Yes I am a bit late .. but only by a few hours actually! 😉 Astrologically speaking, Beltane occurs when the sun is at 15 degrees Taurus, that’s roughly in the middle of the dates for the star-sign of Taurus which fall between April 19th and May 20th each year.☀️🐂 So for those of us in the UK, that happened at 06:36 this morning – for other time zones see this website where you can also find a lot of other really interesting information re: the equinoxes, solstices and cross-quarter days. 💫
So, we can choose to celebrate these old festivals using the fixed traditional calendar dates or the movable astrological dates .. or even both! Really handy if one or the other falls on a weekend! 😉
When learning about the trees of the Ogham, I noticed in my course notes that there did not seem to be a tree connected with Beltane although every other festival was covered? Going by the Robert Graves ‘Tree Calendar’ dates we are now in the time of Willow/Saille .. although Hawthorn/Huathe – the May Tree – would seem to make more sense.🤔 I did learn that Blackthorn/Straif was said to be the ‘sister’ of Hawthorn and that as with the ‘Oak and the Holly Kings’, Hawthorn rules the ‘light half’ of the year and Blackthorn the ‘dark half’ .. BUT, I have also seen Apple/Quert assigned as Blackthorn’s counterpart on other websites about Ogham .. curiouser and curiouser? 🧐🍏🐇
I know that a later ‘tree calendar’ was made by Colin and Liz Murray who also produced a beautiful oracle card set – their calendar starts with Birch/Beith at November 1st rather than December 24th but with Apple falling in September on Graves’ calendar I am still not sure how this would fit with the Murray’s ‘pulling it all back (or is it forward) a bit’? 🍏😕🍏
Whatever, Apple/Quert is a lovely tree to celebrate Beltane with as it symbolises health, healing and love, the beginning of a better, restorative phase! 😊💖 I know it is now late in the day but I hope that you have all had a really nice day and will finish by posting a couple of photos of a lovely old apple tree (which was once part of an orchard) still growing and producing delicious cooking apples in my mother-in-law’s garden in Jersey, C.I.☀️
Here’s to brighter days ahead! 😉🌳🌞💕 Xx
Divine Ogham 