Lunar Beltane Super Moon Monday evening, friends.
Lunar Beltane is the pagan name for the full moon that occurs when the sun is in the house of Taurus. Learning to track the year by this lunar-led Wheel of the Year perspective is a very cool practice in cyclical seeing or wisdom.
The classic pagan tradition of hand-fasting is a Beltane tradition, and it’s been on my mind all week! Probably because a few years back I was blessed to get to officiate a hand-fasting union within a traditional Persian wedding ceremony, under the Lunar Beltane moon.
Hand-fasting ceremonies tie a hand of each partner’s to one another. It takes us to a more rooted tradition of female sovereignty. It is connected to pre-Christian times and (many varied “fam trat” or local, cultural) traditions when women, either as priestesses or commoners, chose lovers for an evening. There are many books out there these days to explore more info on the practices of the Old Ways!
For some, these were magical rites. For others, an opportunity for young Maidens to pick potential partners. Story goes that if the partner was a worthy one, the woman could choose to bond her fate to her or his for the next period of 13 moons~they would handfast to signify their decision that very eve!
As practiced now, handfasting harkens back to its roots in honoring that both partners “tie hands” together as an acknowledgement of *equality* as well as union.
Beltane or May Day is when we celebrate the Virgin (not having anything to do with intercourse here, but Virgin meaning a female in her sovereignty, and/or pledged to the Goddess) becoming Maiden Who Loves~ Beltane is a festival of fertility, sexuality, romance, and L O V E!!!Ahhh, the most powerFull of all human alchemies, no? L O V E 
For me, Beltane doesn’t have to be about romantic love at all though. It truly can be about the many different graces and forms Love can take. That is my tip for ritual use this weekend or Monday 
Eyes on Nature right now, her ecstatic, pollinating wildness, should warm those heart-eyes on…
Farmers Almanac reports this moon is called Pink moon, due to the great deals of blooms right now of phlox flowers.
Llewellyn’s Witches Datebook shares that Monday’s moon is Willow Moon, occurring during the Celtic month of Willow. It tells us that willow is “considered a tree of protective spirits of the land and the dead and is planted in graveyards” and suggests that Celt Willow Moon is thus a good time for messages from Ancestors.
Willow Moon brought a special little all is aligned n divine message or twinkle “sign” for me this week for sure!
Also, I was taken back this week in the gentlest of synchronous ways to Aphrodite and lavender…both strong advocates of any L O V E ritual or work you seek to do this moon.
Wild Women Wisdom 