pleasure as prayer: rituals to celebrate beltane

It’s the Celtic season of Beltane – Deep Spring – when sex is quite literally in the air in the form of pollen. 🌼 🤧

Beltane is an ancient celebration of fertility, sensuality, growth, sexuality and the sacred balance of giving and receiving. 

The earth blooms.
The flower opens.
The bee comes to meet it. 🐝

There is mutual exchange of pleasure. 🍯

Nothing forced.
No score keeping.

No resentment. 

Nature thrives through reciprocity — the meeting of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, that generates all life.

But many women have been conditioned into relationships where they are both the flower and the bee.

Opening.
Holding.
Initiating.
Tracking.
Managing the emotional current beneath everything.

And after enough years of that…

the body adapts.

The nervous system quietly learns:

receiving is not safe unless everything & everyone else is handled first.

Have you ever climbed into bed at the end of your day…

The messages have been answered.
Tomorrow has already been mentally organized.
Everyone has been cared for.

And now there’s this quiet pressure in the air to soften…
to relax & connect…
to feel sensual again. 

But instead of melting open, your body feels far away.

Not fully shut down.

Just… elsewhere.

You want to want touch.
To feel present.
 

But even during intimacy…

part of you is still working.

Thinking ahead to the next morning. 

Tracking whether your partner feels connected.
Holding the emotional tone of the experience.

Your body is there…

but you’re not fully inside it.

Underneath it all, there’s a deeper truth:

you’ve been giving since the moment you opened your eyes that morning--

Giving attention.
Giving emotional labor.
Giving reassurance.
Giving energy.
Giving service.
Giving leadership.

And by the time intimacy arrives, your body no longer feels like a place of pleasure.

It feels like one more place something is being asked from you.

Over time, you may notice:

the more successful and capable you become,
the harder it can become to truly receive.

Because everyone leans on you--

Clients.
Children.
Partner.
Team.
Friends.

You are the woman who can hold everything.

But somewhere along the way, being powerful quietly became synonymous with never fully relaxing.

Not only in intimacy…

but in money.
Support.
Rest.
 

The pattern that made you successful…

may be the very pattern quietly eroding intimacy, softness, and your ability to receive support (& money) without guilt.

And your body knows it long before your mind does.

This is one of the reasons I love guiding my clients in this Deep Spring season.

Beltane isn't just about more pleasure…

But a different relationship to receiving itself.

A remembering that it's impossible for your body and soul to bloom when you are giving more than you are a receiving.  

That support, love, pleasure, and abundance are not things you should have to earn through self-abandonment.

how can you harness the
medicine of pleasure this week?

Beltane is all about claiming nature as your lover and allowing the innocence of your sensual experience to be a prayer. 

Get outside and let yourself be inspired by the way that the bee makes love to the flower, the way the flower relishes in her irresistibly attractive potency, the way a gentle wind blows softly on your neck - teasing. 

Allow the suggestive “come hither” of the rose to make you blush. Flirt with her in return, finally giving in by burying your nose into her softness.

Let yourself be penetrated by the full sensory experience of your back yard.

Find any excuse to sleep out under the stars. 

Claim self care time to enjoy these nature rituals with your inner lover….

#1 Earth Mandala Ritual Art

This ritual flexes the muscles of both our imagination, our creativity as well as our subtle capacity to feel the aliveness of the Earth, plants and flowers.

* Great for children, friends, groups or alone

1. Establish an intention for your ritual. It could be simply to offer gratitude to the Earth, you could be calling in a beloved or a job, honoring a loved one who recently passed, honoring your ancestors, healing your heart or you could simply intend to drop in to the moment or to cultivate your creativity. Your maiden loves this one so feel free to call her out here! 

This ritual may also happen organically and develop as a habit during your hikes. When in nature, I often find myself picking things up that call to me and when I arrive at a point I'd like to rest or a tree I feel called to, I assemble the items as an offering.  

2. Consider bringing a small basket or bag as you take yourself on a Sensual Nature Walk (see #3 below), allowing your intuition and curiosity to call you to flowers, stones, nuts or plants that speak to you. If you take anything that is living, stop first. Breath with this being, acknowledging its beauty and its life. Feel the connection between you. Ask if it would be willing to be part of your offering. Listen inward to your intuition or any signs (wind blowing, an animal, a sound). Often, the beauty of flowers and plants are grateful to be acknowledged. They are our brothers and sisters, they want to interact with us! Sometimes that say no so listen to your gut without overthinking it. If you feel good, receive the being and then leave an offering in return - perhaps three breaths into your hand then planted into the ground, a piece of hair, a song or simply a "thank you." It's only polite. The energy of your interaction with the plants will be infusing your altar. They always give more than we could possibly take if we treat them as the living beings that they are. 

3. Allow your intuition to guide you to a beautiful spot in which you'd like to craft your offering. Choose a spot where you won't be bothered by others.

4. Sit quietly to feel into the space that has chosen you.

5. Clear the ground with the flat side of a stick so you have a more neutral space to work with. This step is symbolic of clearing your mind and cleansing anything that happened before this moment.

