Preparing for Beltane and the Love Spell of Life

I never believed in love spells.

But he was walking away from me, pulling away from me. And I wanted nothing more than to bring him back. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I trusted in a book whose name I can’t remember now.

I chanted something. Burned something. I’m sure a candle was involved. Red, of course.

And I sealed it with: If it is best for him. If it is in alignment with his true purpose.

(Or something like that.)

I think of this story every time Beltane approaches. I think about the messages I’ve gotten from books and people about what this celebration should look like.

I think about what I’ve internalized and how it’s rubbed up against what I’ve experienced.

And I have landed (for now) at the possibility that everything might be a love spell.

Me. You. The Earth. The beauty, the tragedy.

The longing for connection. No matter what it looks like.

No matter how it changes.

Life is a Love Spell

A few years ago, I was diving into the story of Persephone and Demeter at a Witchcamp in Australia. A Witch and I were sitting around when they talked about how this emergence into Spring reminded them of the love spell of life.

At the moment, that phrase began to stir in me. And within a day, I had written a song for the camp to use in a ritual. Over time, the song morphed and changed and expanded, but it remains mostly like this:

Life is a love spell, life is a love spell

Life is a love spell, life is a love spell

We belong to dark, we belong to light

We belong to the ecstatic dance of life

The first two lines are sung at the same time as the last two lines, so you’ve created a love spell soup that weaves around the magick of the energy building until all you sing is life or we belong or some other phrase that arises in the mystery of bodies coming together.

Connection. Emergence.

Isn’t this what Beltane is all about? The love spell that we sing to each other?

Preparing for a Love Spell

I want to invite the possibility of falling in love with everything. Myself. You. The World. The mystery of what happens next. The mystery of what’s happening right now.

I want to sink below the surface and touch into the tremble of a heart that knows pleasure and pain. I want to become quiet enough to hear the blood moving and pulsing.

This weekend, I’ll be at the North Bay Reclaiming Beltane Ritual, where we will dance around a Maypole. Before I step into that space, I will take a few moments to write a love letter to myself. I will write of the things I want and the things I desire.

I will sit with myself in the light of springtime and the renewal of trees. I will bring myself to myself again. And I will promise to take care of her, to not abandon her, to show up fully for this relationship.

I will trace the lines of my heart, the labyrinth of this heart. And I will allow myself to know my lost places and my spaces of joy.

Trancing in and trancing out, I will be my own guide and my own lover.

And I will be with my lover, sending the song of resilience and relationship into the stars.

In the love spell of this life, this gorgeous love spell that I am, I come back to the words and intention of connection.

Emergence.

And maybe there will be a red candle involved.

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Please feel free to share (crediting me!) and to comment on your Beltane feelings (or not)!