Beltane, also known as May Day, is the beginning of summer and a great time to connect with your creativity. This post includes 30 creative writing prompts for Beltane, an explanation of what Beltane symbolizes, some Beltane ritual ideas, and how to celebrate Beltane as a writer.
What is Beltane?
Beltane is a pagan holiday that celebrates the coming of summer. This sabbat takes place around the halfway point between the spring equinox (Ostara) and the summer solstice (Litha). In the Wheel of the Year, it is even considered the first official day of summer. It is a celebration of fire, flowers, passion, romance, and creativity. It is the time of year when the outside world begins to teem with life. Reproduction is on display, from the birds to the bees to the flowers and trees.
Beltane is usually celebrated around May 1, though the exact date of the astrological middle between equinox and solstice can vary quite a bit. Beltane is also known as May Day or May Eve and shares similarities with Walpurgis Nacht and Floralia, the Roman celebration of the flower goddess.
Beltane Rituals
Beltane Fires
Beltane is a fire festival, and bonfires are central in celebrating the holiday. My favorite Beltane ritual is the idea of lighting your hearth from the communal fire. Traditionally, all hearth fires would be put out and people would light their home fires from the larger communal Beltane bonfire. Fires were also used for cleansing and protecting livestock. Fire, even in the form of a candle or small fire in a fire pit can be a great way to mark this day.
May Pole
Perhaps the most famous ritual of May Day is the May Pole. The most recognizable image of the May Pole is that of a large pole with ribbons strung around it. Often in the celebration of the May Pole, participants will erect a large pole or branch and dance around it. Beltane is a time of gathering after the harsh weather of winter, when everyone can finally come together outside and dance.
May Bush
One of the most beautiful traditional rituals for Beltane is the ritual of the May Bush, which is a small tree or even just a branch decorated with flowers and ribbons. The participants could decorate the tree to represent their wishes by writing them on ribbons, decorating the tree with something symbolic of the wish, or making the wish while they decorate. This ritual is easy to adapt to an at-home practice. Anything from decorating a tree in your front yard with ribbons to tying a wish on a favored houseplant will do the trick. Let the life and fertility of the plants around you help you find your own vitality and creativity.
Beltane Symbolism and Correspondences
Beltane is especially known for flowers. Celebrants make wreaths and crowns and adorn themselves, their houses, and their beloved ones in flowers. White, red, yellow, and orange flowers are perfect for celebrating the strength of the sun and the arrival of summer. Hawthorn, birch, and rowan are also associated with this sabbat.
Oats, wine, and dairy are all foods associated with Beltane, so eat some oatmeal cookies after your wine, or drink some oat milk. But also, it’s an ideal holiday for feasting in general, so invite over some friends and be merry.
In case all the fires and phallic poles and vulvic flowers didn’t tip you off, this particular sabbat is also associated with romance and sacred sex. Beltane is often seen as the time of year that gods and goddesses come together to copulate and marry, so it can be associated with weddings, love, lust, and new unions.
Colors associated with Beltane are green, silver, white, and the fiery romantic colors: red, pink, yellow and orange. In the same vein, crystals of these colors can also be used around Beltane. Emerald, malachite, carnelian, rose quartz, garnet, and bloodstone are all excellent crystals to celebrate this time of year.
How to Celebrate Beltane as a Writer
For writers, Beltane offers new, exciting ways to connect with the creative energies around us and inside us. As the landscape bursts forth with new life, so too can we find these fertile forces in ourselves and our own writing practices. If you have felt stuck as the winter dragged on, or are looking for something new and inspiring to light your writing fire, Beltane is the ideal time to act on those impulses. Here are some ideas for how to bring the celebratory, fiery, creative energy of Beltane into your writing practice.
- Experiment. Beltane is an excellent time to let yourself play, let yourself dance around the metaphorical fire of your writing. Try new prompts. Try a new form. Draw your story. Beltane is a great time to try something new and see where the fires of creativity take you.
