The Vernal Equitherm (Beltane) is coming! Before Beltane sweeps over our whole Northern Hemisphere (with Samhain in the Southern Hemisphere), do you have a Maypole for your group? It’s especially fun with a bunch of kids, and they learn to celebrate our Earth too! Easy instructions below, as well as other ways to celebrate and many online rituals to join!

DIY Easy Maypole

Ready to make an easy to use Maypole for your Pagan group? Or use the Maypole to help attract people to form a new Pagan group! This Maypole is easy to put up and take down, while also being easy to make.

First, get a 2X2 maybe 4 to 5′ long. Cut off a short piece (or bring the whole thing) to the lumber yard, Lowes, Home Depot, or such to find the diameter of PVC pipe that it just barely fits into. We could calculate that, but it’s easier to just find the one which fits. Buy an 8′ or so length of that PVC. Spray paint it green or whatever. Attach a top piece with long ribbons.

Cut a point on the end of the 2X2 (this can be done with any of various types of saws – make sure it is the same on both sides to make pounding it into the ground easy). On the day of the Beltane celebration, use a wooden or rubber hammer, or a piece of scrap 2X4 on top for protection from a metal hammer/sledge, etc, and pound the 2X2 about 1 to 2′ into the ground, using a level to ensure that it’s perpendicular. Then slide the maypole onto it from the top. Easy! Get ready to dance!

The way to dance a Maypole can be found online, or use this basic description. Dances can range from very simple to very complex, with complex dances available here. For a very simple dance (this works great with kids), divide the kids/dancers into two groups. Alternate the dancers in a circle around the Maypole (if you have an odd number of kids/dancers, the extra one simply faces the same direction as the person before them). When the music starts (see our music page here, or get other music), dancers dance forward (so half go clockwise and the other half counterclockwise – deosil/widdershins). Don’t worry about who lifts their ribbon up to let the oncoming dancer pass – let it go randomly. The ribbons will plait down the Maypole – it might not be a pretty as a regular plan would be, but that’s OK – just have fun!

Or for subsequent years, you might want to plan it out more carefully to make a regular plait – or not!

Taking it down is easy too – just lift it off from the 2X2, then hit the 2X2 a few times from the side to loosen it up, pull it out of the ground, and store until next year. We found that a couple big bike hooks in the ceiling of the garage make a convenient and out of the way storage location for the Maypole until next year, with the 2X2 inside it.

Beltane

In the Northern Hemisphere, May 1st time is traditionally celebrated in the Neo-Pagan Wheel of the Year as Beltane. The name derives from the Irish Gaelic Bealtaine or the Scottish Gaelic Bealtuinn for “Bel-fire”. Beltane is reputed as a day of unabashed sexuality, visible in the phallic symbolism of dancing round the Maypole. This sexuality is, of course, approached with respect and consideration.

Earth Day

But before we get to the online opportunities for Beltane celebrations, we also just passed Earth Day! If you haven’t already signed it, consider signing our Pagan Statement on the Environment.

Online Beltane Celebrations

It’s great to see online celebrations staying common after the pandemic! Hopefully this new normal can help far flung Pagans stay connected. Be sure to plan in advance – many of these require registration ahead of time and/or various ritual materials/preparations. Also – looking around your local area (and especially at CUUPS chapters at local UU churches) may well turn up some live events!

Date	Time	Group	Link
26-Apr	2:00 pm EST	Rowan Ravenwolf	https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-poison-path-working-with-baneful-plants-tickets-1985672079643?aff=erelexpmlt
27-Apr	Any time you want	John Beckett	https://www.youtube.com/user/mircea142 (use search bar for Sabbat)
27-Apr	Any time you want	Druids of the Light	https://www.youtube.com/@druidlindamae3003 (use search bar for Sabbat)
28-Apr	7:00 PM MDT	Wild Academy	https://thewildacademy.substack.com/p/beltane-ceremony-2026
30-Apr	7:00 pm EDT	AspenTemple	https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beltane-sabbat-ritual-hosted-by-the-aspen-temple-tickets-1987101344613
1-May	7:00 PM MDT	Ardantane	https://ardantane.org/event/beltane-online-ritual-2026/
2-May	1:30 pm CDT	Circle Sanctuary	https://circlesanctuary.org/beltane
2-May	10:00 amPDT	Aphrodite	https://www.instagram.com/p/DXaVpFHj01M/
2-May	4:00 PM EDT	Weavers of the Web	https://www.weaversoftheweb.org/event/2026-beltaine-ritual-107/register
2-May	5:45 PM EDT	Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple	https://ckht.org/
4-May	7:00 pm EDT	Wyoming Valley CUUPs	https://www.wyomingvalleycuups.com/events.html
4-May	8:00 pm EDT	Covenant of Earth and Sky CUUPs	https://www.facebook.com/events/1744080916606040/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A%5B%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D%5D%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

Pagaian Celebrations

Glenys Livingstone, author of PaGaian Cosmology, a naturalistic tradition revering the Goddess as a metaphor for the Cosmos, recommends the ritual celebration of beauty, as in the following call and response:

Celebrant: “Name yourself as the Beauty, whom She desires – the Beloved. Speak if you wish, of the Beauty that you are, or simply show us. Let us welcome your Beauty.”

Each one: (wording as you wish … this is a suggestive, and presenting object or photo of Beauty, or describing, as you speak: “I am this Beauty”. AND/OR “I am the Beauty of … . I am the Beauty whom She (the Cosmos/Universe) desires.“ (Put your object or photo on the altar)

Response: Welcome, we saw you coming from afar, and you were beautiful. We saw you coming from afar, and you are beautiful.

(Livingstone, 2008)

Glenys also finds this a particularly appropriate time to use the well-known Charge of the Goddess as an invocation: “all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals....

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