Fertile Fire: A Weekend of Wonder and Wildness for Women

Guides: Tracey Forest and Kimbers Wattendorf

Beltane comes from the Gaelic word meaning “bright fire,” it is traditionally celebrated to acknowledge the midpoint between spring and summer, halfway between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice.  This is a time of planting and ‘waking up’ the Earth (in our own bodies as well as out on the land).  It is when we light the fires of our own creativity and passions and tend to the sprouting buds in our gardens and in our lives. As the land unfurls her green tendrils and reaches toward the warming sun, so we too are invited to rouse our wild selves and join into the jubilant dance of Spring. 

This weekend gathering offers space for women to come together in ceremony with our sisters, with the sacred others on the land, and with Gaia herself to nurture the seeds we are planting and to cultivate the tender blossoms of new beginnings within and around us.

We will start from a place of Childlike awe and wonder (in the East) to connect deeply to the magick and mystery of the greening Earth, and then journey into our own Wild Women (in the South) with practices of embodiment and deep reverence for the temples of the Goddess that we each inhabit, discerning and affirming our unique place in the Great Web of Being.

Traditionally, Beltane celebrates the Sacred Marriage of the God and the Goddess, the people and the land. This gathering is an opportunity to experience divine reciprocity and enter back into right relationship–with the Earth that birthed and sustains us and with the Sacred Others that share our majestic home. In these times of division and despair in our culture, we gather together in celebration and connection to enact Holy Union – that the seeds of vision we plant together may come to fruit, and the Springtime shall herald ever greater harmony and connection in the days ahead. 

SATURDAY–The Playful, Present, Big-Picture East

We will enter the East of the four directions wheel, and honor our innocence, reconnect with childlike senses of wonder and awe, lightheartedness and being totally present to ourselves as we play and praise the beauty of the Earth and of our own precious lives.

→ Opening ceremony and personal altar and intention setting

→ Council sharing

→  Playful gentle yoga to drop into the little girl of us

→ Journey to your inner little girl and working with archetype of the Maiden

→ WONDER AND AWE wandering on the land

 →Make offerings to the faery folk (crafting and faery houses) – with deep reverence for the other-than-humans

 →Goddess Bathing to purify the body to prepare for Saturday Bonfire Ceremony

May Day/Beltane-themed potluck feast for Saturday supper

Saturday night—Beltane bonfire. Dress in colorful goddess attire.  

SUNDAY–The Wild and Embodied South

We will work closely with our South facet to draw closer to our Wild Woman, our creaturely one, to access the full range of our raw emotions, to ignite the fires of our passion for life, to embrace our bodies’ knowing and sensuality and to move into sacred union with Earth.

 →Morning Council

 →Embodied movement and dance to move into the Wild One

 →Deep imagination work to become our Wild Woman

→Wild Wander on land exploring our full range of emotions, our creatureliness, our bodies on earth

 →Exploring what’s fertile in us, inner masculine and inner feminine coming together in a wild dance (or a journey of inner marriage) Maypole

Awakening the fertility of land and own creativity