Fertility of the Spirit

It is spring again and my mind turns toward thoughts of sex. Well, not my mind, exactly...

Two years ago, Easter night, midnight. I am sitting on the front porch as the full moon sways in the swing of the eastern sky. I have just made love with my husband. The stars are bright. I wish upon a star, for a star to rise in me. Star, star, shining bright, start a star in me tonight.

The wish comes true. My daughter Lily is conceived.

Easter is named after the fertility goddess Oestre, from which our word "estrogen" comes. The symbols of rabbits and chicks and eggs are symbols of fertility. When all things rise again.

And now, with a toddler daughter and a 12-year-old stepdaughter in the house, I am feeling--despite the limp and luscious wisteria outside my open window, despite the daffodils still sparkling from last night's rain, despite my own dampness--that this spring is not a time for me to be fertile. Over the past few months, I have begun to admit to myself that sex may not ever again be connected to procreation for me. My husband and I are not planning to have any more children. And he has decided to have a vasectomy. And I am at a loss about what this means.

Then I realize this means Oestre is behind me now. And Beltane lies ahead.

Beltane, celebrated on May 1, is the next cross-quarter festival. Half way between Oestre at spring equinox and Litha at summer solstice, Beltane brings together the balance of opposites that happens at conception and the pinnacle of light, fruit, and green bounty that comes with birth. Beltane, then, is a festival of fertility and sexuality.