April 2...
In 28 days it will be the 40th anniversary of the joyous day I married my beloved.
The “Wedding in the Weeds” took place in the “South Forty”, which is the name given the empty lot adjacent the home in Echo Park my folks bought in 1949.
Ours was not a wedding ON weed... though you could sniff it on the breeze. But Mark and I, by the time we decided to get hitched (four months after our first date), hippies though we were, we were getting high on each other - not on grass. In that field which we'd cleared and on which we planted flowers, our friends and families gathered to witness our nuptials April 30, 1972.
In 1989, when I first began to study my Celtic roots, I learned that Beltaine, April 30 or May Eve is the cross-quarter holiday between Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It is the time when the Great Wild Stag impregnates the Maiden Bridey helping empower her to morph into the second aspect of the triune of female archetypes - the Mother.
The Maiden, the Mother and the Crone are depicted in Celtic mythology in the life cycle of Bridgette - the Patron Saint of Ireland.
In the beginning she is that Maiden Bridey or Brige. At Beltaine (April 30) she is ripe. This is when May Pole dances and other fertility rites are celebrated - in honor of the fertility of the Earth.
At Summer Solstice she is fruitful - giving birth to much sweetness.
August second we celebrate the harvest with Lughnasadh and in late September there’s the Autumnal Equinox, when Bridgette becomes Queen Bira and spreads her dun-colored shawl over the hills - turning the grasses brittle.
November first is Samhain (All Saints’ Day) when the veil is thinnest between the worlds. Think of the Crone wrinkled with wisdom. She may be awe-inspiring or terrifying and perhaps gives rise to the All Hallow's Eve celebration of witches.
By winter, Queen Bira has blanketed those beige hills with snow and they are seemingly completely dead in the Womb, the Tomb of Earth at Winter Solstice.
We celebrate Saint Bridey’s Day or Imbolc on February second and wait for the warmth of Spring Equinox again to quicken the Earth.
So, my Wild Stag-Man and I shall celebrate this April 30 with gaiety, remembrance and passion. How grateful I am to have him by my side forty years later. How grateful we both are to be blessed by two daughters and a grand daughter with all their joys, sorrows, challenges, and triumphs. How lovely to celebrate another season of love and life along with the lustiness of Spring.
May you find JOY in the fuzzy green poking out on the hills!
AS YOU CELEBRATE THE EARTH AND HER FRUITFULNESS, THE EARTH CELEBRATES YOU AND THE GIFTS YOU HAVE BROUGHT AND CONTINUE TO BRING TO ALL OF THE FOLKS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE YOU AND YOUR MAGIC IN OUR LIVES.
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