Welcome to the Lusty Month of May!

Where Does Your Life Need More Passion?

Oh! Thank goodness!! We have a real sunrise this morning! It’s the first time in 10 days that it hasn’t been grey and rainy and cold.

It finally feels like Spring!

Which is a very good thing. Because today is the last day of April and that means that tomorrow is the first day of May!

And you know what that means:

MAY DAY!!! 

(but, in a good way, not in the ‘plane going down’ kind of way)

Except, y’know, not really. Though we tend to celebrate May Day / Beltaine / Beltane on the first of May, it does change every year. This year it’s May 5th (check out archaeoastronomy).

Which is perfect, because now you can celebrate on the weekend. 🙂

Beltane is what’s known as a cross-quarter day. It’s halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. In ancient calendars, these cross-quarter days had just as much, if not more, importance than the Big 4 (as I like to think of them).

What’s the Point of Beltane?

It’s a good question. I mean, why not let this day slip by like every other day.

Well, for me, it’s a simple answer: I don’t want to live a boring life. A dreary, drudgery mundane life.

I don’t want to sleepwalk through day after day, never pausing to notice what is happening around me. I want to give thanks and celebrate what an incredible world we’ve been given to live in.

So, I celebrate. In fact, I take pretty much ANY excuse to celebrate the turning of the seasons.

And, after a looooooong winter and a dreary, cold, wet beginning to Spring, I will definitely take the opportunity to pause and give thanks for the season to come.

Which is what Beltane is for, after all.

It’s the day when ancient societies carried out their fertility rites, praying and celebrating and supplicating themselves to the gods to favour them in the coming growing season.

For most of us, we’ve become very dissociated from the importance of the agricultural cycle. Celebrating the cross-quarter days is one way we can remind ourselves that without fertile soil and sun and rain, we cease to exist.

It’s one small reason to P-A-U-S-E and give thanks. And I’ll take any good reason to slow down, step into mindfulness, and pause.

Okay… So What’s the Energy of Beltane?

Beltane has some of the most delicious growth and passion energy of the entire year!

Here’s Julie Andrews being entirely inappropriate in Camelot as an example. This song has been in my head for the last few days:

The Lusty Month of May

(btw, this used to be my favourite musical growing up)

The fire energy of the Sun is reaching its peak in the Northern Hemisphere. The soil is finally warming up. Our neighbours to the south have begun to plant their gardens. And for those of us north of the border, we’re starting to getting itchy fingers. Wanting to get out of homes and into our gardens. We’re ready to plunge our hands into the soil, fire up the BBQ, and start SUMMER.

We’re eager.

It’s the beginning of the growing season. So, energetically, we think about and visualize what we planted back in the heart of winter (our goals, dreams, and intentions) starting to sprout and grow.

There is newness everywhere. Increased passion everywhere. New beginnings. New possibilities.

Plus, It’s the New Moon

In addition to this weekend being Beltane, Saturday is also the New Moon. Which means that we’re at the beginning of a new 28-day lunar cycle. 

So… energetically multiply that solar energy of new beginnings and growth by wrapping in the similar lunar energies of new beginnings and growth. They feel different, and activate different parts of our Unconscious Minds, but the overall result is the same: a passionate desire to GROW!

How to Use the Energy this Weekend

Do you have a new project that you want to start? A new thing that your heart is longing to get out into the world?

Is there something that has to end? Something that has been hanging around too long and it’s time for you to bless and release, or bless and complete?

This week, and this weekend, are the perfect time to do that. Either or both.

If you need to tie your passion to something new, or reinvigorate something old, it’s a great time to do that, as well.

What I’ll Be Doing to Celebrate Beltane and Align with the Energies

If you’ve been around here for a while you know that I have one every year ritual for May Day:

I walk outside, first thing in the morning, lay my palms on the earth, give thanks for all the growth and life and prosperity and blessings around me and within me, and then I pat the dew onto my face.

May Day Dew, y’all, It’s My Thing

It’s simple. Elegant. Self-care. 

It requires just enough effort to be noticed but not so much that I’m exhausted by it.

And while I could do an elaborate celebration and bake May Day cookies and pull out all the stops, that isn’t where my heart is at these days.

I’ll take simple and elegant every time. I’ll take nourishing, every time.

This year, I’m also celebrating the beginning of PLANT – it’s the next course I’m creating in the Seasons of Success Cycle and I can’t think of a better time to start it than on Beltane… or, at least, the days around it.

So, I’ll be taking some time this week to plan out the content and start creating the slides, planting the new thing in the delicious energy of the seasonal Sun and New Moon.

Do the Lunar and Solar Calendars Really Matter?

I think that that’s a great question and one that each one of us has to answer for herself.

For me, there’s a balance. I think it’s important to notice when big things are happening in the heavens for two big reasons:

1. If we don’t find reasons to celebrate, the days, weeks, and years slip by in a mundane grey blur. We come to the end of our lives wondering where they went. I love the Wheel of the Year as it gives me 8 good reasons to P-A-U-S-E. Moments to notice what is good and what I want to change, and

2) I’ve found that there is an energetic shift around the 8 points of the Wheel. We have a choice:

• do I want to work intentionally with this energy and make it conscious OR
• do I want it to wreak unconscious havoc and chaos with my world because I’m sleepwalking?

For me, I’d rather flow than fight and I’d always rather be a conscious Creator than an unconscious Victim.

Finding Our Balance with Seasonal Flows

I also think it’s important not to let the heavens have too much importance. I know people who are so locked in to their astrological reports that they won’t take a step unless the aspects are auspicious. I’ve seen far too many people put off their dreams and plans and actions while they wait for the right time. From the outside, it looks an awful lot like self-sabotage.

I believe that we can always find the right time. We can always find reasons to move ahead – or to hide and stay still – when we look to the archetypal energies of the stars and moon. And since I’ve decided that I’ll always find what I need when I look to the Heavens, I do. 

This season is one of growth and new beginnings and passionate, lusty bursting. So, I’ll align myself with that and work with those energies to make my magic happen. In my life and in my business.

So, that’s what I’ll be doing over the next week and the flavour I’ll be bringing to my days.

What will you be doing? What are you feeling inspired to do?

You’re here to make a difference and the world needs you shining and powerful.

What’s your new thing that you can turn your passion toward? What’s the existing thing that you can reinvigorate?

Let me know.

You can do this. We’re here to help.

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It makes life so much easier. 🙂

Vanessa Long

Vanessa Long is creator of the Seasons of Success and author of Discovering Your Passionate Purpose. Focused on providing straight-forward, no b.s. solutions, strategies, and support to move you from where you are to where you yearn to be. It’s time to tap into your purpose and build a life that expresses all of who you were designed to be.