Homily for the Full Moon on 5-23-24.
Dearly beloved,
Happy Full Moon in Sagittarius!
The traditional title of this Full Moon in the “Farmer’s Almanac” is “Full Flower Moon”, celebrating the vibrant growth of flowers and new life that is typical of May in the Northern Hemisphere. As such, this month I am moved to speak of flowers and the role they play in nature.
As pagans, first and foremost we subscribe to a naturalized theology. The organizing principle of nature, the Λόγος (Logos), is our best and most consistent map of both the nature and the will of the Divine. Since this is the case, it is always to our benefit to examine nature and its patterns. So what does nature tell us when we examine the flowers of May?
A flower is a sexual organ, and many of us celebrate Beltane on May 1st, a holiday which celebrates fertility and sexuality. Many pagans working within “Western” traditions make Beltane all about our own sexuality, and while I understand this association, by itself this focus tends to exclude our siblings who are on the asexual spectrum, so I instead want to focus on the sexuality and fertility of plants, which is most vibrantly manifested in nature by flowers.
Flowers are known most for their beauty, for the grace they bestow upon us every Spring by blooming forth in their multicolored joy. They blossom forth almost aggressively and quickly their colors and shapes take over our gardens and yards, lending a texture and brightness that compliments the luscious greens of Spring rising up in the landscapes around us. These flowering bodies also help bring us the pleasures of the smells of Spring, adding glorious sweetness to the savory and verdant green smells of the leaves and grasses also bursting forth into life all around us.
So what can we pagans, witches, and mages learn from the flowers of May? What wisdom can we glean from this mesmerizing beauty? The great variety of flowers, the gorgeous array of colors and textures added to the world during this season reminds us every year that the Divine is an artist, a creator of beauty. Every year we are blessed by this amazing display, this bright growth that nature bestows upon us, and this joyful and exuberant transformation of nature shows us that the Divine loves beauty and loves the joy that beauty brings us all. And the busy bees and butterflies, the singing birds and roaming beasts, and even we poor, benighted humans, are no less a part of this constantly unfolding work of art, this ongoing creation growing into and out of itself through time. We are all a part of the joyous whole of creation, the glorious and intricate system of nature, and thus we are all works of art to be celebrated and enjoyed.
Happy Full Moon…and don’t forget to go outside and look at the flowers.
With love,
Soror Alice
Photograph by Alexandra Spurlock.