This year's Beltane was celebrated with traditional activities and ritual with a modern twist!
Having the opportunity to use a friends empty nightclub as our hub (it was forecast for rain, as it has been for about 6 months now, I swear its been raining since October!) our ritual space took place on the dance floor, surrounded by HUGE speakers, and the May Pole nestled snugly under the disco ball!
I turned up expecting to only have use of house lights, and what a delight to be given creative control over the club lights! I turned the room into a pink swirling blossom fest, with the lights looking like falling blooms, speakers decorated in the flowers and ivy and our altar with its own spotlight (perfect for the stowaway snails).
We started the evening with Flower Crown making, for we are all May Queens tonight! Leading onto a shared meal and I even made bannock cakes to go with our Beltane Hot Pot.
Moving swiftly on to dancing round the May Pole, which to my delight had curious restaurant guests popping their heads in to see what all the noise was about and gleeful 'OMG its like Midsommar in there!' exclamations whilst we merrily (although somewhat out of breath) danced around the pole. The most difficult of organisation was figuring out how to plait the ribbons, as it seems quite obvious in your head, but to explain, show and direct not so easy!
The May Pole was due to retire, however my neighbours on our lovely mews of cottages loved it so much they requested that I keep it up for the June Open Gardens and then Pride Weekend. It has now been tucked away for the rest of summer and will of course make another appearance for Samhain (so delighted to be told that this gets celebrated by the entire street).
Making the May Pole
I was on the hunt for a traditional trunk in our local cemetery (which is also a park of sorts, the cemetery was abandoned for 60 years and nature took over) where trees are often felled due to age or storm. I did come across a few, however, the spirit of the trees did not give me permission. I mentioned this to a friend and carpenter who said he has loads of left over pine poles we could fashion into something useful. Mikey cut a 2 x 4 down the middle, and we went for a 10 footer in the end. I took this home, not being able to tuck it into our tiny cottage, where it had to remain under the shelter for a couple of weeks until I had a dry day to paint and decorate.
I was a little unsure what I wanted to do with the pole itself, so I started by sanding and smoothing it out, initially wanting to round the edges...I soon discovered this would take a while so quickly abandoned!
I went for a lovely vine and leaf motif for the pole itself, and feeling a little unfinished I then painted on the zodiac, planetary and elemental signs.
Fixing green ribbons of different hues to the top of the pole, then attaching a wreath (I got a lovely spring themed one from B&M) over the ribbons using some twine so it could swing freely when we danced around.
Not sure how to affix the pole to a concrete floor, we were able to use a water filled umbrella stand from the nightclub to prop this up and we gave it a good stress test before everyone turned up by blasting some music and having a good giggle and dance.
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