Hello friends—and welcome to new subscribers!
This is just a small interlude, as it’s soon May, and the wakening spring here is (finally) becoming unignorable, and asking to be written about…and how could I say no? So more to come next week but in the meantime—an offering for Beltane.
I’ve felt scattered of late—at least a bit more so than usual. Thoughts flit around like the new insects that land on the window in front of my desk in the impossibly high, strong sunlight.
Tomorrow is Beltane, and I get why at one time and place the world was divided between November and May. Times of strong transition, especially in higher latitudes. There is so much happening out of doors after months of winter that it feels frenetic, a sudden mania caused by so much sun, lengthening days, warming air. New birds return each day and we now have kinglets who wake before 5 am, as if to sing the day into existence. Crossbills chatter with chickadees and nuthatches, while the grebes returned to the pond the same day its ice had fully melted (how do they know?). Over the weekend it was 50 degrees and it laughably felt like summer to Alaska people—who were out in shorts and t-shirts, working in yards, kids playing or biking in the streets, dogs out in only their fur. People out breaking up any remaining snow in the shaded parts of yards and tossing it into the street to melt more quickly—tiny icebergs of resistance, of giving winter away to the warming asphalt.
And the best of all—bright jewels of green have finally formed on the birch branches, so bravely and assuredly in the sunlight, their fragile delicate look belying the strength of that green glow. And a warbler arrived and sat on the railing yesterday morning, an echo of the last time that their color was a part of the trees—as if to say, it’s true, green will soon be here—until then, I’ll sit here in a slant of sun so you can glimpse what’s to come.
So it’s been a bit hard to concentrate, focus on one topic, one subject, when this particular corner of the world seems to be calling, to come be immersed in what is happening as the sap rises. Hard to resist the call to be out and join the birds in their singing, working to bring back the spring on their wings.
I find it hard to write about the current world—it feels too close, too frenzied, too awful. Too much. It feels easier to resurrect the past, turn to what can be seen from a distance. But still, there is the impulse to witness, to do something. Sometimes it feels like the only way to do anything is to breathe next to a spider or a creek, share the same air. Be in relationship with the world and tend to what is close by with affection, curiosity, care, no matter—or especially because of—how small it appears to be.
The ancient Greeks believed that smoke could reach the gods—this may be one reason we blow out candles on birthday cakes and make wishes. They would offer candles and cakes at their shrines, send prayers and wishes with the smoke as they blow out the small flame, and watch it climb above their heads.
And on Beltane, there were traditions in Scotland and Ireland of making bonfires, to similarly cleanse the new year with smoke and good wishes for the summer season, when cattle headed to the hills and growth and care would go hand in hand until harvest time. The smoke protected the cattle and community from the aos sí as well, so that they would leave the cows and their milk alone and not make any other trouble over the summer. I like to think about that holy smoke, containing wishes to reach the gods or the sí—all with deference to the invisible forces at work in the world.
So perhaps you too can join in lighting a candle this May day, or a backyard fire pit this evening (as Celtic traditions believe the day begins at dusk the evening before) and make wishes into the smoke, whisper wishes for the coming season to the sky. I will join you from this corner of the world where the night is growing scarce, and yet the birds still sing for the dawn.
(you can hear a recording of the birds below, including the grebes about 15 seconds in, whose prehistoric calls can be heard echoing off the pond, who sound alarmingly loud for such small bodies. And faintly in the distance some sandhill cranes can be heard as well near the 30-second mark. Of course, people have started building in the neighborhood too, so there are all types of activity in the recording…)
This is such a gorgeous hymn to spring in the north, Freya! I loved it.
I hadn't heard of the Aos sí before. I love that they are (according to the link you gave) also known as Aingil Anúabhair: "Proud angels".
I loved the sprigs on birch branches, the essence of Berkana- renewal, rebirth, the healing energy of mother nature. I specifically loved how this essay is about nothing and still about everything that you are beholding - all the activities of summer all at once 💜