Summer and the Mother Goddess

The Spring (Vernal) Equinox has passed and as the sacred Wheel turns, Summer is around the corner, with it the festival of Bealtaine.  It is time for the young Mother Goddess to step forward and to take the reigns.  The following is an excerpt from The Gaia Tradition: Celebrating the Earth in Her Seasons by Kisma Stephanich(Llewellyn Publications, 1991) that is most appropriate to share at this time of the year.

Summer is a combustion of activity.  The warmth of the Sun dances across the deserts, caresses the trees of the forests and sparkles off the movement of the waters in the oceans as it rises and splashes against the shoreline or softly gurgles and rushes on downstream.  All life is in full celebration of active energy.

This is the season of healing.  Dis-ease is the racing of the mind, mind exhaustion.  We have now entered the phase of body action and/or awareness.  We shed cumbersome clothing and expose our skin to the elements with relish.  The Sun becomes our focus as we bathe in its fiery rays, allowing the richness of the Sun’s force to soak into our pores, empowering us with new zest and enthusiasm.  After a wonderful day at play, we are charged with energy and feel as if there is nothing we cannot accomplish.  Through our play, we release the stagnate energy held within each cell, and allow the electrical synapse.  The action of our internal fire roaring to life engulfs and burns away the blockages of the mind.

Summer is perhaps the only season that we, as a whole people, get immersed in.  We join the dance and seem to live in the here and now.  If in the Spring we joined with the energy of a positive mindset, the Summer becomes the action or active energy required to manifest our goals in the physical.  With a positive attitude already seeded in our cell memory, we can take the necessary steps imperative to set into motion and bring to fruition those areas of our life that must be tended to.  With the added energy of the Sun, we can easily overcome the obstacles that once seemed monumental.  Because our energy is at its annual all-time high, we can tie up any loose ends without feeling pulled on or overburdened.

Action.  Action.  Action is the key at this time.

Fire is the element of Summer.  Fire is the symbol of transmutation.  Thus, one of the main tools can be used at this time is the candle, for the substance of a candle becomes transmuted by burning and changes into light.

In Europe there was a mysterious fraternity of the Rosicrucians who were sometimes called Philosophi per ignem, the fire philosophers, whose main symbol was the flame of transmutation.  By their beliefs and practices, these occult philosophers sought to transmute that which was based into something better in order to attain illumination and enlightenment.  They had a mystic saying or motto: Igne Natura renovatur integra, “All Nature is renewed by fire”.

Fire was considered to be the most spiritual of the elements because the use of fire is one of the things which most markedly distinguishes man from best.  The burning of candles and lamps in temples and churches throughout the world was not done merely for the mundane purpose of having light, but as an honouring of the above philosophy.

“It is important to remember that during this waxing month of Summer, you should be conscious of your own fire and the flame of the candle, bonfire, hearth fire, lightning and starlight and sunlight, becoming one with all ire and one with illuminate spirit of the Goddess.”