- Honor your ancestors. At Beltane, like at Samhain, the veil between worlds is thin. This is an ideal time to think about your literary foremothers. Who has inspired you and your writing? Reread the things that lit your literary fires and let yourself reconnect to what got you writing in the first place.
- Lose yourself in music. Have you been wanting to create a writing playlist? To find music that helps you write? To create your own background music? Beltane is an optimal time to immerse yourself in the ecstasy and rapture that music can add to your writing practice.
- Let nature guide you. Take your writing utensils outside and let nature be your muse. Find a flower, animal or tree to inspire you. You could use this prompt about plants, or just allow a nature bath to renew your writing.
- Light your candle from the communal fire. As we all begin to come outside and rejoice in the warmth of the sunshine, it’s an excellent time to connect with other writers. Join or start a writing group. Attend literary events or conferences. Find community that will inspire you and get your creative juices flowing.
- Connect to your creativity. One powerful way to connect with your creative side is to establish a writing ritual. Here’s a guide to developing your own ritual and here’s a ritual specially made for connecting to creativity.
- Start a union. Beltane is also a fortuitous time to hook up with other writers (did you see what I did there?). Find an artist or another writer whom you’ve always wanted to collaborate with and ask! Beltane will be supporting the endeavor!
- Adorn yourself. Perhaps you are the kind of writer who is inspired to wear flowers in their hair. Ahem. Or perhaps some bright red lipstick, a new scent, or a particularly special piece of jewelry might help you connect to a different side of yourself as a writer.
- Adorn your space. If your writing space is a little on the tired side, this is a great time of year to introduce plants, flowers, and fire elements. Buy a bouquet for your writing space and see if the beauty of the flowers rubs off on your writing. Get a new candle or a new plant to help transform your office (or kitchen table) into a place where magic can happen.
- Explore your sensual side. If ever there were a time of year to explore the more sexual side of your writing, this is it. If you’ve wondered about spicing up your stories or trying your hand at writing romance or erotica, Beltane is ideal.
Creative Writing Prompts for Beltane
- Write about a marriage that happens when the veil is thin.
- Write about two characters whose hands are fasted together.
- Write about a character who jumps over a broom and finds themself in a new life.
- Go outside and find a plant or animal that piques your interest. Research and write about their reproductive habits. (Here is an example.)
- Write a story or poem that centers around the different wishes tied to a May Bush.
- Write from the point of view of a flower.
- Write about something good that comes from a fire.
- Create a character based on a dangerous plant.
- Use music as inspiration. Put on something entrancing and just let yourself write whatever comes to mind.
- Write about a sexual fire being rekindled.
- Start a collaboration. Find another writer or artist who inspires you and create a story, poem, or work of art together.
- Write about a romance that sets the world on fire.
- Write about a union that starts at the May Pole.
- Write about a dance that changes everything.
- Spend time in a wooded area and listen for nature spirits or fairies. What do they tell you? What are their stories?
- Write about a sexual ritual.
- Write about what happens when the spirits of nature come out to play.
- Use your favorite line from a song as the premise for your own piece of writing.
- Write about your wishes.
- Create a character who is transformed when they adorn themself with flowers.
- Write about an old woman decorating a may bush.
- Listen to a tree (bonus points for birch, hawthorn, or rowan, which is also known as mountain ash). Find one particular tree and connect with it. What are its stories? Write what the tree knows.
- Write about what grows when the veil is thin.
- This photo by Jacob Rank on Unsplash.
- This photo by Molly Mears on Unsplash.
- This photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash
- This photo by Sasha on Unsplash.
28. This photo by Jennifer Marquez on Unsplash. (Seriously, check out her work for more inspiration. I had trouble picking just one!)
29. This photo by Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash
30. This photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash.
What are you doing to celebrate? If you use any of these prompts or rituals, please let me know how it goes! Your work could be showcased here.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on sabbats, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. If you’re interested in reading creative work based on some of these prompts, they are here. To deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
As the final rays of the day tuck themselves in behind clouds and hills, I reach the well. The very sight of the clearing tugs at something inside me. I finger the stones, making them melt and turn to sand, as if they were an old lover who’d been waiting for my touch.