Cat, It's Beltane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Only I could turn Beltane into yet another guilt trip. But only Peter could remind me what the day is really for.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/quakerpagan\/2016\/04\/cat-its-beltane-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cat, It's Beltane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Only I could turn Beltane into yet another guilt trip. 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{"id":1572,"date":"2016-04-25T06:32:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T10:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/quakerpagan\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2016-04-25T06:32:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T10:32:19","slug":"cat-its-beltane-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/quakerpagan\/2016\/04\/cat-its-beltane-3.html","title":{"rendered":"Cat, It’s Beltane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m feeling a bit torn this morning.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to head out to meeting for worship, and I\u2019ve been kept away from worship far too often this winter; I really feel the need to be there.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I\u2019ve been just a little under the weather for the past two weeks, and physically exhausted for no reason all weekend.\u00a0 If I go to meeting, I doubt I\u2019ll have the energy for anything else: not shopping for groceries, not cooking the staples for the week, not grading the stack of student essays on my desk.<\/p>\n

And certainly not celebrating Beltane.\u00a0 And that does not seem acceptable to me.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m staying home, but, as I said, I\u2019m feeling a bit torn by all that needs to be done, and how little energy I seem to have this week to do it with.<\/p>\n

Which puts me in mind of a story\u2026<\/p>\n

Once upon a Beltane<\/strong>, Peter and I were at a Church of the Sacred Earth<\/a> retreat in northern Vermont.\u00a0 Despite being almost on the Canadian border, it was warm that year, and we were all tenting in a colorful extempore village outside the cabin of one of one of our members.\u00a0 The birds were singing, there were flowers blooming, and it was one of those perfect mornings in spring, when the world itself seems to slow down to drink in the sights and sounds, and sunlight pours as slow and rich as honey between the green leaves.<\/p>\n

Peter and I woke up in a tent together, and the bright sun warmed us and basted us in laziness as we lay in one another\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

This was during the period after I\u2019d separated from my first husband, but before I moved in with Peter.\u00a0 We were, in general, playing it cool about our romance, as my young daughter deserved a chance to adjust to the end of her parents\u2019 marriage before having to accept a new love in her mom\u2019s life.\u00a0 So when we were in public or around my child, Peter and I worked as hard as we could at being undemonstrative of our feelings.<\/p>\n

You could have cut the erotic tension with a knife, and I was learning all about the downside of life in a small village in Vermont.\u00a0 Peter, who lived two hours away from me, was busy moving his fragile and elderly grandmother in with him in a new home for the two of them to share, and could not visit me often.\u00a0 And when he did, I was painfully aware that simply taking a walk down the street with him would turn heads.<\/p>\n

Everything is everyone else\u2019s business in a small town.<\/p>\n

Here, at Beltane, however, among my Pagan community, the fact that we were a couple was known and understood.\u00a0 My daughter was with her father that weekend, and we were among friends, some of whom had supported me through the worst of the ending of my marriage, and most of whom had been there from the beginning of this new love.<\/p>\n

It had been a long, hard winter, with a lot of grief in it.<\/p>\n

Now, however, it was Beltane, and the sun was bright on the yellow fabric of the tent over our heads as Peter and I lay woven together in a little nest of sleeping bags, luxuriating at being together, luxuriating at the morning.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how long we had been lying there, in that pleasant warmth and that pleasant state between waking and rising, when I realized that the sun was now quite high.<\/p>\n

The Church of the Sacred Earth was not just my family\u2013it was an obligation, and I take my obligations seriously.\u00a0 (Seriously enough, perhaps, to grieve the gods themselves, who may not feel particularly honored by feelings of guilt, anxiety, and resentment.)\u00a0 I was serving on the Council of Elders that year, and one of our semi-annual meetings for business was about to begin.\u00a0 I realized suddenly that everyone was up except for us\u2013we could hear them, bustling about, getting coffee, sharing food, calling and chatting just as the birds were doing\u2013and I was late<\/i>!\u00a0 Late<\/i> to a business meeting!<\/p>\n

I suddenly sat bolt upright and began searching frantically for my clothes.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m keeping everyone waiting!\u201d I panicked.\u00a0 \u201cThey can\u2019t begin until I get there!\u201d<\/p>\n