PAN: PAGAN ANTI-DEFAMATION NETWORK
(AFFILIATED TO SAFF)
MAY DAY
THE FLORALIA AND BELTANE
This lovely month gains its name from the Roman/Greek fertility Goddess ‘MAIA’, mother of the God Mercury. She was equated with FAUNA, CYBELE and OPS - Goddesses who were greatly loved and respected by the masses.
F
auna's feast day was held on the first night of May. It was a sacred occasion exclusive to women, as the men honoured Fauna's masculine consort FAUNUS instead. During Fauna's celebration wine and music blended with magickal ritual forming a strange yet joyous medley of sound and veneration for the deity.From the 28th April to the 3rd of May a festival called the Floralia occurred in honour of the Sabine FLORA, patron Goddess of flowering gardens. Virgil claimed that young folk would venture out at Floralia to pick summer flowers from field, wood and meadow. Much singing and dancing took place and this natural Pagan love of life has come down to us today in the form of contemporary Maypole/day celebrations. May Queen and King parades can easily be traced back to ancient Rome and beyond. Roman children happily adorned little clay statues of the Goddess with beautiful wild blossoms as a token of love and respect. The early church eager to crush Pagan religion cleverly usurped Flora and swapped her image for one of the Virgin Mary thereby gaining spiritual monopoly over the unsuspecting, censored population.
Flora was frequently depicted as a young maiden dressed in a floral crown. She held two major temples at Rome so it is clear that her devotion from the Pagan masses was regarded as a threat to the intolerant church fathers, hence their devious attention, ultimately resulting in Christian subversion of Flora's sacred feast day. Flora's worship is however not to be crushed so easily, as her beauty will forever remain in the hearts of lovers whilst there are still wild May flowers in the field.
The Celtic Mayday is known as Beltane/Beltaine (meaning fire of Bel/Bile). Bel has associations with the Roman PLUTO and DIS-PATER lord of the underworld/death. Numerous legends claim he arrived from ‘Spain’ (which is actually a misleading euphemism for the Celtic Hades.) This is plain evidence of early missionary interference with Pagan myth, deviously inserted to deprive Bile of his traditionally divine nature.
On May eve all household fires would be extinguished then later rekindled from a great druidic hilltop blaze outdoors. The Druids, being the Pagan priests of the Celts, believed that it was sacrilegious to worship the Gods in dwellings made by mortal man.
Beltane was the start of the Celtic summer and the blaze spiritually connected with the increasing solar power needed to sustain life. It was brought joyously to each homestead as a vital magickal token of new life, which every grateful occupant accepted with glad heart. The mysterious green life energy was flowing in nature and it couldn't be ignored.
Today, the very same power of summer's growing light that our ancestors celebrated so well is upon us again this Beltane. Man made religions have come and gone in their multitude, yet spring still slowly turns into summer just as it always has. Our forbears didn't need to have faith in anything but the natural divinity residing deep behind natures many moods, which they connected with every single day of their lives.
This Mayday we too must remember the Pagan wisdom of the ‘Old Ones’ and re-connect with the healing power stemming from nature, linking us intimately with the magickal cosmic cycles of earth and the vast uncharted universe beyond.
Disclaimer:
PAN realises that the vast majority of Christians are not fundamentalist or evangelical in make up and we only criticise religious extremists who seek to disenfranchise other faiths whilst bolstering their own. PAN does not in any way condone violence against any persons or property and we must state that we have always worked towards a more tolerant and equal society.
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