Beltane, Taurus and the Triple Goddess: Mushy Musings on Mother's Day

Black Cohosh flourishing in my forest garden

This morning my 4 year old woke me up at 6am with a plate of runny eggs that my husband helped her make, followed up by a coloring project and a plastic charm bracelet the two of them worked together on yesterday. It was absolutely perfect.

Once I woke up enough to get my wits about me, had coffee and my morning granola (sorry runny eggs, no offense lol), I went out and performed my absolute favorite of Mother's Day rituals: I went into the woods and visited the plants, alone, and undisturbed.

My good friend Amanda Wells once said to me, many May Days ago, that one of the most magical things about Beltane was that we are seeing the growing green things of this world at their most fresh, their most new and tender and full of promise, their most hopeful. Their energy is peaking, like a teenager who is coming into themselves, and they are, right now, the masters of our cosmos. After May, their full climax into adulthood is the first glimpse of their fall from that power.

We are in a most magical time right now. Beltane, or May Day, traditionally observed on May 1st, is a celebration of the coming of age of the Earth, and the palpable power of its fertility and growth. We are swept up in the raw and ravenous thirst for becoming that is present all around us, and as the plants become ripe and lustful in their relentless pursuit of life, traditional peoples celebrated that through traditions seeped in seduction, sex and virility. Humans could see an Earth that was prospering, reproducing, growing and blooming all around them, filling their hearts with joy, their bellies with hope and their loins with, um, anticipation.

Beltane marks the first of the three Fire Festivals of the neo-pagan calendar, followed by Litha (Summer Solstice) and Lammas, which traditionally falls on August 1st. These celebrations acknowledge that warmth is here, implying that life is here, that the Wheel has turned to the active time and that Fire now symbolizes the promise of Earth's abundance, made possible through our sudden closeness to the Sun. More importantly for our ancestors, Beltane in particular was the planting and sprouting of all that would eventually fill the Fall Equinox cornucopia - it was the promise of food, the hopes for a fertile growing season, and the blessing of the land, as if the soil and the seed were two newly weds being prayed over for a fruitful union.

Wild Ginger coming into itself

Its no wonder then why Beltane is commonly seen in pagan communities as a sex holiday. Its sexy. Go forth and be fruitful, growing things of the world! So that we can eat you later! The commonly told Beltane story is the union of the Green Man (the Seed) and the Maiden (the Earth), and through their physical copulation she is transformed from Maiden to Mother. However, this story has been told throughout the globe in different versions over history.

There, in all those stories, is the Mother's Day link. Mother's Day is the closest thing we have left to the routine celebration of the flowering (and deflowering lol) of May: a ritual that honors the shift from the Maiden energy of the Triple Moon to that of the Mother, celebrates the fertility, love, creativity and beauty of the feminine and offers gratitude not only to the creative expression of the womb, but to a Mother's ability to nurture, grow and guide her littles to maturity. And its a sex holiday. Yes it is. If you don't think so, I invite you to ask a 13 year old how moms come to be moms (no pun intended). And hate to break it to you, all those flowers that have come to symbolize Mother's Day are just a bunch of sex-parts on stems. How do you think they became associated with this holiday? Its because the Mother is a symbol of fertility, you filthy heathens sitting there at brunch with your roses and tulips (wait til you hear about the Easter bunny lol).

Its also a dirt holiday. Yes. Dirt. DIRT. We'll take time to celebrate the masculine act of seed-planting and male domination of Summer when we get to Father's Day and the Summer Solstice, but the other half of the harvest is female, it comes first, and its based on the fertile ground. Enter Taurus.

Taurus, the first of the Earth signs of the Western zodiac, is the perfect May companion. Traditionally ruling the second house of the Wheel, a house typically associated with values and beliefs, it is also the house of that which we treasure. It is the house of lavish vacations, rich food, money in the bank and accumulation. A healthy second house is often seen as a mark of prosperity, abundance and riches of all kinds. Its also ruled by Venus, the feminine, making the merger of Taurus and Venus quite literally the Earth Goddess. She is the greening, the blooming, the blossoming. She is gorgeous, covered in the riches of the Earth, bewitching men and parting seas. She is the Flower of May incarnate. She is also the transition between the Maiden and the Mother, enticing potential mates with her beauty and impregnating the land with their seed. If Taurus is the mark of riches, it is in her that the Earth provides that bounty.

Moms provide that bounty by growing, birthing, raising and caretaking their kiddos. Moms are Goddesses. They are Flowers. Thank your mom today, if you have one, and if she's nice. Her creative magic, her sacrifice and her nurturing made you into a bountiful harvest. Give her some sex parts on a stem, if that feels right.

Black Cherry looks after my woodland garden

Back in the woods, the beauty of May is happening. Life is lifing, the riches are compiling. My goldenseal had three babies! The black cohosh is spreading all over the place. My skullcap is back and looking healthier than ever. Even the blue cohosh is finding its rhythm after a risky transplant last year. Their abundance is intoxicating, the smell of promise thick in the air. And it is so, so GREEN. She is ripe, and he is coming (sooo many sex puns today, sorry guys). Its no wonder the urge to dance naked around a fire was so incredibly strong this time of year - and not just because its sexy out, but because its happy out. I know im biased, but its hard to feel anything but joy when you stand in the middle of a place teeming with growing life, and you watch it flourish despite whatever else bad might be happening all around you.

No matter what, the flowers bloom. No matter what, our Mother's got us.

That is the magic of May ❤️😈🌼