Imagery And Symbolism In The May Tree, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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May Day, the May Tree, the May Pole, hawthorn blossom, owls and flowers and Blodeuwedd, jumping through fires. All of these have been part of Beltane for me since childhood. The May Pole itself is a symbol of the wedding of the goddess with the god, the plaiting of the ribbons in both directions around the central pole of the World Tree.
Hawthorn, the may tree, is the world tree for us at this season. It has come through the winter and the sometimes-hard frosts of spring, holding us together with its sharp thorns and being a boundary for us through the dark time of rebirth and regrowth. Now it is a threshold, the “edge” between winter and summer, the liminal place we cross over into the bounty of the fecund season. Jumping through the fires …show more content…

She leads us out. The Lord follows her and is her guardian, inspires and inseminates her with his fire. She needs to know he’s up for the job before she lets him in. The modern concept of male superiority is very young compared with the human race although it’s now so deeply buried into our psyche that it’s hard to uproot. Here in Britain, until Christianity took hold, we elected our kings. There was none of this “divine right” stuff, that all came about around the time of Alfred and the cakes. And until the Normans came women were judges, held land, led armies and were heads of families. We lost a lot in the past 1000 …show more content…

The white ribbons are about manifesting the wisdom here in the everyday, of fostering that wisdom and mothering it into fruition; they’re about the vocation of serving the Earth and en-wholing (healing) our relationship with her.
The red ribbons are about the inspiration that comes through the old ones, the gods, the inspiration that forges (as the smith does) new connections and realisations; they’re about true lordship which is about giving yourself to the needs of everything, not about lording it over others! This is the real use of power, the enabling power that enables others. The maiden, the real meaning of virgin, carries this energy.
The girls go round widdershins, earth-wise, and the boys go round deosil, sun-wise, dancing the energy of the lady and the lord. As well as going round in opposite directions they also weave in and out of each other so the ribbons are plaited down the pole. It takes a bit of concentration to get this right so we used to practice at school for a couple of weeks before May

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