cycles
Happy Walpergis Night and May Day!
Walpergis Night- May Eve is April 30th; May 1st is May Day.
Many Pagans get together to show solidarity with each other and our ancestors by building bonfires, and dancing around May Poles.
Some remember that, as at Samhain, the veil is thin at this point in the yearly cycle, and it’s easier for our ancestors to visit this side. In Ancient Rome the Lemuria was held for three days in May. The family ancestors would be welcomed and fed, but then at the end (on the 13th) they would be sent away by tossing beans around the house and saying: “I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine” (Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis.) nine times. 
As with live relatives, sometimes we are glad to have them, sometimes we are glad to have them leave. While the benevolent dead became Manes or household spirits, the malevolent dead became lemures, spirits who would harm the living. These are the ones they wanted to banish.
In Northern Europe towns would erect May Poles and dance around them, and we still recreate the old ways- the dancing, the plays, with the hobby horse and Greenman. We welcome the coming growing season and the cycle of change, while at the same time, trying to connect with the past.
We no longer drive our cattle between two bonfires (or at least I don’t know anyone who does, there may be some who do), but we do recognize the need to purify as well as celebrate, to break with those parts of the past we want to let go, while holding onto the ones we love. Change usually includes choice, and sometimes taking responsibility for those choices is the hardest part of change. So let’s celebrate when we can, and enjoy the company of others who know what a magickal time this is!
Changing leads to progress
How difficult would it be to get the modern, scientific world to accept the psychic, spiritual, magickal world? That “rational” world is the status quo, and we are at the point of change. The trigger for change is all of us who have had personal experiences with the paranormal and wind ourselves trying to get that accepted by others. When the whole system is set up to deny and mock those who accept the occult, if you come out for it, you are going to bear the brunt of the resistance. You will also give hope to others who have also experienced it, and felt safer not admitting it publicly. The more people who come out and say “yes, I’ve seen a ghost”, “yes, dowsing works”, “yes, people have ESP”, “yes, we can communicate with plants” and are willing to come out as accepting supernatural beliefs, the more people will say “That makes so much more sense given my personal experience” (and maybe our ancestors weren’t all foolish to believe in this stuff after all).
Integration will require that many things change in our parent culture. Medicine could go forward with more success, and fewer side effects. 
We’d stop exploiting the natural resources because we’d respect their consciousness. People will have to find other things to mock in order to feel superior to someone else. (Wouldn’t it be nice if we could skip that!) All of these changes would be hard, but can grow out of simply raising the next generation not telling them what’s impossible.
As the chart shows, once we’ve gotten through Integration, we’ll be working on a higher level. Another way to look at it is that we’ll be ready to negotiate the next change and keep moving, spiraling ever upward.
