May 6, 2024 | by Daniel Giamario |
Closest New Moon to Beltane
The Taurus New Moon at 18Taurus02 happens on Tuesday, May 7, at 8:22PM PDT. This is the closest New Moon to Beltane, which is usually defined as the mid-point between the March Equinox and the June Solstice. Numerous ancestral medicine traditions attribute special significance to the closest New or Full Moon to Beltane, recently celebrated secularly, on May 1, as Labor Day or May Day.
Here’s what the Irish RATHCROGHAN VISITOR CENTRE wrote about Beltaine in their recent email newsletter:
“The month of May marks the celebration of ‘Beltaine’ (Bealtaine, Beltain, Beltane), one of the four major pre-Christian Gaelic Festivals alongside Imbolc, Lughnasadh and Samhain. Beltaine also gives its name to the Irish month of May and is traditionally associated with the beginning of the summer season. It was customarily a popular time for activity and the 12th century Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of Invasions), records that it is on Beltaine that both the Partholonians and Milesians invaded Ireland.
The festival is also associated with a tale about the High King, Diarmait mac Cerbaill, who took his revenge on Flann mac Díma, after he had committed adultery with Diarmait’s wife, Mugain. At Beltaine, Flann’s house was set alight and the burns he received caused him to seek refuge in a vat of water where he subsequently drowned. These events were to sow the seeds for a series prophecies against Diarmait and his own threefold demise.
In Ireland, Beltaine is also referred to as Cétshamhain, when traditionally cattle would be driven out onto the fields, and bonfires lit, which were most likely purification rituals for the season ahead.
As Rathcroghan was traditionally a site of great Aénaige / Gatherings, it is probable that Beltaine would have been a very important festival here. There is perhaps a reflection of this importance in the recollections of the great antiquarian, William Wilde, who writing in the 19th century, records the following text in his book, ‘Irish Popular Superstitions’ –
‘it was not unusual to bleed a whole herd of cattle upon a May morning, and then to dry and burn the blood. We have more than once seen the entire of the great Fort of Rathcroghan, then the centre of one of the most extensive and fertile grazing districts of Connacht, literally reddened with the blood thus drawn upon a May morning.’
‘Bleeding the cattle at this period was obviously done with a sanitary intention…..but choosing that particular day and subsequently burning the blood, were evidently vestiges of some heathen rite…..particularly during hard times, some of the blood thus drawn used to be mixed with meal, boiled into a posset and eaten by the herds and the poor people.’
And from Amaya Rourke, also based in Ireland:
What is Beltane?
Beltane is the word for the month of May, in Irish.
Originally, for the common Irish people Beltane was not a particular date in Ireland (nor was it astronomical), but rather measured by the first blooms of the hawthorn tree. Which meant that it varied around the country by local microclimate. By the coast I’ve seen this happen in early April, and in more northern inland counties it can happen in late May. However, the blooming of hawthorn blossoms was a pretty good indicator that summer had arrived.
For the ancient Irish, this meant it was time to move their herds of cattle to the summer pastures. Before doing so, they would have fire festivals for purification, supernatural protection, and to propitiate for a successful harvest later in the year.
For the priestly class in Ireland (dating back to the Neolithic), Beltane was marked by certain stones aligning to the rising Sun around the beginning of May. This would occur over a period of a few days, rather than a singular day. Beltane marked the half-way points between the major solar events of The Spring Equinox (measured by stars), and the Summer Solstice (longest day of the year).
Today this has been canonized as a holiday on May 1st by many different Neopagan movements, folding in many different cultural holidays that happened around this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. For example, those within the Germanic paganism and witchcraft current call it Walpurgisnacht. The Roman Catholic Church decided to try to syncretize this holiday by declaring May the month of the Virgin Mary, and May 1st as a holiday celebrating the Virgin Mary called May Day.
Buddha’s Lunation: Wesak –
The Buddha’s Birthday, Enlightenment and Death
The Taurus Lunation holds great significance to Buddhists all around the world. The traditional date of Buddha’s Birthday is being celebrated on the 8th day of the 4th Lunar Month. In most countries, in 2024 this falls on May 15. Of even greater importance has been the festival of Wesak (or Vesak) that is celebrated on the Full Moon of this lunation, this year on May 23. This commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha, said to have lived from 563-483BCE (though different traditions can give different dates.)
Amplification of The Jupiter-Uranus Conjunction
This New Moon certainly keeps our attention on the recent rare Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus at 22Taurus34 on April 20. The Sun will align with Uranus on May 13 and with Jupiter on May 18. The Moon aligns with both on May 8! Since a New Moon is a seed point and a beginning, and if we have indeed been experiencing a timeline split as I have been speculating about, then perhaps the way forward, depending on how you choose to align, will become clearer. Expect the amplification of the unexpected, unpredictable, and always synchronistic. Flow with it without fear or resistance.
Venus in The Underworld and Pluto Stations Retrograde
Not to be forgotten is that Venus entered the exterior Underworld around April 27. She will only rise again on July 11, then in the evening sky.
Meanwhile, Pluto stationed retrograde on May 2 and will soon backtrack one more time into Capricorn, before finally entering Aquarius for good (until 2044) on November 19, 2024. By now, the inner and outer work intended for composting the old, spent and obsolete should be close to being finished, so that space is created to receive guidance. Then, under this Taurus New Moon, with the Spiritual Will, intend the future you desire.
Bonus: Rudhyar’s Sabian Symbol for 19 Taurus
“PHASE 49 (TAURUS 19°): A NEW CONTINENT RISING OUT OF THE OCEAN.
KEYNOTE: The surge of new potentiality after the crisis.
The symbol need hardly be commented upon. When the mind has been emptied and light has been called upon to purify the consciousness freed from its attachment and contaminations, a new release of life can emerge out of the infinite Ocean of potentiality, the Virgin SPACE. What will it be used for?
Because this is a fourth stage symbol we find in it a suggestion of how to approach whatever new phase of life has been not only hoped for, but actually confirmed. The “technique” is simply to allow the infinite Potential to operate in unconstrained SPONTANEITY. This means to have reached a state in which the conscious, rational ego is no longer a controlling factor.”