The beginning of May is celebrated in many cultures around the world, and although the ways they celebrate and words they use may be different, there are some key aspects that seem to pull them all together.
Many northern cultures celebrate it as the heralding of spring. The start of the growing season. A time of planting seeds that bring the hope of abundance for the people. Many see this time around the spring equinox, but generally the planting season doesn’t really start until mid April / beginning of May due to late frosts and still chilly weather the farther north you go.
Some see it as a celebration of fertility, both within nature and with the people. A time of sowing the seeds within the ground to nourish and feed the people for another year. Planting the seeds within the womb to ensure the continuation of the families, clans, and society with new life. The coming together of the Masculine and the Feminine, to create that new life. The partnership and Union between the Goddess and the God.
Of course love, lust, and sex are also aligned under the fertility aspects, but they also hold their own space. These aspects are not confined to gender or even romance.
The pattern of Love itself incorporates all aspects of Love. Friends, Partnerships, Family, even Love for the Self – Love is a Union between two sides and the examples of the two sides are vast. Too often when the word Love is said, we immediately think of romantic love, which is just one aspect of this vast pattern. Love comes from the emotions, the heart, and moves the mind.
Lust is specifically geared at the physical body. It is a desire, a want. Though generally thought of as between two people again, lust is found in many other aspects of life. Lust is the Desire within us for something. It is driven by impulses and hormones within us. It is a mix of the body and the mind/ thoughts.
At its core, Sex is the physical expression of the Love and Desire felt between two people. It is the physical Union between them – two coming together as one. In various ways this physical aspect has been distorted, shamed, and even weaponized – but that is not what it is supposed to be nor what it was should be to be. Sex is something beautiful and deeply spiritual if all the sides exist – Love, Desire, and the Physical act of sex. The energies of two people intertwining in the most intimate way. Sex is a sacred act between two people, just as devotion is a sacred act between a person and their Divine.
This is also a time of the Sun, Solar energy, of Fire. It is about action and movement. Through the earlier months we dreamed of possibilities, we explored and then started making plans. This is the time where we move those things forward in action, in the physical world. Taking it from a place of the mind, within ourselves, and bringing it out into the world. A time of physical creation and work.
Each of us will see this time as something slightly different depending on our own connections and personal dogma. There are many names used to mark the occasion. There isn’t a wrong or right way, just your way.
So what does it mean for you?
What do you feel within you?
What will you be celebrating and How will you be celebrate this time?