Dandelions and Daisies

Bealtaine is such a riotous time of year. Suddenly everything is growing as if there is no tomorrow. The whole land is covered in a mantle of vivid new green decorated with the colour of flower and blossom. Pause for a moment and look and you can almost see things grow a little taller. All this in response to our great provider, the sun, longer days and warmer temperatures. Everything is utterly, unashamedly fecund.

Bealtaine is a time that confirms me in my path. There is a human tendency to desire order and structure, to lay down rules and laws, to want someone in control, someone to blame when things go wrong. As if on cue the British electorate have just blamed the prime minister for just about everything from the price of fuel to the sudden arrival of 'weeds' in the garden. The structure of the last three millennia has upheld order, laid down commandments and supported absolute monarchs. In its quest for order it has tried to banish anything contrary to its way of thinking. But nature isn't like this. She gives everything under the sun a fair chance, she loves diversity and blames nothing. Nature abhors order and delights in the chaos of the dance of life. 

Today is a public holiday. Many people will have spent some of the day in a garden centre buying the things they need to bring summer colour to their homes. I was taken aback by a sudden outbreak of adverts for weed killers on the television showing people how to eliminate vibrant plants like the dandelion. Some contain glyphosate that may be linked to congestion of the lungs, kidney damage and reproductive problems.

This is the control approach. There has to be order and everything has to be neat and trimmed and in its right place. Yet Bealtaine would not be Bealtaine without the overnight arrival of a carpet of dandelions and daisies greeting the sun with their riot of colour. A lawn can hardly be called a lawn unless you can blow dandelion heads to the wind and make a daisy chain for your love.

As May began I drove down the lane by my home and the verges were a shambolic delight of dandelions. What special flowers they are. There just has to be a goddess whose sole purpose is to protect dandelions and daisies and whose only desire for worship is that we give these very special plants the honour they are due. I guess She would also be delighted if you scattered a few wild flower seeds on your travels.

Roots

This is the close of my last day in New England. At 8.10 p.m. tomorrow my flight leaves Boston MA for Manchester UK. In 15 days I have driven over 1,000 miles around six states. It has been quite an experience, day time temperatures have been as low as 42F and as high as 94F. Miles and miles of forests and lakes have filled the soul with beauty and the coast of Cape Cod has its own special charm.

In days gone by when people travelled they often took with them a little of the good soil from home. We are truly rooted in the place we live and we loose something of our soul if we are away for too long. The followers of big monotheistic faiths are sure their omnipotent God is everywhere and seem to have little regard for place. Christmas is still celebrated in December and Easter in March or April south of the Equator. But what about those of us who are polytheists, who touch "smaller" more intimate Goddesses and Gods?

At home in Brighid's Isles my roots go deep into the soil. I know all the places that Brighid has been honoured. The places She was celebrated by my ancestors, and is still celebrated today, are etched into the map of my heart. I know deep within my soul that Verbeia can be found in the Wharfe Valley, Rhiannon and Cerridwen in the valleys of Wales, the Morgans in Avalon.

When I travel the Goddesses I love come along in my heart and soul. I know they are with me. I know they watch over me as I travel. But I know too that they, like me, are divorced from their roots in place.

Here in New England Spirits of Place I cannot name have touched me. Like the American people themselves they have given me a warm and friendly welcome. I have honoured them in my heart. I have left offerings in thanks for their welcome and their guardianship of this beautiful part of the world. But I know they will never be part of me in the way Brighid, Cerridwen, Rhiannon and Verbeia are - for we are rooted in the same land.

Maybe this is why many Americans still long for a connection with Ireland or their ancestral home in Europe. These ancestral connections run much deeper than many people today are even willing to contemplate. One of the great advantages of being a polytheist, apart from the fact that it is the natural human religious state, is that it deepens one's roots and sense of place.

So it is good to travel, to see new places, to expand the mind and the heart, but it will be good to return home and to push my toes into the soil of the Goddesses I love, the soil of the ancestors I call upon each Samhain.