Merriment and Maypoles

May 1 is the day that Maypoles were erected in villages and fields and people danced around them, weaving brightly colored ribbons as they danced. The Celts named it Beltane after the god Bel. The Germans refer to the evening leading into it as Walpurgis Night, when witches would gather to welcome in the spring. All of the countries of Europe had similar traditions, with varying folk traditions, and names that reflect each culture.

The reason for these large phallic symbols was to bring joy and fertility to this year's crops. As a symbol for the fertilizing the earth, this was very public and festive and often times other ritual dances also celebrated the earth coming back to life and producing abundantly.

Some people would also have sex in the fields and gardens as a way of using sympathetic magic, their celebratory couplings infusing the fields with their pleasure, their energy and their hopes for a great year.

Given that we are not all farmers or gardeners, still there are seeds that we have planted in our lives this year that we want to grow. Those seeds could be the next stage of our career or job, they could be the seeds of the various relationships we are nurturing. They could be the seeds of success in all aspects of our lives.

Another old tradition is the jumping of the bonfire to signal the return of the heat and fertility into our lives.

Bringing fresh flowers into the house is a way of bringing in the spirit of spring. Flowers send their signal through the whole environment that the colorful fragrant bursting out of energy is all around us.

Although it is barely spring here in Colorado where we had snow this morning, and gardeners do not plant their outdoor gardens until after Mother's Day, when I was in Ireland several years ago at Beltane, the newspapers had photos and stories about welcoming in the first day of summer.

Beltane is the polar opposite of Samhain, or Halloween or Day of the Dead. it seems very fitting that ancient people had one major holiday signaling the beginning of summer dedicated to birth and rebirth, and another exactly six months later, signaling the beginning of winter, and honoring the dead.

In another symbology Beltane and Samhain can be seen as the yin and yang. The energies of the major seasonal shifts signal major shifts within people as well. If we attune our energies to growth right now, and we enjoy the bright colors and energies, we are priming the pump, and affirming that we will bring beautiful creations into being, beginning now.

Celebrate the season with positive thoughts and actions to expand upon our previous successes and build new beginnings where and how we choose.

Full Moon Reflections

Full moons have always held special significance to people because it is such an obvious sign of the cycles of nature, the cycles of life. It comes in a way that we can see with the naked eye and it comes frequently enough that we can remember the entire cycle and notice how it affects us.

By comparison, we sometimes have trouble remembering things that happened years ago. We have to stretch our minds to calculate what year that was we had the bigger than average snowfall, or the year that the drought was especially bad.

We sometimes forget when that was when we moved, if we have moved several times. We have to think hard to remember when we changed careers or jobs if we have done that several times.

So many things elude our easy recall. Not only that, but if we try to extract the important life lessons from many of our experiences and relationships, one memory always seems to lead to another, and we recall things in some seemingly random way.

Our lives often seem to be bursting at the seems with things to do, tasks to prioritize, things to sort out.

Then once a month, the night sky is lit, silently, sweetly, with the full moon that we watch steadily grow, then recede again, until it is hidden in the dark. Waxing, waning, presenting herself in her full glory, reminding us of the comings and goings of life, the things we have intended to do, and the things we have done, from month to month.

Her reminders are gentle. She simply appears and disappears, and we reflect on the natural beauty of the world we live in, both seen and unseen.

We are here for a while to shed our light. We share our selves and our time, for how ever many seasons and cycles we have. Our energy ebbs and flows, the seeds we plant, grow. Sweetness is more often quiet than loud. The light that glows from within is how. We see our way by feeling, with a universe of possibilities as never ending as the luminous night sky.

And the full moon visits us once a month, her mysteries in plain sight.

Senses and Psychic Ability

Psychic abilities are often extensions of our senses. Clairvoyance is another name for second sight. Clairaudience is the ability to pick up messages through what we hear. Calirsentience is the ability to read through the sense of touch.

Our psychic abilities are developed when we open our senses to a fuller use.

Have you tried just relaxing and opening your ears to hear the sounds from all around? Do you ever hear messages in those sounds? Are there patterns that emerge from what you hear besides the obvious?

Do you ever let your mind relax and look farther afield? You might think of this as imagination. What happens when you look ahead in time or to some distant place? Can you picture events playing out from the present energy?

When you pick up a random object, whether it is a stone, a personal object like a pen or a piece of jewelry, can you sense anything about the people who have had possession of this object or came into contact with it?

Psychic ability is an awakening to a higher level of awareness. We can increase our sensitivity to it through sight, hearing and touch.

You can mark down your impressions in a notebook and then verify them later. These exercises can help you start to make the connections.

Rituals, Resonance, Remembrance

We know what we know through our senses. One of the important reasons why we use stimulants to our senses of taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell during ritual is so that the experience stays with us.

Spiritual ceremonies always contain sensual elements. There may be frankincense, sandalwood, sage, juniper or some other aromatic herb that is burning. There are bells or gongs that are rung to signal the call to service. There are candles, bonfires or oil lamps.

There is a physical touch in the way of greeting or blessing. There is taste in the sharing of food or wine. There are symbolic signals such as special robes that ritual leaders wear. There are sprinklings of holy water.

