Beltane and May Day: On Desire, Disorder, and the Collective Body
Cross-cultural researcher and artist, Alisa Reimer, shares insights into the energetic parallels between ancient Beltane rituals and contemporary May Day celebrations.
Photo by Caroline Mackintosh
Before our collective cultural memory was Christianized, this time of year was celebrated as an initiation portal into adulthood, into life itself. A time to celebrate the pulse of Eros and to let the sexual desire of humans fertilize the soil of the Earth. Let’s meet that fire and see how it translates to the present day. From riot to celebration. From protest to hedonism. From desire to disobedience.
The natural world is blossoming. At an almost fleeting speed, everything opens at once. New life reaches toward the sun. Everything in nature is asking for more right now. More color. More light. More life. More force. More momentum.
In the traditional seasonal calendars of many European cultures, this swelling reaches an important threshold at Beltane, celebrated at the beginning of May. Bonfires were lit across the land to honour fertility, vitality, and the generative forces moving through land and body. Animals were led between the fires for protection, and communities gathered in direct relationship with the forces shaping their lives.
Originally, Beltane functioned as a rite of initiation, marking the transition of young men and women from childhood into adulthood, with elders guiding the younger generation into this new phase of life. It was a time of sexual openness, where human erotic energy was understood as part of the generative force that nourishes the Earth, that brings her to life, that makes her fertile.
People would gather in forests and fields. Social conventions, including marital boundaries, were temporarily loosened. Especially in rural areas, these practices persisted for centuries, resisting the spread of Christianization. Afterward, the Maypole would be decorated. A young woman was chosen as the May Queen, embodying the presence of the goddess.
Witches and the original threads
Beltane also became associated with witches, especially during the spread of Christianity and the witch hunts of early modern Europe. Practices rooted in seasonal, Earth-based ways of living were recast as dangerous, and much of the knowledge, often held by women, was suppressed or erased.
But this is changing. And many of you reading this, might feel like being part of this change! We are in this moment of individual and collective re-membering of these original threads, reclaiming the body, sexuality, and forms of knowledge that are in relationship with the Earth.
May Day - about Soil and the Social Body
Beltane sits opposite the Celtic Samhain on the wheel of the year. Where Samhain draws attention inward, toward descent and memory, Beltane turns us outward. Toward contact, toward participation, toward exposure. Can you feel this energy, emerging in the natural world, represented in the collective field?
May Day in Germany carries its own kind of fire, especially in Berlin. It originally emerged from the collective struggle for better working conditions and fair wages in the late 19th century and has been officially marked as a public holiday since 1919, with unions and workers organizing demonstrations to make these demands visible. The same force that builds in the soil, pushing life toward visibility, also moves through the collective body. Pressure builds. Something wants to be seen, heard, expressed.
The demonstrations on May Day usually extend into many social and political questions. In Berlin, this can mean protests, gatherings, moments of friction, riots. And at the same time, there is celebration and hedonism moving through the streets. All of it has its place and it seems like different expressions of energy moving outward. Just as it does in the soil. The ancients allowed for controlled chaos and disobedience at this time of year, seeing it as an initiatory step within the wheel of the year and the emergence of new life.
As we are now looking into the roots of Beltane in pre-Christian European traditions, it feels crucial to also look into the origins of May Day when moving through the streets of Berlin or any other city that holds space for demonstrations and public dissent and collective tension.
What are the movements that shaped it?
What actually holds our collective body together?
Who works to maintain the conditions we all rely on?
Who are these voices?
And what are they saying?
I like to work with questions because they leave space for the answer, inviting us into our own agency of inquiry while allowing for a plurality of perspectives to co-exist.
Fertility - what wants to come alive through me?
Can you feel the Eros of this season? A kind of full body yes that sometimes moves through us. Spring reminds us that life itself is erotic in this deeper sense, a force of attraction, curiosity, and emergence.
In many of the pagan and Earth-based traditions, this was described as a time of fertility. But fertility here is often reduced to reproduction, which misses its deeper meaning. Fertility can also be seen as responsiveness, the capacity to meet life and be changed by it and become an active agent in collaboration with the forces of life.
The question shifts from what do I want to create, to what am I already in relationship with?
What wants to come alive through me?
Where do I feel that full body yes right now, and where do I override it?
Beltane is often romanticized as light, sensual, and abundant. And there is truth in that. But there is also exposure. When everything begins to grow, it becomes visible, including what has not been tended to and what cannot sustain life. If something is to flourish, something else has to be composted.
What am I still holding onto that belongs to a past season? What has already moved on, but I haven’t?
Reconnecting to Earth-based ways of relating to life
Earth-based ways of knowing have always been relational. They emerge from sustained contact with land, cycles, and the more-than-human world, and they require attention, reciprocity, and adjustment.
Seasonal living, in this sense, is not about reenacting rituals for their own sake. It is about recognizing that we are already moving within cycles, whether we consciously engage with them or not. The body registers these shifts, the nervous system responds, and the senses sharpen. The question is whether we orient ourselves accordingly and acknowledge that we too are cyclical beings, not in nature, but part of nature as well.
If you pay attention during this time, you may notice the awakening of your inner waters. Something begins to stir in response to the same forces moving through the natural world around us.
Desire and longing are part of the body’s ecology. They are currents. When we listen closely, they can show us where life is trying to move, where something seeks contact, where the body already knows before the mind starts to interfere. The question is where you choose to direct this life force.
There is a lot of relevant information to be found at this time of year that can be felt in the skin, in the pace of your thoughts, in what suddenly becomes possible. The invitation is to meet what is already moving with a bit more awareness, honesty, and willingness.
Beltane arrives, and it moves through the soil and through us. The question is whether you move with it.
About Alisa Reimer
Alisa Reimer (M.A.) is a Berlin-based artist and researcher working at the intersection of ritual, sound, contemporary discourse, and embodied practice.
Her work explores the relationship between body, Earth, and the unseen. With over a decade of research, she draws from ancient cosmologies and rites of passage to create spaces that strengthen intuitive perception, and inner guidance in times of change.
In 2024, she launched the Invisible Worlds Study Program, offering online learning environments that engage the senses, prioritize experiential learning, and combine critical thinking with intuitive embodiment, creative practice, and ritual art.
→ This summer Alisa is opening a space to explore Earth-based intuition more deeply with The Intuitive Body: A Retreat for the Feminine from July 8th to 12th at the edge of the forest only 90mins outside of Berlin.
