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A Beltane Altar & Things To Do for Beltane

With roots in the British Isles, Beltane is a celebration that falls midway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It honours spring at its peak and the coming summer. If the spring has been a fruitful one, usually the rains have produced rich and fertile earth with verdant green woodlands. And Beltane celebrates the new life that will emerge during this seasonal transition.

Beltane is a good time to practice fertility magic to produce an abundant crop when the harvest rolls around.
Beltane is a good time to practice fertility magic

Festivities for the event begin on or near the last night of April and continue through May 1. Observed for centuries in Europe, the celebration is now embraced by pagans, who light bonfires, dance, and perform rituals on occasion. There is no shortage of ways to observe Beltane, and some pagans also mark the event by paying tribute to their agrarian ancestors who celebrated Beltane centuries earlier. (Source)

Beltane is a good time to practice fertility magic to produce an abundant crop when the harvest rolls around. Don’t forget that the garden can be one of the most magical places in your life. Start thinking about planning, creating, and growing your magical garden and creating speciality gardens, herb plots, and more!

A Beltane Altar

Set up an altar honouring the Beltane season using rich greens and colours reflecting the spring flowers. Incorporate a candle signifying the Beltane fire. Fertility symbols from nature, such as horns, seeds, and flowers, as well as a mother goddess symbol, can round out the altar.

Have you ever wanted to create an altar for Beltane? Here's a list of the things you'll need plus lots of ideas of magical ways to celebrate this ancient tradition! Click To Tweet

Things To Do for Beltane

  • Whatever you do, remember this is the Great Wedding! Dress in your best, especially in green, and wear a flower crown
  • Stay out all night, gathering the green, watching the sunrise and making love. Wash your face in the morning dew.
  • Conceive a new project, grasp that idea, and get on with it.

    Beltane 2022 Wiccan Wheel of the Year, Rituals, Sabbats Traditions, Book of Shadows, Digital Grimoire
    Beltane Wiccan Wheel of the Year, Rituals, Sabbats Traditions

  • Dress your home and/or altar with greenery, especially hawthorn, rowan, and birch branches. Ask permission from the tree before you take anything.
  • Dress a tree. This is the perfect time to go out and celebrate a tree. Especially a hawthorn, rowan or birch – but the tree spirit will welcome your attention, whichever kind of tree it is. Sit with it, talk to it, dance around it (maypole), and honour the tree and its fertility. Hang ribbons from its branches. Each ribbon represents a wish or prayer.
  • Flowers, flowers and more flowers. This is the festival of Flora. Make a flower crown to wear – the daisy chain is the simplest of all. Make a traditional flower basket. Fill it with Beltane greenery and all the flowers and herbs you can find. Think about and honour their magical and healing properties while you do so. Give it to someone you love.
  • Make some Hawthorn Brandy. You will need a bottle of brandy, at least one cup of hawthorn flowers, and a little sugar to taste. Mix the ingredients together and leave away from direct light for at least two weeks. Shake occasionally. Strain, bottle and enjoy. Hawthorn is renowned as a tonic for the heart.
  • It's Beltane! Step into the perennial cycle of the seasons and celebrate with an altar full of magical things. Here's what you need to know!Click To Tweet

Egg Charm For Beltane

Think carefully about what you wish for! The general rule of thumb is a brown egg for wishes involving animals and white for wishes involving people and plants, for example, healing a sick animal, person or plant. Eggs with white shells are difficult to come by now as chickens are generally given feed which produces the desired brown shell, but in recent years, some supermarkets have been making white eggs available at this time of year, so they are worth looking out for.

Beltane Wiccan Sabbat Wheel of the Year Digital Coloring Pages, Witch Reference, Junk Journal Book of Shadows & Grimoire
Beltane Wiccan Sabbat Wheel of the Year Digital Coloring Pages
  1. Blow the egg. Using a fat needle, pierce a hole in both ends of the egg, making one hole larger than the other. Using the needle, pierce the egg yolk gently and swirl it around to break up the yolk. Place a small drinking straw in one end and gently blow through the other hole to help gravity do its work.
  2. Paint Your Egg Talisman. When your egg has thoroughly dried out, place it on top of a little mound of blue tack to hold it in place, and you are ready to go! Choose a symbol to represent your wish – a heart for love, a coin for prosperity, a candle for wisdom, or whatever is meaningful for you. Or you can paint the whole egg in a corresponding colour – red for love, green for prosperity, purple for wisdom and so on. Another way to do it is to stick rose petals on for love or feathers for fertility – again, what is meaningful to you is important.
  3. When it is ready, find a suitable place for it and prepare it for hanging by threading a thin thread (embroidery thread, thin wool) through the two holes and secure it with a large knot, a bead, or even a matchstick at the bottom to hold it steady.
  4. Clear your mind and focus on your desire for abundance/fruitfulness and its place in your life:

‘Little charm made of shell as I hang you here may all be well. May all things grow. May all things flow. Blessings for the turning of the Wheel.”

Use these words or any others you are comfortable with – remember, this is about your intention. (Source)

Celebrate Beltane with an altar and magical rituals! Here's a guide to the things you'll need plus plenty of creative ideas to explore. Click To Tweet