A practical guide to the celebration of Beltaine and the sacred herbs of spring
- Explores the identification, harvest, and safe practical and ritual use of more than 90 plants and trees
- Details rituals for honoring the traditional Gods and Goddesses of spring, such as the Goddess Chloris, the Goddess Flora, and the Daghda
- Reveals which herbs to use for luck, magic, protection, purification, abundance, fertility, and love as well as the herbs of the Faeries and Elves and herbs for journeying to the Otherworld and for contacting the High Gods and Goddesses
The festival of Beltaine, May Day, is a celebration of the return of spring and the promise of summer, a time for love magic and spells for increasing the fertility of the land and the plants that grow upon it. Like Samhain in autumn, Beltaine is also a time when the veil between the physical and spiritual world is at its most transparent and the ancestors and denizens of the Otherworld easily interact with the world of humans.
Presenting a practical guide to the celebration of Beltaine, Ellen Evert Hopman examines the plants, customs, foods, drinks, and rituals of May Day across many cultures. Discussing the gods and goddesses of spring, Hopman details the rituals for honoring them as well as traditional poems, prayers, incantations, folk rhymes, and sayings related to this time of year. She explores well dressing, the custom of honoring the source of sacred water by decorating a well. She also looks at Beltaine's association with Walpurgisnacht and Hexennacht, which fall the preceding evening.
In the extensive section on the sacred plants of Beltaine, the author explores more than 90 herbs and trees, offering spells, rituals, and recipes alongside their medicinal healing uses. She reveals sacred woods suitable for the Beltaine fires and Beltaine flowers for rituals and spells. She explores herbs for luck, magic, purification, abundance, and love; herbs for protection, such as bindweed, elder, and St. John's wort; herbs of the Faeries and Elves, such as burdock and dandelion; and herbs for journeying to the Otherworld and contacting the high gods and goddesses. She also details the identification, harvest, and preparation of seasonal edible herbs, greens, mushrooms, and flowers.
Woven throughout with mystical tales of folk, Faery, and sacred herbs, this guide offers each of us practical and magical ways to connect with Nature, the plant kingdom, and the Spirits that surround us in the season of spring.
Hopman, Ellen Evert: - "Ellen Evert Hopman has been a teacher of herbalism since 1983 and is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild. A member of the Grey Council of Mages and Sages and a former professor at the Grey School of Wizardry, she has presented at schools and workshops across the United States and Europe. A Druidic initiate since 1984, she is the current Archdruid of Tribe of the Oak (Tuatha na Dara), an international Druid Order, a founding member of The Order of the White Oak (Ord Na Darach Gile), a Bard of the Gorsedd of Caer Abiri, and a Druidess of the Druid Clan of Dana. A former vice president of The Henge of Keltria, she is the author of The Sacred Herbs of Spring; The Sacred Herbs of Samhain; Secret Medicines from Your Garden; The Real Witches of New England; Scottish Herbs and Fairy Lore; A Druid's Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine; A Druid's Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year; Walking the World in Wonder - a Children's Herbal; Being a Pagan; Tree Medicine, Tree Magic; and the Druid trilogy of novels: Priestess of the Forest, The Druid Isle and Priestess of the Fire Temple. She lives in Massachusetts."
