Sunday, May 1, 2011

Debauchery in the forest at Beltane




Beltane is an old pagan holiday. Like it or not, many Christian Easter customs morphed out of it. If you have not heard of it, you may have heard of May Day. Now enough history and on to the salacious part.
A major custom of Beltane, or back then also known as Walpurgisnacht, was for pagan people to run off in the forest, and have sex with anyone they wanted, no strings attached. They might have been some equivalent of married, but they could be with anyone in the forest. They came out of the forests in the morning carrying boughs of flowers and leaves and probably had a rather ethereal (or ravaged) glow to them. One point in doing this was to ensure fertility of all the things they needed for the upcoming agricultural season. Of course this pagan practice, like so many others, was stamped out or modified by the Christian church.

What if this wild and fertile holiday was now practiced wide-scale in America today? Well first, we would have to find some forests to go and do it in! I don't know about you, but if I was to participate in such debauchery, I would have to have my privacy! With the small amout of forests anymore, you are likely to have a whole gang of people staring at you and making a variety of raucous comments. Predictably, corporate America would have to step in and sell sex mats for the forest so you would not get bark and dirt all over you! And of course, the rich would have luxury forest cabanas with one-way privacy screens and a mini-fridge stocked with Dom Perignon and foie gras.

Especially in these times, you would have to have some pretty rugged condoms, and a lot of them. They could be hanging down from the trees like decorative party streamers. In fact, you might want to carry some mace in case something unsavory wants to copulate with you. Think of some people you know now that you might encounter in the forest, then you might want to carry a gun. Actually, you might need to carry a blowtorch, in order to enter the forest through the thick line of right-winged protesters who will do whatever they can to keep you out.

I imagine myself in this scenario, and I picture myself alone a lot, or people watching as they prance merrily on throughout the forest. I have become so incredibly picky, and others definitely have towards me. I think we all have as a society. We are a celebrity-obsessed society after all, many of us would not touch another soul if they didn't somewhat resemble our current celebrity crushes.

I hope if we do resurrect this old practice in the forest, we go all out. Hire minstrels to play music throughout the forest, and have refreshments of honey mead, tiny cakes and ambrosia available to everyone. The forest could be magically lit up by importing billions of fireflies or having lights strung through the treees. Everyone can dress up in their forest folklore best; picture Robin Hoods' and Maid Marions', forest fairies. magicians, gypsies and bards. Like a dance card that they had back in the 50's and 60's, you can have a card that records all the people you've "entertained" in the forest.

Yes this is all wildly decadent, but I can't help but wonder what an effect this would have on the peoples of America as a whole. Just one night where everyone goes around and just loves everybody. No hangups, no dogma. I guess it would depend on you and your attitude on how you would feel arriving out of the forest the next morning. Would you have the time of your life, or would be thinking about what you did not get out of the forest? I think it is all about the perspective for all of us. God Bless America!