, your laughter and your joy, and your sacredness in the everyday. Thank you for helping us to find joy in our lives, so that we may be nourished and fulfilled. May we carry your love in our hearts always. Hail and Blessed Be!
Release the Quarters
Water
Element of Water, thank you for joining us in our Beltane rite. May we be surrounded by your healing energies as we look toward the future. Hail and farewell!
Fire
Element of Fire, thank you for joining us in our Beltane rite. May we be surrounded by your passionate energies as we look toward the future. Hail and farewell!
Air
Element of Air, thank you for joining us in our Beltane rite. May we be surrounded by your inspirational energies as we look toward the future. Hail and farewell!
Earth
Element of Earth, thank you for joining us in our Beltane rite. May we be surrounded by your grounding energies as we look toward the future. Hail and farewell!
Priestess of Aphrodite 