The Festival of Beltane

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a celebration in Massachusetts, USA

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This series of events are being offered around the Celtic festival of Beltane.
Beltane is the Scottish, Celtic, festival which celebrates that the earth’s reproductive energies are at a peak at this time of year, and is usually celebrated between 27th April till 3rd May.  The 1st May, also called May Day, is known for the symbol of the maypole – the traditional ceremony of placing the maypole into the hole in the earth representing a fertility union.  This engagement is then further decorated with ribbons and the party dances around, weaving the ribbons, to celebrate this union.

Beltane marks the end of the Celtic winter and the beginning of the Celtic summer.  The beginning of the Beltane celebration is traditionally marked with a huge fire to shed light on all shadow, those aspects of ourself that we hide from others, so that it may be illuminated and to jump the fire.  Traditionally a fire ceremony would be held on the night of the full moon, which this year will be on the evening of Thursday April 25th in the sign of Scorpio, the sign that is all about seeing into the darkness and illuminating it!

We will be celebrating this time with three events:

–   Friday 26th April 2013 – Beltane and Scorpio Full Moon Fire ceremony – where we will be invited to share those aspects of ourselves that have been hidden in the shadow and to gift these to the fire.

–   Saturday 27th April 2013 – A May Day Celebration – this will be a full day celebration of this time of renewal when the God and the Goddess come together to cocreate that which they choose for themselves; where you will be invited to explore and to celebrate what you choose to cocreate in the forthcoming year (more information and booking here).

–   Sunday 28th April 2013 – Into The Belly Immersions– During the day there will be two 4-hour immersions. In the first immersion women will connect to the power of their bellies, the power to create, to dance, to know, to intuit, to nurture and sustain life and simply to enjoy the bliss of being in our bodies. In the first immersion I will hold a womb-space for the women who enter this space.   In the afternoon immersion both men and women are invited to enter this womb space to explore the same. Women who stay on for this afternoon immersion will further explore their own belly-power whilst also holding a womb-space for the men and women who attend only the afternoon immersion. (more information and booking here)

Our sexual power is our greatest power – it is the power to create life and it is the power to take that life. Our bellies carry the capacity for great creativity and to nurture new life. Our bellies can have the capacity for body wisdom, also known as ‘gut instinct’. Many of us are not at ease with this power or this wisdom and so we disconnect from the mid-line downwards and in so doing reject this power and connection to our sexuality, our creativity and ability to draw on the abundance that is freely available to us. We do so by rejecting our bellies – how many of us are truly comfortable with our own bellies and reject them on the grounds that they are too fat, too thin, have too many stretch marks or whatever?

Many of us have also encountered challenging experiences earlier in life which we did not know how to engage and so have come out of our bodies and never come fully back into them. Much of my work with clients is to create a safe space within which to encourage them to come back into their bodies and we will create this space within the immersions, allowing us to come fully back into our bodies and to feel fully all that is available to our embodied self, such as the pleasure of touch and movement.

Please email Denise Kapinos (dmlkapinos (at) gmail (dot) com) to give confirmation that you plan to attend and if you would like to take advantage of the early bird rates for each event which end on 20th April.

These events are all inspired by the work of Gillian Alexander of Sacred Touch in Scotland, who will be joining us for these events.  Further details of this and Gillian’s other events can be found on her site at www.sacred-touch.co.uk/events.