Beltane Festival & Portrait of Beltane
Adam, Portrait of Beltane 2024
Today is Beltane, May the 1st —and the first day of summer according to the Pagan calendar and the Wheel of the Year —a day to be celebrated with fire, dancing, and merriment. The Pagan Wheel of the Year charts the passage of time and the changing of the seasons through the main solar events —the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes —fire festivals mark the midpoints between these events.
Celtic in origin, Beltane is the festival midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. Seen as ‘the gateway to the lighter half of the year’ culminating in Samhain, or Halloween —Beltane heralds the return of fertility and nature's abundance.
In the United Kingdom today, these ancient festivals are thriving, inspiring glorious celebrations throughout the country. Nowhere more so than in the West Country, and last year, during the Glastonbury Beltane Festival, I shot a photography project.
Production for the shoot began a few months previously, and I made trips to Glastonbury to find the perfect spot, looking for a place where I could isolate individuals from the background noise, and richness of the festival in motion, and place them in front of a simple white background. My idea was to capture the individual manifestation of belief and artistry that the wider collective celebration of Beltane inspires. The duality of individual expressions coming together within an ancient celebration is evocative — it goes beyond what we might think of as dressing up and instead a kind of symbolic becoming, where each person interprets elemental forces of nature and rebirth. These expressions are often eclectic and intricate, wildly personal and yet married to a particular leaning or belief. Far from modern-day secular festivals with their wellies, tents and glow sticks —Beltane has a sacred nature, and one that modern-day Pagans and seekers are reclaiming by embodying tradition, and expression, in deeply personal ways. It is a cultural spectacle, steeped in the land and our ancestral past, as ancient as the undulating hills and crags of the surrounding West Country. There is a heartfelt and compelling sincerity in these individual Beltane transformations —and this is what my project explores.
Organising the shoot was a learning curve and an interesting experience. Like any group of humans, people acted on their guard for the most part, and I found that I was attempting to infiltrate a tight-knit community, many of whom did not — and perhaps rightly so — think me or my idea worth considering. My initial letters and attempts to connect remained unanswered during the cold February of 2024. Like the winter that Beltane will eventually thaw us from, my early efforts fell on cold and seedless ground.
It became as much an experiment in tribalism and social hierarchy as anything else. A very human experience met by a wall of silence, to begin with, then — just as the earth began to stir and sprout — there were pockets of interest, a rumble of energy, and glimmers of communication. The silence continued in some areas, but then particular individuals turned towards me and began to say yes. Things started to fall into place as they galvanised their friends and comrades to come and participate on the day. Some immediately stood out as wanting to help and were happy to communicate — with them came collaborative opportunities and ideas for future work. Through others, I found kindred spirits and burgeoning friendships —and then there were those who displayed a kind of selfless kindness, with no thought of what they might receive in return. I think specifically of one man whose entire group made a point of ignoring my requests — but when asked, he merely said yes, told me it was important to help people out, and came in a glorious blaze of leaves.
Beltane at Glastonbury begins with the crowning of the May King and Queen, culminating with a procession of darkly folkloric figures through the town. Green Men and Maidens, Druids, modern-day Celts, Wood Nymphs, Wiccan, Vikings, and Others carry the Maypole up the hill to find, and be dropped into, the May hole —a ritual to honour the union of ancient Gods and Goddesses of fertility and nature. To light fires, and to dance with revellers, weaving brightly coloured ribbons to celebrate the blossoming of life and light.
The incredible artistry being inspired across the Country to herald the changing of the season is steeped in tradition, yet wholly individual and alternative to what we may today perceive as mainstream. To be in Glastonbury on May the 1st is to feel the undercurrent of ancient belief — a cord stretching back through time that connects us to our Celtic and Pagan past when respect and reverence for nature and the celebration of the natural world lay at the heart of life.
Today, Beltane holds an otherworldliness, where Nature is not just celebrated; it is woven through the festival and the people who take part. Nature is the entity that calls to ritual and is answered through embodiment and performance —and perhaps, in doing so, roots the present and weaves it with a mystic past.
Please visit Gallery to see Portrait of Beltane.