Modern-Day Pagans Trying to Revive Wiccan May Day Festivities

May 4, 2009

Author: Matthew McGrath

Source: App.com

http://www.app.com/article/20090504/NEWS02/905040364/1070/NEWS02

May Day, or Beltane, an ancient Celtic festival of fertility revived by Wiccans and neopagans alike, sprang to life again on Saturday.

Members of the Sanctuary of Universal Life, a Wiccan church — danced around the holiday's chief symbol, the maypole, weaving bright ribbons into a braid around it. The ritual symbolized the marriage between Wicca's chief deities, an unnamed male and female god.

"Contemporary paganism is a recreation of very, very old, mostly European, customs that predate Christianity," said Nikki Bado-Fralick, director of religious studies at Iowa State University, during a telephone interview Friday. "Beltane is a celebration of spring. It's a wonderful time to celebrate renewed energy or renewed vitality."

The atmosphere Saturday was relaxed. Between rituals, people hiked through the woods, played Frisbee and sat on blankets in an open field off North County Line Road.

Based in Manalapan, Sacred Wind Sanctuary is an ecclectic pagan and Wiccan church founded by two friends from Manalapan who reconnected following the death of a high school friend.