All of these are about marking the occasion as a special event. Rituals containing these elements stay with us much more powerfully than rituals that are merely a lecture or sermon.

Ritual music that is moving, literally moves us to remember. Rituals that involve drums, tambourines, stomping, clapping, singing, dancing, large groups of harmonious voices, all serve to make the ritual an indelible event.

These elements are found in various combinations in spiritual ceremonies all around the world.

There is a similar reason why bells are rung in steeples, gongs are banged in temples, and shamanic practitioners wear little bells.

There is a similar reason why if we are not dancing around fires, candles or lamps are lit all around the church or temple.

There is a similar reason why a shaman may smudge, temples may light sandalwood incense and churches may walk around swinging a censor filled with burning frankincense and myrrh.

There is a similar reason why earthy religions cut loose with drums and dancing, churches have large choirs, temples have drums, movement and chanting and some churches contain elements percussion, dancing and singing.

There is a similar reason why one religion shares wine and hosts, another bread and wine, some earthy religions share rum, and some shamans use vodka.

We know what we know through our senses. Bringing sensory experiences into ritual makes them more real for us, more memorable, more powerful. That is why a refrain from a song or a whiff of incense can suddenly evoke a spiritual feeling or idea.

Whether you are celebrating some regularly occurring holy day or creating a special personal ritual, bring your senses to your ritual for a more powerful result.

Coming to Your Senses

Why is it that something like a rainstorm can stir up memories? It is because our sense of smell is connected to a part of our brain that contains memory. Of course, exactly what memory is triggered can vary, but sensory memory itself is an involuntary reflex.

Of course, there are some scents that have a generally good reception, such as vanilla, cinnamon, rose, orange and so on, which is why there are so many perfumes and colognes which include these scents. Things that we generally experience as repulsive are warnings from nature, our self defensive mechanism. For example, natural gas does not have a smell. That is something the gas companies add so that we can tell when there is a leak.

Then we have things that are individualized, and so certain herbs and spices will remind us of home cooking and evoke pleasant thoughts, although the particular scents that do that may be linked to our family backgrounds and what we have experienced as delicious meals from our past.

So the rainstorms this week have evoked different feelings in different people, bringing us inside to avoid getting soaked, and then we go inside again in order to do some inner work. Whether it is playing a musical instrument, reading, journaling, meditating, sewing, beading, spending time on a hobby or other activity that we enjoy. The scent of the rain may prompt those choices as well.

Music also has an aspect of of involuntary recall. Ironically, it was after WW2 that therapists working with veterans who had suffered brain damage discovered that spoken language and lyrics in music are two different things, stored in two different parts of the brain. There were injured vets who had problems speaking, but when a favorite or familiar song came on a radio or record player, they could sing along with it.

So when music evokes powerful emotions within us, we again have those variables to consider. Although there are some pieces of music that seem to reach across time with their ability to soothe us or excite us, some of the music will have everything to do with what we have spent a lot of time listening to.

When you are creating a pleasant atmosphere and nurturing your mind and body, the sensory stimulants that will work best for you are very influential. You probably have been doing this unconsciously to some degree. Now when you do it consciously, you can create even better results.

Imagination's Importance

What would our life be without our imagination? A lot less, that's for sure. Think about the simple function that novels, and by extension, movies, play in our lives. It is our imagination that lets us travel to places where we have not been physically. It helps us experience what it must have been like to live in different times, as different people.

Imagination plays a vital role in providing stress relief. When we come home from work, and we set aside our personal business for a while, we enter into a more peaceful state of consciousness as we read a book or watch a movie, and imagine for a little while what it might be like to be someone else, be somewhere else and do something else. It is our waking dream state.

It is more than just entertainment. Think what our life would be like without our imagination? Probably at a much lower subsistence level, for one.

Many people tout the importance of positive thinking and creative visualization. These are simply other terms for using your imagination.

Our imagination can pave the pathway for the physical acts to follow. Cavemen imagined the hunt before they went on the hunt. Inventors imagined the bow and arrow, the wheel, the observatory, the vase and the sailboat before they invented them. Inventors still work this way, whether they are working on new aircraft, new computers or new phones.

Our imagination is also our gateway to psychic ability. The ability to see beyond the ordinary physical reality is how we open our second sight.

Our imagination has aided and enhanced our survival instincts and it has also contributed to our enjoyment of life and the development of everything from music and art to literature and games.

Exercise your imagination frequently to keep it fluid. It is a key to success in every aspect of life.

Healing Rain

I love the healing qualities of rain. I love the sound of it. I imagine that as it cools and cleanses everything, worries and concerns can drain away with it, soothing our spirits and giving us a drink of what we need.

There is a feeling that I get with rain. It is quiet. The constant sound of it drones pleasantly, encouraging those who don't need to be outside go in and relax.

As a backdrop for reading, reflective thoughts, note making, a little smoke and time to just be relaxed and unhurried, the hard rain is a blessing.

Of course, the rain prompts the onset of spring and the fullest greening of the trees and shrubs. One more reason to love it.

There is a taste in the air when it rains, a scent, an enlivening of the sense of touch, a quieting of voices.

Tomorrow there is other business to attend to, but for now there is rain. Just rain.