Neil Diamond: Spiritual Guru

Hopefully any Beltane activities were blessed and beautiful for everyone.  Mine shaped up to be quite an epiphany.  I did not intend this to happen; it just did.  I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out Beltane.  I get the symbolism.  I get the Great Rite--big personal fan of that concept.  However, I strive to maintain the balance of Beltane with the temperance of avoiding an all out orgy-astic depravity-filled bacchanalia--I want it to be personally meaningful in other words.  So as my last post suggested I wrote and performed my own ritual.  However, I did not feel as though I had truly uncovered the deeper meaning of Beltane.
I've studied Beltane cognitively.  I've always enjoyed the reports of schools where dancing around the Maypole is a class activity with a little smirk of knowledge.  I've snickered about May Day baskets that my niece or nephew make because I know that these symbols have become different over time just as so many pagan traditions.  They're not lesser mind you--just different significance for some than others. If you don't know, Beltane is all about the Sun God and the Maiden Goddess finally seeing one another across a crowded field and falling madly into the grasses consummating their union in the Great Rite so that life can begin anew.  Is there any greater holiday than one devoted to lovemaking?  Valentine's Day doesn't have anything on Beltane.
The whole Great Rite thing can easily get distorted and maligned as debauchery.  However, last night after ritual, I felt more centered.  I cast my circle, I invoked the deity images, I recited the poem, I even added a dash of off-the-cuff inspired words of gratitude and hope and oneness with the Earth.  As I ate those strawberries I delighted in their tart yet sweet juicy lusciousness.  As I drank the wine I felt energy flowing and reminding me that spring is an amazing time of hope and light and life!  It helped me get my center back.  It'd been a trying couple of weeks at work and in my personal life.  I have been feeling quite defeated, useless, frustrated.  Then ritual just snapped me into balance.  But something was not quite right yet.
I felt better.  I did.  However I just had that sensation that something was missing.  I didn't have that Eureka moment.  I had not suddenly discovered enlightenment about Beltane.
Then I came upstairs to find my husband on Facebook.
I adore my husband.  I've known him for over 20 years. In high school I did something very teenagerish and sent him a mixed tape--yes TAPE!  This was back in the day of cassettes.  You see, he had moved to the desolate plains of the Midwest and he took my fragile young heart with him.  So I did what any good teenage girl would do.  I made him a mixed tape of the sappiest, the most lovelorn, the can't be beaten love songs of my life thus far that included such heart-wrenching tracks as as "Somebody" by Depeche Mode and "Lovesong" by The Cure.  However, there was one song in particular that I put on there that I didn't think he'd know or have any connection to.  I honestly didn't think that based on what I knew about him at the time that he would even know who this artist was.  I was wrong and very glad to be wrong as well.  I put "Play Me" by Neil Diamond on the tape.
Now at the time I had no real frame of reference for the obvious sexual intent in the song.  It was just me being caught up in the glory of Neil's voice and that longing to just be held by my husband who at the time was miles away and for all I knew not thinking about me.  All of my friends will tell you--he gives great hugs. Always has.  I missed his hugs.  I missed feeling like the most beautiful girl when he looked at me.  I missed feeling him kiss me.  I missed him being with me.
Anyway, I come upstairs after ritual and he's on Facebook commenting on a video a friend of his posted which just happened to be "Play Me" set to these beautiful images of sunsets and scenery that were so calming I was swept away.  Then I saw his comment about the mixed tape and how I had included that song on it.  I started to cry.  I couldn't help it!  I'm not a cry type gal mind you, but I was just overwhelmed to come  up from ritual and see this scene unfold before me.
Suddenly--I got it.  I understood what Beltane is about for me.  For us--my husband and me really.  Beltane is about celebrating that love. For the big picture it is all about the Lord and Lady consummating their union to bring forth new life to the world.  We have no intention of bringing forth new life as in baby mind you.  Nope.  Not happening.  However Beltane at that moment was a beautiful expression of reminiscing about our history together and that innocence.  Recalling how much we as teenagers loved one another and didn't really understand the full scope of those feelings.  Swaying together and singing along with Neil: "I am the sun, you are the moon.  I am the words, you are the tune, play me."  Beltane meant celebrating our love and life together because it's been one hell of a journey.
Ritual was complete.