click image above to see candle set

~ FLORA ~

The Roman Goddess of Spring. "The Flourishing One," annually honored at the May Day festival called Floralia. Flora was "a Lady of Pleasure," but she was a prominent and important deity in Roman paganism. Some say her name was the secret soul-name of Rome itself.

St. Augustine and other fathers of the church abominated Flora and her festival, which, they said was a licentious orgy of nude dancing and promiscuous behavior.

To the Celts, May Eve was known as Beltain or Beltane. The Teutons called this celebration Walpurgisnacht, and to the Romans it was Floralia . The Goddess Flora, Maj, May, Maia, or The Maiden was the reigning Queen. The festival celebrated her virgin or "flower" aspect, thus the promise of fruit to come. It was the time to wear green in honor of the Earth's beautiful, new, green mantle. A time for sexual license, symbolizing nature's fertilization. A time when marriage bonds were temporarily forgotten and sexual freedom prevailed in rural districts all the way up to the 16th Century.

Because of the seemingly ineradicable sexual license of the May rituals, and their well-remembered pagan connotations, churchmen viewed May Eve as a major sabbat of witches.

We say, erect that Maypole, strike up the music, and let us all get bizzy!