With Beltane Fire Festival just around the corner, we sat down with Sara, Eva and Luca from the Blues to talk about the upcoming festival, their thoughts and what they’re excited about for the 30th April.

As a nominated team, the Blues work together to provide their experience and knowledge to advise and guide people through the process of bringing together Beltane Fire Society, on a practical, administrative and spiritual level. As Sara notes, “there’s a lot more spreadsheets than people think!”. There is a significant amount of navigation as a Blue working with members of the society, and looking at both what we’ve done previously and what new ideas can be brought to the table. 

Eva says “Ideas about what Beltane is and means are incredibly divergent in the community, depending on when someone joined and what groups they’ve been in”. Sara agrees, noting  “I think that saying that we do something in one particular way just because we’ve always done it is a really rubbish reason. You’ve got to try and be responsive to the community, and also balance that.” 

We also discussed how ritual and practicalities are so intertwined throughout the process of building the festival that one cannot really exist without the other. As a first-time Blue, Eva points this out as a striking new aspect of her position, saying  “A big part of the job is navigating the line between the ritual and the lore, and the practicalities of the way Beltane is structured. A lot of the reasons why things are done is because it merges the practicality with the ritual in a particular way”, 

The Fire Arch is a great example of that, in terms of its placement on the hill due to practicality (due to its flat location, and being close to our tech base) but also how ritual has become embedded as part of this. Similarly, they gave the way that the Blues escort the May Queen as another example, noting it as part of a safety decision, but as it’s grown has become a ritual into itself. 

 She says, 

“There’s more practicalities around it that end up creating its own little ritual that is full of trust and community building. So it kind of builds on itself, because actions and theatre performance parts are very much like tarot cards. They each can be interpreted in lots of meaningful ways.” .

We spoke at length about this year’s focus on climate change. The May Queen, Alixandra Prybryla is working towards telling the story of Beltane as one of empowerment in the face of climate change, inviting its witnesses to join the May Queen in observing and righting the natural cycles of the world. It is the story that opens people to solutions, and one of those solutions is being an active steward and participant in the cycles of the land. This can be done via citizen science, and in particular, the work done by the UK Phenology Network. She is also working with the society in a Wilder Walkies project ran by Becky Salter, in which Saturday morning in the lead up to Beltane, she invites everyone to partake in citizen science, taking data about when plants are sprouting, leafing and flowering in nature. 

Sara says, 

“I really do like this idea that Alix is putting forward about the cycles being out of alignment, and how she’d like that to be reflected with meeting groups. So going from chaos into order and the journey with her and the Green Man around doing that – and that it comes from science that she herself is doing. I think that’s really powerful  […] I am very much looking forward to seeing the sort of evidence-based theme that is getting built”.

Luca agrees, noting the differences of Beltane in previous years. He says, 

“Every year is something different because every year there’s different people – in groups this year there’s a really nice blend of people that bring a lot. The most important thing is what people can bring to the festival.”

Where in previous years, there has often been a more sexualised focus on the topic of fertility within Beltane, there is a sense that the taboo and protest against antiquated notions of sexuality has receded in comparison to climate change. Sara says, “Climate change is on everyone’s mind for obvious reasons”, with Eva agreeing, saying 

“Origins were a lot more sexual, it’s sort of oscillated since then depending on what the Reds did, because I think they express that vibe the most. When I think about the bower dance and how it can mean many things – whether it is a consummation of some sort, whether it’s the merging of energies, whether it’s re-aligining energies. Basically, it’s always varied.” – 

As we look forward to Beltane Fire Festival, we asked the Blues what kind of message they want to send to not only society members, but members of the public at large. Sara says,

“There’s something around live experiences away from screens. With people coming to terms with a kind of psychological effect of everyone having been very isolated and coming tentatively back into spaces where we can celebrate face-to-face, with also an acknowledgement that not everybody can. There is something really valuable about the live experience and shared community, shared ritual as meaning something, as needing to put a stake in the ground and mark time and needing to commune with people. Because we don’t have anything if we don’t have each other.” 

And Luca agrees, noting that Beltane has personally been that experience for him.. 

“I just arrived in Scotland in 2016, did not have many friends and just looking around on Facebook I found a meeting. I joined the community, became a part of it. I think that is what Beltane is for me,  a community that is open to everyone.”

With only a week to go, we invite you to join the community, and help us turn the wheel into the summer season!