Welcome to the Podcast
Welcome to the Thirsty Soul Podcast, a place that reveals inspiration, creativity, wisdom and
clarity guiding you into communion with yourself, your soul and the sacred. Each episode is here to help you contemplate the themes in your own life and deepen your relationship to yourself, your life and the world around you.
The Invitation held within Bealtaine
Welcome to this week’s episode where we’re delving into Bealtaine, traditionally celebrated on the 1st of May and the true date is the 5th of May this year 2024.
So we have this beautiful period of time where we can witness in nature and in ourselves how we are meeting this threshold point of Bealtaine but also what it’s invoking within us. So yes there are certain themes, certain qualities, certain energies that are present at this time but depending on where I am in the cycles within my own life I’ll be meeting these differently than I would have in previous years.
And Bealtaine just doesn’t finish on the 5th of May like a full stop. It continues until really
the 21st of June, the summer solstice. So you really have this longer period of six to eight
weeks, usually about six to eight weeks yeah, of noticing how the themes are speaking to you.
How can you actually engage with them as well and if you feel you are lacking them how can I open up to bringing some of them into my life? Because depending on where you are in your own inner cycles you may feel you’re like aligned and in that energy of Bealtaine but if you’re going through a winter phase in life or an autumn phase of life or even in your spring phase of just the beginnings of entering into new tender beginnings you might feel very far removed from the blossoming part of Bealtaine.
Embracing Cycles and the Call to Embodiment
So it’s to understand that we’re not trying to force ourselves to align to the energy because we are all going through our own inner cycles. Some are longer term,some are shorter term but we can look to nature, look to Bealtaine, look to the Celtic wheel and notice how can this resource me at this time.
How can it help me move through my winter, my autumn, my spring or if I’m really in my blossoming stage how can I really like drink that in and remember it in myself like. When I say that this time won’t last forever, it’s just because things go through cycles. But you could be blossoming for decades like, before like your business could be blossoming for decades before you have to start weeding it out a little bit you know. So it’s not like this part that sometimes people then start clinging to things and the fear starts going but like you know when’s it going to die then it’s not about that.
There’s like you know can I be in each cycle and really soak it into my skin and into my cells because then I get to witness how I engage with this what I find easy about it, what I find hard about it, what comes natural to me and be where there is gaps. That I can actually begin to open to the qualities that are really needed because Bealtaine is a time where there’s a lot of energy that people are not familiar with. They don’t really know how to hold it how to embody it fully.
Bealtaine is usually translated as mouth of fire and bright fire and we’ll get into the fire element later on like but it’s those qualities really like. As I look out my window at this moment in time
I’m like it’s only in the last couple of days I’m like yeah I think it’s coming I think Bealtaine
is coming like even on the calendar I know it is but nature for me at the minute where I live
there’s still a lot of dead leaves out there.
But in the last couple of weeks um our garden we don’t have any flowers but the dandelions have taken over so there’s beautiful bright little yellow sun heads looking at us and I think it’s little cows parsley is out there and there are some little bluebells so there’s this lovely contrast of the yellow and the purple which to me is always really vibrant and the trees yes they’re beginning to have a lot more leaves. I can see the quickening in them but I’m like going where’s the fire, where’s that heat, and my body’s craving it at the minute.
Bealtaine a feast for your senses
So the energies of Bealtaine are like the play, the pleasure, fun, joy, desire – it’s a real like sensory experience. So it’s all about the body like if you think where do I experience you know pleasure, sensuality, sexuality, passion, desire, vitality? Where do I experience them – they’re not things that are outside of me, they’re things that are inside of me.
So there’s this real call to embodiment as well. I come back to the body, come back to this physical being which we sometimes discard when we come into the spiritual world because it’s all like ascension… ascension, let’s get out of the body.
Where for majority of people’s feeling let’s come back to our bodies, let’s come back to this physical body which is made of earth and which connects me to the earth. Which gives me the joy and the gift of living life through a sensory experience so I get to smell the flowers that are blossoming when I’m out in my walks. I get the whiff of a tree or a plant and the curiosity arises going which one is that as I walk back and forth trying to figure it out following the scent
it gives us beneath our feet.
When we connect to the earth or if we’re out at the beach feeling the sand beneath our toes it’s a sensory full experience like that can only be experienced through the body. You can’t really think about it. If you’ve never experienced it, like somebody trying to explain joy and pleasure to you. Like what are you chatting about? The joy of eating a piece of chocolate like. So it’s a real welcoming back to our physical bodies and remembering that they are connected and that’s how we experience life is through our physicality.
