Beltane (April 30) marks the emergence of the young God into manhood.  Stirred by the energies at work in Nature, He desires the Goddess.  They fall in love, lie among the grasses and blossoms, and unite.  The Goddess becomes pregnant of the God.  Witches celebrate the symbol of Her fertility in ritual.

Beltane (also known as May Day) has long been marked with feasts and rituals.  May poles, supremely phallic symbols, were the focal point of Old English village rituals.  Many persons rose at dawn to gather flowers and green branches from the fields and gardens, using them to decorate the May pole, their homes and themselves.

The flowers and greenery symbolize the Goddess; the May pole the God.  Beltane marks the return of vitality, of passion and hopes consummated.

May poles are sometimes used by Witches today during Beltane rituals, but the cauldron is a more common focal point of ceremony.  It represents, of course, the Goddess – the essence of womanhood, the end of all desire, the equal but opposite of the May pole, symbolic of the God.