May Day
May Day[May the 1st] also known as Beltane is under attack by the Tory government. I suspect that this is less to do with its socialist connotations which are relatively recent and more to do with its authentic heathen and Aryan roots. This government just like any other is anti-Aryan and under undue influence from the christian churches to push through a christian agenda.
In the German speaking lands it is the day after Walpurgisnacht which is one of those times of the year when the veil between Midgard and the other eight worlds is thin.
Among the Celtic peoples Bel is like His Germanic counterpart Balder, a solar deity. His festival announces the beginning of of the summer half of the year when in pre-christian times fires were lit all over northern Europe and people jumped through the flames and smoke to purify themselves and to generate fertility.
According to Nigel Pennick[Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition]the Beltane fire was constructed from the woods of nine different trees. Nine of course is a sacred number in Germanic lore. All fires in the villages were extinguished on May Eve and then relit from the central need-fire which is represented by the rune Nauthiz/Nyd/Naudh/Not. The very shape of this rune which does not appear to vary among the various futharks/futhorks is symbolic of the bow drill used to spark the Need Fire.
The jumping over the fire according to Grimm[Teutonic Mythology] is a more recent substitute for human and then later animal sacrifice.
There were of course the famous meetings of witches on Mayday on the Brocken mountain in the Harz in Lower Saxony. Walter Keating Kelly states that "The human witches of Northern Europe are degenerate and abhorred representatives of the ancient goddesses and their attendants, who were themselves developments of the primitive conception of the cloud-women; but witches, even in their degraded state, exhibit a multitude of characteristics by which we can recognise the originals of whom they are but loathsome caricatures."[Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore]
The Maypole is representative of both the world ash tree, Yggdrasil or Irminsul, the unmoveable representation of the North Star, Asgard. The human spine is also a type of world tree and via it the Sun Initiate may ascend from the lowest of the nine worlds, Hel to the highest, Asgard and other intermediate worlds via spiritual practices such as Rune Yoga and within this spiritual discipline specific exercises such as the Yew Tree working[Nine Doors of Midgard by Edred Thorsson].
The Maypole also represents the phallus and the dancing around it with the coloured streamers signifies both the release of sperm and the kindling of the Need-Fire.
Human life begins with the descent of spirit into matter forming a cross. The vertical line being the direction of spirit and the horizontal being matter. Having descended into physical form the Sun Initiate`s task is to gain experience and then to seek the ascent from matter back into spirit. After sufficient spiritual evolution the Initiate is free from the compulsion of Eternal Recurrence and becomes as it were a God-man, free to choose to return when and where he or she wishes as an avatar. Life in the physical body in reality is a form of sleep and we are in a perpetual dream state. Only with the release of our true Self from the confines of matter will we truly awaken and take with us our life experience as waking from a vivid dream.
This process represents the Armanic concept of Arising-Becming-Passing Away-New Arising taught by Guido von List. Incarnation into individual physical bodies by the God force is an atomisation of the divine and such atomisation or seperation creates the feeling of the "I" and "Not I" which is an illusion. With the release from matter this artificial seperation is extinguished and we again become directly connected with the Absolute.
With the practice of meditation, concentration, visualisation, breathing techniques, runic mantras and runic body shapes we can achieve greater awareness and detachment from illusion. We must as Initiates take the runes beyond the practice of divination and use them as a tool given to the the Germanic peoples to achieve spiritual awakening and upward evolution.