So at this time of year is can I open up those senses when I’m outside or even inside. You know, can I open up the senses to what do I hear? And there’s so many birds out at the minute flying around our yard and all like little dunnocks and little blue tits and all kinds of things floating around little blackbirds…. can I open up my senses to the world? Can I even extend my senses out beyond my own environment and notice what’s going on? Like not in an energy sense but through a sensory feeling – so through the ears, through taste.
You know of things beginning to grow. Of if we were just living off our land, a new produce that is beginning to emerge. Of our eyes – of what’s really catching our eyes at this time and then there’s a lot more color and vibrancy coming back.
And then through the touch… do you like, what is it like to touch and hold the flowers that are growing again. To reach out and hold the leaves that are emerging on the trees or to stand on a field and look at all the beautiful hawthorn and blossoming. Like how does that make you feel like?
So this time of year: how does it feel to be in a space where things are growing. And that will depend on where we’re at. So it could be a ‘oh yeah I know this feeling. Like yeah I’m really like it. I can feel it. I can really touch in with it.’ Another one be like a sense of relief of going ‘thank God the cycle has come’ because the winter has been long and that’s the same in our inner worlds as well as our outer worlds.
Reclaiming Joy, Sensuality, and the Inner Child
And if you think of the energy that’s associated with Bealtaine you know the fertility, the passion, the sensuality, the joy, the fun, the celebration – there are sometimes qualities that can be far removed from our lives dependent on sort of how we were reared. The conditioning we’ve taken on, what we were told about these qualities, these energies when we were growing up through our family, through our culture and through stories.
So if you think of like pleasure, sensuality of being connected to your body, of enjoying your body. For a lot of people they’re almost foreign concepts. It’s like creativity like when you bring creativity… when I bring creativity into a ceremony or ritual, you can see people automatically begin to clam up. Like because it’s like ‘oh God I have to be creative. oh God I have to like you know make something here fabulous’. And it can be the same with joy and pleasure and fun and the real juiciness of life, is that we’re like ‘oh God like that’s like you know I don’t think you’re allowed too much of that or I think is that dangerous, somebody told me that might be a bit dangerous… if you have too much like pleasure in life’.
So there’s usually alot of conditioning around it and it’s interesting to notice what that is like and sometimes it is yes about reclaiming the forgotten parts of ourselves, reclaiming our inner child because our inner child knows how to have fun. It knows how to be in this joyous moment. It knows how to soak up pleasure and joy and the very simplest of things. And it usually sees great beauty in the simplest of things. When I watch my little nieces play and all like they’re there like everything’s just like everything’s just great crack, everything’s just great fun.. from the smallest little dot of a toy to the biggest toy they might have.
Like so there’s always joy to be had but as adults then as we grow up, we’re conditioned to drop some of those parts of ourselves. That you know to make it in the world you have to be serious you have to grow up and yes there’s the balance of that.
So over these coming weeks consider what was I told about pleasure, fun, play, sensuality, creativity, about having desires, about having dreams even. And what was I maybe even told about my life force, my vitality.
Do you know like was oh maybe I was just too bubbly as a child and somebody was in one of my parents were in grief and they couldn’t handle it so it was like you know tone that down a little bit. So you learn to push it to the side. Were these parts of me accepted or was I sort of shamed for those parts. Those parts were shamed into hiding or they were dimmed down and if you consider those there – it gives you an opportunity then to think about what would life be if I took back some of that?
If I was to add in sprinkles of joy into my day-to-day life. And it’s not a fake joy. It’s not like you know put on your happy face there and pull up your socks and go ahead and do it. It’s like innately in you that no matter what is going on in life that you can access a part that is joyful that can see beauty in life even amongst the chaos and destruction that can be happening in our worlds.
So what would life be like if I had a little bit more joy in my day-to-day life. What would life be like if I let out more of my desires and passions into my day-to-day life. What would it be like to walk around my house feeling sensual today and play with it. Like trying on you know like dress up almost as if you’re a child. You see kids pretending to be granny and granda. My little nephew used to always walk around with the stick my dad would use when he’s just outside. He doesn’t need it for walking he just he just likes having it. So my little nephew would lift it and start walking around the house with it mimicking him like.
Or if you remember when you’re younger trying on your mother’s shoes and clothes and delving into her makeup bag like. So it’s the same with these qualities. Can I let myself play with them? Can I let myself try them on in little bits to get used to it? Like a little ripple effect to see how does that feel. This is what I’m noticing, what happens my body when I’m walking around feeling sensual.
- How would I treat myself?
- How would I speak to myself like my inner self?
- How would I meet the things that are going on in my life?
- And how could I make a difference to those aspects of life because they are a part of life and they’re a beautiful part of life?
