Uncategorized

Wreathing the Wheel

Beltane, the Maypole, Interweaving

For May, I’d like to talk about Beltane and the processing of weaving. If you’re familiar with the Celtic holiday of Beltane, then you already know that this holiday is often celebrated with a decoration that serves as ritual, dance, entertainment, and more: the Maypole. While the exact symbolism of the Maypole is disputed, it is generally considered to be a magical appeal for fertility, power, and transformative forces coming together. In the Tarot, this process may be symbolized by the Lovers in the Major Arcana, or the Four of Wands in the Minor Arcana: different forces coming together in a celebratory act to create something entirely new.

For the monthly spread for May, I decided to use a simple Maypole theme to help me consider and incorporate this theme into my month. It’s very easy to accomplish a beautiful look with very little effort with this kind of a theme — just pick out your favorite rainbow-colored set of pens, and have fun making curls! But I also wanted to consider the theme of the Maypole and extend it in a more contemplative and spiritual way in my own life. This exercise may seem like an odd one for a bullet journal — especially since bullet journals are usually geared towards organization and lists — but I wanted to explore the idea of interweaving themes of life with the interweaving ribbons of the Maypole. If you’re looking to journal spiritually, you may enjoy doing a similar type of exercise.

While I’m only working part-time, I have a lot going on these days: I do freelance art and design, I write articles for my own blog and PaganPagesOrg, I’m designing a Tarot deck and writing a book to go with it, I’m growing an extensive garden with various types of seeds, I’m making herbal medicine, I’m learning sewing, I’m studying chemistry, I’m cooking lighter, I have a new puppy I’m training… lately it seems that I’m doing a lot of things, but they’re all going in different directions! 

For this theme, I decided to list out a bunch of the different things that I’m trying to accomplish in shorthand: train the new puppy, make sure he gets nails regularly trimmed, bathed; work on my Tarot deck, book, drawing… etc. What your list contains will certainly be unique to you, and there are lots of different ways to organize it, but I decided to use color symbolically in this theme: health concerns are blue, money matters are orange, my gardening goals are green, and so on. Many different types of color associations could be used in this way, and they are all sure to be beautiful! 

This felt like an unusual exercise for me, because it felt like anti-organization to take all the themes in my life and scatter them to the wind in this way. But it also helped me see my own activities in a new way, and I would encourage anyone who wants to see their interweaving lives to give this a try. If nothing else, you might gain a new appreciation for just how much you have on your plate!

***

About the Author:

Sarah McMenomy is an artist and witch. Her craft incorporates herbalism, spellwork, trance, divination, auras, and more. Her work can be found at https://sarahmcmenomy.tumblr.com