2024 - Listening - Connect
Bealtaine 2024 is a 'Connect' get together, supporting each other as we consciously listen for 7 days. This week takes us from Bealtaine - May Day Eve - to Dawn Chorus Day. RTE Dawn Chorus 5th May 2024
Bealtaine is often taken as 30 April to 1 May. However, as a cross quarter days, ie. not a solstice or equinox the date can be 5 May as the mid-point between the adjacent spring equinox and summer solstice. Thus we will be connecting to the Bealtaine energies over this period.
The suggestion is that from sunset Monday 30 April to sunset Sunday 5 May you pay attention to what you are listening to - intentionally attentive to the ambient sounds around you.
Each day you may like to :
- choose the same time to spend 5 minutes just listening
randomly stop for a minute and listen
play a piece of music and listen to your inner voice
immerse yourself in the dawn chorus on waking or the silence of the night before sleep
Have a notebook handy to record what you have heard. The act of recording your thoughts, emotions, physical state and inspiration confirms and settles the experience. At the end of the week you might like to review what you have listened to.
Why birds? Why do I love listening to birds?
The thinking was that because birds stop singing when there are dangerous predators around, that birdsong means safety. That is, for our subconscious. Over thousands of years, this connection with safety has made people feel calm and at peace when they hear birdsong. Read more here about birdsong and why we enjoy listening to it.
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| What is silence? "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak" (Eccl. 3:1, 7). |
1st May - Anne listening in Ireland
Galway - Martin listening 5th May sunset
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And the magic continued...
Nora in Derbyshire, England - Wow... for years they came on the 11th, then for about the last 4 / 5 years it has been variable, but today I opened the front door to bring in the milk and heard the swifts screeching overhead. THEY are back! Hoping they see the To Let sign on the new swift box on the house but not too optimistic for this year.