But depending how we’re brought up, it’s like often seen as you know a sin. So can you play with those, parts connect with those parts and begin to open the door back to them?
Sacred Union and the Balance of Energies
That sort of leads on to like a common theme of Bealtaine – is the sacred marriage the inner union, the reunion. The unifying with your soul and the sacred union. Union derives from sort of older myth where the king and the sovereign goddess sometimes seen as Eiru would marry and that would promise a great bounty to the land. The land will be fertile, the plants, the seeds, the harvest would be good. But if the sovereign goddess didn’t accept the king or wouldn’t marry the king it meant then that would become a wasteland. So Bealtaine is like we’re crowning, uniting these forces within ourselves.
Understanding Masculine and Feminine Principles
And it’s easy to sort of break it down into saying it’s masculine and feminine but it’s the masculine and feminine principles. But these aren’t really two.. you can’t separate these in essence like because they’re not two opposing forces or energies – they are wholeness. They’re like you know if you look at a tree, you can’t really separate the branches from the trunk and the roots from the trunk or the branches – they’re all come together.
You could look at a tree and go well the trunk is the strength, that’s the masculine. But you could also look at a tree and go well the trunk is the feminine because it’s also flexible depending on the tree. And a tree needs kind of both because if it was only rigid and strong then maybe if a big gust of wind came it might break it totally. So it needs that flexibility.
But then we create this division within ourselves. And then what’s often happening is that we see one is better than the other so then we shame one other part, like our parts of ourselves. And yes the masculine principles and the feminine principles both have light and shadow sides but if we only lived in a world that carried the feminine principles, we would be missing out on the beauty of the masculine principles.
So we need both. And it’s to look at within yourself – what does that mean to you? Like what does the masculine and feminine principles mean to you? You know like often we have these kind of like instagramable images in our head of what like. Oh this is what the divine masculine looks like, this is what the divine feminine looks like and usually revolves around you know wearing white but there are qualities that are within all of us.
We have them all, it’s just that some as always are fed and some are not. Some are living, being expressed in our world, some are suppressed. Now our shadow can be greatly out in the world and the sort of the balanced aspect of it the healed aspect is deep within us suppressed.
Inner Reconciliation and Embracing the Whole Self
So we’re looking to play with all of these aspects because the masculine in essence gives form, brings out into the world the feminine. So we have these qualities that would often be seen as the feminine principle of being the vulnerability, the ability to surrender, the ability to be with the unknown, the ability to be with the mystery of life.
In essence it’s kind of like the descent and a lot of people cannot handle that energy because we want the certainty and we want the movement now, want the movement now. And we don’t want to be present with what is. And the feminine principle is about presence, about connection to intuition, about being in the body, compassion, grace, nurturance… it’s life giving, it’s all about creation.
It’s that but it’s the not the bringing into form. But the behind the scenes, the dreaming through the intuition, through the deep listening, through the receptivity, through the ease and flow through the void, the creative void if you think. And it’s about obviously fertility and those are just some aspects of it.
So if you think of those qualities, they sound oh so beautiful but often they’re hard to embody because they’re sometimes not valued by society. But also we have certain stories around them. Do you know ‘oh god, you can’t be vulnerable or somebody will hurt you’ or
‘i’ll just keep my heart sort of 10% open and we’ll be grand. And it’s all about power
with… not power over which is the shadow of the masculine but power with things. Power for things – to give power to things.
And if you think then the masculine principle, can be seen as that you think of the hero’s journey that call towards adventure. That taking it out into the world, it’s the desires coming into form, being landed, being brought and generated from the vision and it’s that ability to rise up to life’s call so i’m not just dreaming, dreaming, dreaming and never bringing it to life. But giving it to life’s, rise and up to life’s call.
And you can see where the female is life-giving but in a different way. And it’s all about purposeful action so not just action for the sake of action. And moving forward for the sake of moving forward it’s purposeful which means that it’s all of that action is coming forth from the feminine principle. And it’s a beautiful strength that is held within compassion so it’s the leader who listens and it’s the protector. So if you think of the it protects the dreams, the desires, the aspects of the feminine principle and these two are qualities within all of us.
And it’s to notice which ones do i feel comfortable in which ones do i need a little bit more of and how can they help me in my life.
The Element of Fire and Its Significance at Bealtaine
Coming back to your little element of fire where I mentioned that at the Uisneach festival but it’s considered often talked about in myths too that at Bealtaine the household fires were extinguished. And then the great ceremonial lighting of the fire at Uisneach happened and then from that fire all the other fires in the surrounding areas would bring home an ember to light their hearth for the year ahead.
