"Ah! my heart is weary waiting,

Waiting for the May

Waiting for the pleasant rambles,

Where the fragrant hawthorn brambles,

Where the woodbine alternating,

Scent the dewy way.

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,

Waiting for the May."

Denis Florence McCarthy

Welcome to The Nudge | Bealtaine 2024
This seasonal care package has been prepared by Kathy and The Trailblazery team.

Dear Friends,

We are delighted to prepare The Nudge, our latest care package for you on the seasonal festival of Bealtaine or May Day. Bealtaine translates as the month of May as gaeilge, the native language of Ireland ~ Éire. It means bright fire or mouth of fire. This fire festival marks the transition from the dark to the bright half of the year, from giamos to samos. Like Samhain, on the exact opposite point in the Wheel of the Year, Bealtaine is a time when the veils between the worlds are thin.

The festival of Bealtaine celebrates the God Belenus (Bright one) and welcomes the “rekindling” of the sun with the promise of summer. The ancients saw fire as a purifier, protector and healer, and would have walked and danced around fires as part of their Bealtaine rituals.

In many traditions and cultures it is a time of divine union and fertility. The countryside here in Ireland is already covered with the white blossoms of the hawthorn (Sceach gheal), the yellow blankets of coconut-scented gorse (Aiteann) and the flourishing green of wild foliage. The Earth’s fecundity seems to be bursting at the seams.

This portal of Bealtaine ushers in the sensorial season of blossoming, aliveness, fullness, risk and opening. It’s a time of great fertility, passion and abundance. Bealtaine is an invitation to embrace the dance of the masculine and feminine forces and celebrate the potent energies within and without.

Bealtaine has always been associated with burning bonfires. In Scotland, the Beltane Fire Festival on Calton Hill is a very important event for the local community in Edinburgh. A procession, led by the May Queen and the Green Man is driven by the beat of drums. At the end of their journey, they will spark the birth of summer together by lighting the bonfire.

In the same way, the lighting of the Bealtaine Fire on the Hill of Uisneach is one of Ireland’s oldest traditions. In ancient times, a great assembly would gather on the Hill to witness the fire being lit by the High King of Ireland. The Bealtaine Fire is traditionally seen as marking the arrival of Summer in Ireland.

This year, the festival will return on Saturday May 11th. We hope to see you there.

some bealtaine Prompts to inspire you:

What is ready to blossom in my life right now?

What small act of courage can I take to bloom into the highest and brightest version of myself?

What practices and rituals can I incorporate in my daily routine to reawaken my sense of joy, wonder and awe?

What new experiences am I willing to invite into my life to foster growth and expansion?

What dreams, bright ideas or creative projects have I been kindling that I am ready to risk sharing with the world?

What am I noticing unfurling in the wild world?

What can I learn from the cues and clues of nature?

How am I being nudged to return to my senses and honour my sensual life?

What’s coming up over the next
6 weeks at The Trailblazery:

As the Great Wheel turns, we are invited to pause and remember what we have travelled through together. We are excited to let you know what the future holds for our community here at The Trailblazery.

An evening with

Awarë & special guest Ajeet

Presented by The Trailblazery in partnership with

Killruddery House | Bray, Co. Wicklow

Saturday, June 29 at 18:30

You are warmly invited to join AWARË with special guest Ajeet for a stunning summer’s evening in Wicklow’s historic Killruddery House.

We’re delighted to welcome celebrated Mexican sonic artists AWARË to Ireland for the first time in the midst of their extraordinary European tour. For more information, go here. For tickets, click here.

Moon Medicine on Mon May 20

featuring Saoirse Connolly,

at 7pm irish time

Saoirse Connolly is founder & CEO of House of Wild Media Co, HerWild Lead-HER-Ship retreats and host of Rebel Ma presents All Boobs Blazing for the Feminine Rising podcast. Saoirse, meaning freedom in Irish, is a 2 x times international bestselling author and publisher, women’s empowerment mentor, international facilitator, voice activator and dream liberator for women here to wake up and grab life by the balls so together we can weave a new world.

Tickets for this event will be available from May 10th, so keep your eyes peeled. Remember, if you can’t attend live, you will be sent the recording 24 hours after the event.

Recommended Resources

Here are a few reading, watching and listening pieces to nourish your senses in the days ahead:

❀ Smell: For your nose

Herb of Bealtaine: Hawthorn

Hawthorn is one of the sacred Ogham trees of Ireland. It goes by the name sceach gheal in Irish, being the tree that symbolises Bealtaine, the merry month of May! This is also a wonderful, magical herb of abundant medicine, known as a potent heart tonic. Hawthorn, or whitethorn, is easily identifiable during this time as her creamy blossoms brighten hedgerows, stone walls, fields and sacred sites. Herbalist David Hoffmann says, “A tonic in the true sense, Crataegus [hawthorn] can be considered a specific remedy for most cardiovascular disease.”

Visit here for a recipe for a special hawthorn tincture.

✦ Connect: For your soul

Let the wild world into your eyes, your voice, your heart. Conceived and commissioned by Folk by the Oak festival, Spell Songs is a musical evolution of both The Lost Words & The Lost Spells books by acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning illustrator Jackie Morris; creating a listening experience that intersects music, literature, language and art, as a call to reawaken our love of the wild. You can explore and enjoy The Spell Songs here.

✮ Watch: For your eyes

Irish-Palestinian artist Roisin El Cherif performed “Siúil a Rúin”, a traditional ballad sung in Irish, English and Arabic at The Tommy Tiernan Show. You can watch her hauntingly beautiful performance here. She is accompanied by folk musicians Fergal Scahill and Ruth Smith, who recorded the song with her & with composer and producer Brian Crosby at his Treehouse Studios in Co. Wicklow.

♡ Cherish: For your heart

Aimsir is a seasonal journal that marks turning points in the Wheel of the Year by publishing beautiful collections of poems and writings in Irish and English. They released this edition to mark Bealtaine in 2023.

Lucy O’Hagan and Denise Conroy have also curated a journal for Palestine called Ón abhainn go dtí an fharraige - From the River to the Sea, which you can find here.

EnJOY these days - may this shimmering light be yours.

Thank you for walking this path with us,

Beannachtaí,
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery

The Nudge - Dispatch 20 | Bealtaine 2024