As we have done for the last 10 years, we'll be off to celebrate the holiday at a long camping weekend with many other Pagan-folk from Florida and other environs. Florida Pagan Gathering is a four-day (five if you're a staff member, like myself) get-together of like-minded folks in the beautiful, natural setting of the Ocala National Forest in central Florida. As always, we'll pitch our tent, inflate the air mattress, set up our "ez-up" for shade, fill the coolers and crank up the cookstoves for the weekend. We'll attend some workshops, do some drumming and maybe join the nightly drum circle by the bonfire, listen to a Pagan band or two, and relax with friends old and new. We're certain to tip back more than just a few microbrews and bottles of mead, too.
I love the sandhill cranes that live along the lake in the Ocala forest. Each morning, way too early to be sure, you can hear them screeching to each other as they prepare to take wing. They're huge birds, and watching them soar overhead is a beautiful sight to behold. Other denizens of the forest -- squirrels, butterflies, cardinals and many other feathered and furry friends -- will delight us with their antics as well. Unfortunately, with all this beauty comes a downside as we'll be eaten by mosquitos and on the lookout for ticks burrowing into our skin.
A favorite experiences has to be the one held under cover of darkness. No, not _that_ experience! So far from the ambient light of the Florida coast we'll take time to gaze upward and be amazed at the vast number of stars we see. Living on the very urban south Florida coast, we almost forget how many stars dust the heavens with their soft light.
Spring in south Florida tiptoes in and if you don't watch carefully you'll miss it. There are trees which shed their leaves to take on a new garment of green in April; flowering trees that don yellows, magentas and purples in honor of the season; vines which slowed their growth during the 'winter' send out new tendrils; birds sing out in search of a new mate and to mark their territories; and the butterflies busily flit from leaf to leaf of their favored plant as they leave an egg, or cluster of eggs, behind.
The monarch butterflies have been particularly busy in our butterfly garden and our milkweed, the plant the monarch larva feed on, is decimated. Polydamus swallowtails have been chomping on the Dutchman's pipe and evidence of their feasting litters the ground below the vine.
This is my favorite time of year, for many reasons. My husband and I met for the first time in person to attend a Beltaine festival, we handfasted and eventually tied the knot, legally, at Beltaine. That's one of the reasons we continue to go to the gatherings... it reminds us, each time, of the first time we met. For a few days at the beginning of May he is my Lord of the Forest and I his Lady of the Wild Things... fanciful romantics that we are. And too, the changes in nature mentioned above, while not as spectacular as the drastic changes in more northerly climes, reminds us that life is ever a cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. The planet goes on that way... and so do our lives.
May your Beltaine and spring be filled with beauty.