And we stand at Bealtaine which is opposite Samhain and at Samhain we were lighting fires, the fires are lit to honor the ancestors. And in Bealtaine the fires are lit to welcome that warmth back, to celebrate life, to celebrate that we’ve moved out of the darkness and we’re moving towards the light, the greater growth of light.
But it’s also for protection and the cattle were brought out and moved between usually two fires because it killed the little parasites on their skin that may have arrived there during winter so it was protection and cleansing. But if you think of the element of fire it brings life, it promotes activity, it invites growth. Like without the sun, the flowers don’t grow just with water alone.
So what fuels you? What ignites your spirit? Call upon that element of fire to help you take action to have the energy to move forward towards your dreams, to feed the ambitions.
And if you think ambition is often seen as like ‘oh it’s an imbalance masculine word’ but
it’s okay to have ambitions when they come from the heart, soul and you understand
how they’re going to affect generations and the community around you.
So fire is needed it brings life it can remove that dead overgrowth as well so that new life can come. And fire in the head you think is associated with inspiration. So tap into that fire energy, to fuel life – notice now but also really when we move more into our summer solstice.
And summer solstice where you’re in too much fire energy, where you’re burnt out, you’ve signed up to go to every party you’ve been invited to… too much heat can destroy life or brings up aggression, impulsivity and impatience. Constantly being switched on and busy for the sake of being busy or where we’re reactive, we’ve got the short fuse.
But because we’re only in the early days of Bealtaine really tap into that energy of fire and see how it can fuel you and help you expand, move towards more life.
Meeting of opposites: Bealtaine & Samhain
One final thing before we begin to wrap up is to remember because Bealtaine and Samhain are on the same axis point, the veils are thin. And at Samhain the veils were thin for our ancestors at Halloween and this time of year the veils are thin for the fairies to come out and play. That’s associated also with the beautiful hawthorn trees.
And if you think of the hawthorn tree like you cannot witness a hawthorn tree this time of year and not just be happy like to see it, in its full blossom. All of the white blossoms that are on this tree – that is sometimes really known for its resilience and its you know its little thorns and always looks so like ancient when it’s bare that there’s a softness that emerges on it now.
So watch out for the fairies maybe feed the fairies and say feed them on your land and say hello to them leave them out a little a little bit of whiskey usually in Ireland or a little bit of milk.
And then just to consider as we begin to wrap up:
- What do you see that is blossoming in your life and has the potential to blossom that’s really good?
- If you’re at a different phase, what does those parts need to help them?
- What gets in the way of it?
- Maybe even consider what gifts need to come forth to really allow that blossoming to happen?
- And where are you being invited to stand at an edge and take a leap. And it doesn’t have to be a blind leap of faith, a leap is a leap even if it’s planned. But where are you being called to maybe leap in a different direction, to pivot, to change, to reach out for and claim something that is deeply dear to you. And again this is not external things this can be qualities within ourselves, ways we want our relationships to be, ways we want to treat ourselves.
And the final point is connect with your sensuality. Move your body, do a little exercise such as earlier – move with sensuality, like massage cream into your body, you know touch yourself with sensuality. Notice how you see yourself and speak to yourself. And can you bring in you know joy, pleasure, fun to that voice so that you uplift yourself, uplift your spirit and open your heart and mind to what’s possible in this moment.
Upcoming events
And i’d like to invite you to some upcoming events on the 5th of May. I have the ‘Reclaim yourself Shamanic Ceremony’ at Foxrock which is about experiencing the richness of life as
you take back what belongs to you. So it’s time to call home the parts of yourself that you’ve given away, hidden or lost because you do deserve to be the fullest expression of all that you are.
Then of course i will have the Summer Solstice Ceremony I think it’s around the 21st 22nd that’s Sunday in June with details coming soon.
And then at my home in Co. Meath, Summerhill about 30 minutes from Dublin, I’m holding an intimate one day retreat called ‘Reweaving your Stories’ an opportunity to become the storyteller of your life. So it’ll be a whole day of planting and activating seeds of a new and evolving story for your life so you get to claim your role as the master storyteller and no longer let yourself be confined to stories that don’t belong to you or that are dictated by societal, cultural or family expectations.
You’ll be releasing outdated beliefs so that you can embrace a story of infinite potential and hope. This will be held at my home at Meath and i’m really excited because we’ll also hopefully if the weather is good be able to take some of the work outside which is always beautiful.
So if any of those interest you, you can as always look at the website thethirstysoul.com or head over to instagram at thethirstysoul and as always any feedback any questions on the episode please do let me know and i do love hearing how you experience the the podcast and the episodes and i love how so many of you say that you listen to it when you are pottering or out walking in nature um which is music to my ears. So have a beautiful Bealtaine and chat to you soon