6. Allow your creative brain to assemble your items in the way that feels right. You'll notice you may want more of one element so you can get up to locate other items.

7. Once it feel complete and beautiful in the creative eyes of your maiden, sit quietly and breath, receiving the healing gifts of nature. Noticing how you feel. 

8. You're welcome to sing, pray, speak your intention three times, speak the Body Alchemy Invocation or seed your gratitude in a way that feels right for you. 

9. Always close by thanking the Earth (and your maiden if she's been involved), perhaps bowing in Namaste or again offering three breaths from your mouth to the Mother, seeding peace. 

#2 Sacred Seed Planting 

* Great alone, with children or to hold the collective intentions of a romantic or business partnership

Any time you plant a seed you have the opportunity to plant your intention and prayers into the miracle of the seed and its potential. Bonus: find a seed from a plant used widely in the lands where your ancestors came from

1. Observe the seed you hold in you hand with the eyes of a child . Every seed is different. Imagine the plant that might ultimately result form this seed and all the stages it will go through between now and then.

2. This seed comes from ancient generations over millions of years, it carries the stories of diverse lands and the collected prayers and hopes of all the people who cultivated it and depended on it for food Just this one seed may create thousands more and each of those may create thousands more. It is a link between you and the future.

3. Allow your prayers and intentions to enter this vast field of possibility, past , present, future. You may hold the seed to your heart and womb. Place it under your tongue so it receives your biological imprint.

4. Hold it up to the Sun in gratitude for the elements nourishment of your intentions then place it into the fecund darkness of Gaia's flesh

5. Watch it as it grows and remember your intention. Watch your intention as it manifests. 

#3 Sensual Nature Walk

You may be the most goal oriented person in very other area of your life but when you head out the door for this walk, check that part of you at the door - it's inner child time! There’s no agenda except to follow your intuition and allow your senses to blossom like a rose, so you can be nourished by the healing medicine of nature. Let your inner child free - she is an expert in opening the senses. 

A Note on location: Any way that we can connect with plants and animals is valuable, even if that’s a tree lined street or tiny backyard, but I find the more wild the environment and the more privacy I have, the more I can let my spontaneous inner child out and, therefore, the more free and relaxed I feel afterwards.

As you walk, explore the mysteries unveiled by your senses, one by one

Taste

Your body needs minerals to function. Where do minerals come from? The soil! Yes, I believe that every woman should know the way the land she lives on tastes. The land is alive, it has a consciousness, an intelligence far beyond the limitations of our human mind. We can receive that medicine directly by ceremonially tasting her (assuring there are no pesticides being used nearby).

While tasting nature may be culturally taboo, and I don’t necessarily recommend putting just anything in your mouth, I find that occasionally my intuition calls me to taste a blade of grass, the soil or an herb + an entire world of energetic knowledge and sensuality awakens within me as a result.

These walks are an opportunity to shed cultural programming around how your body interacts with the world. The amount of pleasure you can receive is in equal measure to the amount of curiosity you can cultivate.

Sight

If we are willing to look with the eyes of a child there is endless eye candy in nature. The closer we look the more there is to marvel at. Soften the eyes, move away from goal oriented, hunting hawk vision to owl vision, opting for a wide angle lens, sometimes called "womb vision," to take in more than meets the eye. How can you get curious and see with new eyes?

Hearing

What do you hear? Let yourself become one with those sounds, stretch your ears, how many layers of sound can you hear? How far away? How many living things can you hear? Does your body want to make sounds in return? Maybe buzz like a bee- how does that feel? Does your body want to sing? Do you want to express your troubles, even scream or cry, to the best listener on the planet - a tree? Do you want to sing to a flower in gratitude for its mysterious beauty?

Touch

There are millions of textures at your fingertips and millions of ways to interact with each one. Because tactical experience is so immediate and tangible, this is one of the quickest ways out of our busy thoughts and back into this present moment and the healing available there.

When you notice something, stop and touch it. How does it want to be touched? Is there a certain place on your body you’d like to touch it? Maybe your intuition draws you to lie down on the grass and feel the coolness of the earth. Maybe you love the way a soft, furry plant feels on your cheek. Stay with it (even if you feel silly). Let yourself really get into it. Let it be pleasurable, stimulating, let it open your body, notice details. The more details you notice the more present you will be. What does it feel like to touch the same blades of grass or tree trunk with your hands, your arm, your inner arm, your cheek, your foot?

Smell

Close your eyes as you walk or stand, what do you smell? Let particular plants or flowers call you over and give them your full attention through your nose, calling on the curiosity of your inner child and making sure to offer direct thanks each time you receive the gift of pleasure.

Close with Gratitude

Complete your walk with a moment of gratitude for the healing power of nature by touching the earth with one hand and touching your heart with the other, offering a simple prayer of thanks and perhaps speaking a dedication for all beings, “may I and all beings awaken to the healing power of the land.”