Usually, the 5:00 a.m. walk with my Border Collie requires a lighted collar, but this morning needed no artificial illumination. The May full Flower Moon was just setting in the western sky like a perfect tiny cosmic spotlight casting moon shadows over the fields. This first week of May under a full moon also ushers in the Gaelic festival of Bealtaine, or Beltane as the English call it.

While Oestara and the Vernal Equinox mark the end of winter and the return of longer days in the sun, Bealtaine celebrates the beginning of summer and the fertility of the growing season. What makes this day special is that the full moon cycle and the cross-quarter days of the Celtic sun cycle coincide. As with many nature based cultures, the Celtic sun cycle marks four main quarter celebrations on the Solstice and Equinox days, and then four cross-quarter celebrations at the mid-points between each solstice and equinox.

Confused? Here’s a simple recent example: The Vernal Equinox, Oestara, just passed on March 20.  That’s a quarter holyday. It was followed by Bealtaine on May 1. That’s a cross-quarter holyday followed by Midsommer,  which is the next quarter holyday. Bealtaine is the mid-point between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice. In total, that adds up to eight celebrations roughly six weeks apart to break up the drudgery of our regular yearly schedules. And some of these celebrations can last for a week!

When you combine the Nordic with the Celtic nature based cultures, you have the origins for almost all the holydays conscripted by the Judeo-Christian invasion. When you take it back to basics, it all comes down to the sun, the moon, and the human storytellers trying to make sense of a mysterious and wondrous universe. No matter how we tell our stories, a walk under the light of the full Flower Moon is a sacred experience. The way I see it.

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*image from Glamour