So Beltane was last week (last Thursday, to be precise), and because everyone is typically busy throughout the week, we tend to have our celebrations on the weekend following the actual holiday. In this case, it was last Saturday. I think I'll be lucky enough to have mine on the actual holiday next month which is kind of exciting, but that's besides the point.
The whole idea of this Beltane ritual was to bring a piece of the "hearth fire" home with us, so that we would be able to light "our fires" with the flame from the Beltane bonfire throughout the year. This was Heather's ritual for our IDGAF studies, and it was actually her first "public" one. I think it was awesome, and went really well, especially for a first ritual. I know how tough and intimidating it is.
We were able to have access to a fire pit at another founder's parent's place, so we definitely took advantage of this, and had our ritual out there. We may have roasted hot dogs, and marshmallows...and maybe even made some s'mores too. It was a good time all-around.
Heather took inspiration from the more traditional Beltane festivities, incase you didn't already guess from the brief description I already mentioned. The hearth fire was a very important part of the household long ago, and was supposedly only ever actually extinguished once a year - at Beltane. That was because on Beltane, they would have their bonfires and take some of the flames from that home to re-light their hearth fires with. They would then keep it burning all year until the next Beltane celebration. Beltane is also a time to celebrate fertility, so in keeping with that aspect, she chose the more creative aspect of that to celebrate in our ritual.
Because we were so hungry, we decided to have a pre-ritual bite to eat, and then built up our Beltane bonfire.
We had a nice fire going
Then, we wrote down the things that get us excited, or make us really happy, or energized. We wanted to 'feed' these things to the fire, to help spark our own creativity so that the bonfire would be charged with happiness and excitement - something that we could later bring home with us and add to our own fires later on.
Feeding the fire
And then once we were all done, we tossed our papers, one by one, into the fire. We then lit tea lights from the flames of this fire so that we could take a piece of it home with us, to use throughout the year.
We all had lanterns to hold our fires
So it was a really nice ritual. I've yet to use my candle to light anything, but I'm hopeful that might get to happen this weekend.
On that front...
I'm sorry I've not been around much lately, but quite honestly, I haven't felt like I've been around much in my own life at all. I'm not sure what's happening to the days, weeks, and months that are passing, but I feel like I'm in a weird time-sucking vortex, and one minute it's January, and when I blink my eyes all of a sudden it's May. I'm sure the weather we've been getting here isn't helping matters - normally by this time of year the leaves are on the trees and things are getting back to being green again, with steady temperatures around the mid to low teens (in Celsius). Right now...well...this is what it looks like outside...
It's not exactly green, but at least today is sunny for eff's sake. Like really, it's only 9 degrees out there! It's May 9th! I'm so over this weather! And the most sad part about it - that 9 degrees feels like 15 to us because it's BEEN SO EFFING COLD! Sorry...I'm a little frustrated. I shouldn't be waking up each morning and looking out at that parking lot, only to see FROST on the tops of the cars below. YUCK!
Moving on before I get myself more depressed...
Honestly though, I think that my body/mind is still stuck in March mode because of how it looks outside, and it's really throwing me off. Like, a lot.
I've also had a lot on my mind lately, about where my life is headed (mostly career wise), and I think that's starting to take a toll on me as well.
I should also mention this has been a particularly stressful week (or two, I guess), because of two main work-related reasons. The first is that we've got hand-held devices at work that help us do our everyday jobs. Stuff like making signage for the store, putting in orders, and filling holes on the shelves, for example. These hand-held devices haven't been working for the past 2 weeks, so we've had to do everything by hand...yep, write down the UPC's of everything we need and do stuff that way. Not only were these "down", we have a HUGE tour coming tomorrow (second reason), which includes several "high ups" from across Canada, as well as the VP of operations for the entire company. As you can imagine, it's been busy getting ready for that...and with no handheld's...yeah...
So, now that I've given you a book to read, I must be off. I'm heading in to work early to help them for the big tour tomorrow. I'm hopeful I'll be able to come back before the weekend is out, and do a blog prompt, but like always, I make no promises...sometimes shit happens.
Bye for now!
