The Sacred Year: May

Communing with the Earth

I am the wind that blows on the sea,
And I am the wave of the ocean... - Amergin the Bard

Celtic people have always had a profound awareness of kinship with the living world, and celebrated the return of summer to the land each Beltaine (May 1st) when they left their homesteads in the sheltered valleys for the high hills with their flocks and herds. Here they spent summer living on the land, gathering herbs and wild berries, cooking in fire-pits, making music and dancing under the summer stars.

For more on Beltaine, click here.

We can learn from them how to return to a harmonious relationship with nature. The following meditation is particularly effective when practiced outside on the grass.

Close your eyes and send your consciousness down through the room, down through the floor of the building, and down, deep down, into the earth. Be aware of the mass of rock that lies beneath the soil—shale, quartz, sandstone, granite; the black, white, and red—shot through with bands of minerals, darkly glittering; crystals that shine like stars within the stones ….Let your consciousness become one with the mineral kingdom: You might choose to become a mountain as old as the planet itself, once part of the seabed, thrown up by unspeakable forces now stilled, enormously, timelessly rooted in the earth, its head in the stars………Or a minute grain of sand, one among trillions and trillions, endlessly shifting, sifting, with the ocean tides …Or become a stone… the stone people are alive – it’s just that their hearts beat slower than ours …

Now become aware of the plant kingdom: algae and seaweeds, forests of kelp, grasses blowing in a savanna wind, yellow and orange lichens on a rock in a wood, prickly pears, an oak wood, a rain forest blooming with delicate orchids, vines hanging with fruit … Become one with the plant kingdom now – soft green moss on a rock by a stream, a mountain strawberry, a wild rose………..what does it feel like to be blown softly by the wind….or to split your husk and feel your seeds fall to the ground?

And now become aware of the animal kingdom…. listen to the voices of the wild: the roar of the tiger, the belling of the stag, the howl of the wolf; the cries of owls and the tapping of woodpeckers, the whirring of birds’ wings, the padding of soft paws………become one now with the animal kingdom, with the salmon leaping upstream, the fox gliding through the night, or the snake shedding its skin…feel what your new body is like and what it feels like to creep, walk, climb, run or fly in free motion….

And now become aware of the human kingdom …you are standing on two feet …notice how different that feels: you can stand like a stone, grow like a plant, move like an animal, but you can now create with your mind and your hands and you can sing and dance and dream in your heart and make that dream real upon the earth …and when you are ready, slowly open your eyes and come back to the room.

The next time you take a walk in nature, practice this kind of ‘floating your consciousness’ into the different life forms you encounter, from a blade of grass to a cloud in the sky. You will find this not only increases your appreciation and gratitude for the extraordinary universe we live in but also will give you a sense of belonging, which acts as a wonderful antidote to the loneliness that often accompanies urban life.

Unite and unite and let us all unite!
For summer is i-comen today!- - Cornish May Carol

Queen Guinevere Goes A-Maying
- Painting by John Collier

Dancing Tree