Beltane Gardening Rituals: Garden Blessings, Standing Stones, and Energy Workings

The Druid's Garden

Here in the Laurel Highlands of Western PA, Beltane marks the start of “planting” season, where we move our indoor seeds out into the greenhouse to harden off, where many seeds like carrots and beans start to go into the ground directly, and where the land is budding and blooming with the joy that spring offers. And so in today’s post, I’m going to share some Beltane spring garden blessing ideas for you, as you can craft your own sacred “druid’s garden”.

One of our amazing sacred gardens here at the Druid’s Garden Homestead!

The concept of “blessing” is quite wide-ranging. In the broadest sense, a garden blessing is any working that offers positive energy and protection to a growing space for a season, ensuring your plants a bountiful harvest, long life, and joyful existence. Blessings can be extremely wide-ranging and pretty much anything you do can have some positive…

View original post 2,021 more words

Eve of Bealtaine/Beltane

Good Witches Homestead

The Celtic Festival of Bealtaine/Beltane which marks the beginning of summer in the ancient Celtic calendar is a Cross Quarter Day, half way between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. While the Bealtaine Festival is now associated with 1st May, the actual astronomical date is a number of days later. The festival was marked with the lighting of great bonfires that would mark a time of purification and transition, heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, and were accompanied with rituals to protect the people from any harm by otherworldly spirits, as well as, the movement of animals to summer pastures.

Source: Eve of Bealtaine/Beltane

View original post

Embracing Ancestral Fires and Fire-starting at Beltane

The Druid's Garden

An awen-shaped sacred fire, created from my flint and steel

The tiny sparks from my flint and steel shower down on my char cloth. This flint and steel set was a gift from a fellow druid from almost a decade ago, a gift that has long offered me a connection with my ancestors. It takes me a few moments to remember the technique he taught me, striking the steel against the flint in a particular way with a particulary angle to my body. Starting a fire in an ancestral way isn’t just a mental act; its an emboded one. I breathe deeply and remember, and the tiny sparks fly from my tools to the char cloth. After a few more attempts, a single spark lands on the cloth and starts to glow orange. I carefully pick up the char cloth and blow on it to increase the ember size, then…

View original post 2,090 more words

A Beltane Blessing: Recipe for Sacred Herbal Offering Blend — The Druid’s Garden

Offerings to the land, spirits, and/or diety are a common stable in many traditions, druidry being no exception. Many opportunities present themselves and having something you carry with you can be built into your regular druid practice (and kept within, say, a crane bag). Some years ago, I wrote about sustainable offerings and the kinds […]

via A Beltane Blessing: Recipe for Sacred Herbal Offering Blend — The Druid’s Garden