From a sermon I wrote for Beltane in 2005:
The first few really warm days, when the air takes on just the right scent of fresh new leaves, the first time the air is so heavy with moisture you can feel every breath, the way you feel a rich fruit juice on your tongue, the first time the breezes get lost in the trees instead of whistling through bare branches, something whispers to me, “get out your gear. Pack the duffle bags. It’s almost time to hit the road.”
When we look around us, when we smell the air, when we hear the call of the birds in the mornings, we know that winter is over at last. The light has triumphed and life is victorious. It bursts out of every crack and crevice, green and moist and spreading out to claim its territory.
Even if we’re not consciously aware of it, we miss the bonfires and the shared merriment, the unashamed, enthusiastic participation in the fires of creation. The tides of life wash against us like the waves of the ocean, constantly drenching us with the energy that formed the worlds and which forms us minute to minute. Our ancestors knew better than to take these tides for granted. They knew that the powers of Nature needed to be nourished, and encouraged. Spring was not a time to sit back and relax, but to move, to dance, to make love, to build, to sing. Life and warmth and summer didn’t just make themselves, they had to be enchanted into existence.