Tag Archives: celtic

Beltane and Modernizing Tradition

“A lot of it is making it up as I go along, it’s really hard to pin down which are the fire festivals because they all involve fire. Beltane is for sure one of them. This is a midpoint festival, in between the spring equinox and summer solstice. It’s about the coming of the bright half of the year, something more heavy and developed than Ostara, which is about light. Here, things actually start blooming.

“Historically, this is when a lot of weddings (a.k.a. hand fastings). A lot about sexuality, life and unity. This is where the May Queen, someone getting crowned queen and getting adorned with flowers. Here in particular, fire is a purifying force in the sense of getting ready for something instead of getting rid of something. They would have cows run between their fires for fertility, or extinguish their personal fires to light a communal bonfire. Symbolic of reawakening a spirit of community.”

Context

It’s tough, especially since I’ve been trying to figure stuff out and make my own traditions out of the old traditions. I don’t really have the time to do that now. I grew my first tomato on the day of Beltane. It was a wee little thing, but I treasured it so much. To see something you nurtured coming into itself was really nice. [For this holiday, I] decided to focus on fresh produce, and ate a bunch of tomatoes with a friend. The friend smoked, I had an edible, and we cooked stuff with the tomatoes.”

Analysis

The informant talked at length about cultivating their own traditions, building out an identity, faith, and practice, by looking back at older, more esoteric examples. Rituals are often symbolic of our identities and what’s most important to us. For the informant, a resonance with nature led her to holidays and traditions that honored that connection.

The constraints of modern living, however, have forced her to adapt that celebration to meet her current needs. A busy life doesn’t leave much room for experimentation, and many of the symbols evoked by Beltane can’t really be accomplished in modern settings. It’s difficult finding the space to have cows run between fires these days.

How we celebrate evolves with the times, but why we celebrate doesn’t. Does a ritual still remain the same if the practice of it is different, but the essence of and motivation for doing the ritual remains?

Samhain and Spiritual Perseverance

“Samhain is the Celtic new year. There are essentially 8 big observational holidays/festivals in the Celtic wheel of the year. Those observe the solstices and equinoxes, as well as the halfway points between them. Samhain is the start of the year, which starts going into the dark months instead of out of them. This is because the Celts were so focused on the harvest. For them, the day started when the sun set, not when it rose.

It’s one of the bigger [Celtic festivals]. It overlaps significantly with All Hallow’s Eve, which inspired Halloween. It’s a 2-3 day celebration. Traditionally people would dress up during this time. Because it was going into the colder months, people believed that the veil between our world and the next was especially thin, so they would dress as spirits to ward off interference from other spirits. Turnip carving, which was also meant to ward off spirits, eventually evolved into pumpkin carving. All Hallow’s Eve has definitely transitioned into more of a Catholic thing though.

That’s when they would do the wicker man burning. [The details] depends on which clan you’d ask, but they would build a massive… man out of straw and kind of put a sacrifice in there. Obviously, the informant doesn’t do that. It’s about the new year, honoring the dead, and the final harvest. It would end with the Dumb Supper. This might overlap more with witch stuff, but it’s celebrating the final harvest with your family, and members who have passed have come to join in the feast and celebrate with you. That’s October 31st to November 1st.”

Context

The informant tends to celebrate it with a bonfire and feast since it’s the biggest of the fire festivals. The informant also liked spirituality as something that existed in harmony or in connection with nature. They found something meaningful in the solstices and equinoxes, more so than Christmas or other holidays. The changing of nature has a lot of concrete meaning. It’s an energy that they can see and feel as opposed to something more abstract.

Being in harmony with nature is important to the informant. She started learning about the druids first (she’s not a formal member of the religion) when she was working on a project. She felt a “vibe,” the festivals made a lot of sense to her, and they honored harmony with nature while maintaining a certain whimsy. They referenced the circle of life, its ebb and flow, the constant motion rather than static holidays.

Analysis

The informant felt an emotional connection and spiritual resonance to festivals like Samhain. Despite not being an official member of the Druidic faith, these seasonal celebrations aligned far more with their perception of reality far more than static, arbitrary holidays like Christmas or New Year’s. It’s well documented how festivals and rituals are markers of great change, and I think it’s interesting to note how these festivals form around perceived changes in our environments. Furthermore, how similar observations hundreds of years later can compel a person to find affinity with celebrations of old. Beliefs shared across the diaspora of time connect our past and present in profound ways, and it’s fascinating to comprehend why Druidic beliefs can still resonate so strongly with people outside of the faith and beyond its heyday.

“Níl a fhios agam””

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: New York, NY

Text: “Níl a fhios agam” (literal translation: its knowledge is not at me) – Irish Phrase

Context: While studying abroad in Dublin, my sister heard multiple non-Irish speakers say this. The phrase in Irish means “I don’t know”, however when my sister heard it said in Irish it was generally referring to a more abstract unknown, such as questions about the distant future. My sister also found the phrase interesting due to the lack of verbs, which is a feature of the Irish language.

Analysis: The use of the Native Irish language was used to emphasize the point. Saying “I don’t know” in English is not very impactful, and often shuts down a conversation. When the Irish language is used, it does not shut down a conversation; it more often was used to begin exploring what could happen. This is also a way that the Irish language remains alive outside of the classroom, even as English becomes the dominant language in Ireland. Using Irish phrases to have slightly different meanings to their English counterparts keeps the language and culture of Ireland alive.