At this difficult time, we might feel that life is passing us by as we are unable to connect with the people and places we love. This is a ritual that employs the gifts of the season to help us remember that life goes on, and that we are always connected to the Gods and to the Earth.
Solitary hawthorns growing on hills or near wells were considered to be markers to the world of the fairies. Any human who slept beneath one, especially on May Eve, was in danger of being taken away to the land of the Sidhe. Hawthorn is so potently magical that it is forbidden to bring it indoors except at Beltane. The flowering of the hawthorn marked the opening of the summer season, the time when people could get out and about, and when young men and women could meet up. May was often considered the month of courtship and love. For this reason, and the fact that the scent hawthorn blossom is supposedly redolent of sex, the hawthorn is associated with love-making. In ancient Greece the wood was used for the marriage torch, and girls wore hawthorn crowns at weddings.
However, while in some circumstances it was considered to be a tree of love, like other fairy and magical trees, it was very unlucky to bring it indoors: Hawthorn bloom and elder-flowers/ Will fill a house with evil powers.
For this ritual, prepare an infusion of hawthorn blossoms by putting ½ oz. of blossoms in a pot and pouring over 1 pint of boiling water. Infuse for 10 minutes and strain into a cup. Hawthorn is wound about with the mysteries of the Goddess and should be treated with great care. For women, contact with the sexual side of the Goddess and themselves, hawthorn tea may be employed. It may be used by men to gain deeper understanding of this aspect of the Goddess and their female partners.
Go outside (if possible) to your garden or wild place early in the morning, beneath a hawthorn tree, if possible, and inhale its scent. Set up a stone for an altar. If you can’t go outside, decorate your altar with seasonal wild flowers. Put the infusion in your cup on the altar and light two green candles.
Goddess, Lady, White Queen
I come to you in the soft warmth of May
Beneath boughs jewelled with flowers
Your perfume loads the air
With the scent of love and magic
Take up the cup of hawthorn blossom tea, saying:
I bless this cup and ask that as I drink of it I may learn more of the wisdom of the Goddess who is manifest within me. I ask that I may learn more of her ancient ways and feel her love for all creation as my own.
When you are ready drink from the cup and feel the sacred flower spirit of the Summer Goddess contact your spirit within and become one with you. Gaze at the the wild flowers and feel the earth blossoming and growing around you. Feel your spirit grow and blossom within you and become one with the current of the year, the manifest love of the Summer Goddess.
Pour the remaining liquid onto the earth as an offering to the Earth Goddess, saying
White Queen, I thank you for being with me this day and ask that I may recognise that you are within me, as I dwell within you. Let me feel your presence in all things, visible and invisible. Let blessing be.
© Anna Franklin, from the forthcoming Hearth Witch’s Year, Llewellyn, 2021
Hearth Witchery 