[Author’s Note: This is a guided meditation that I wrote for my coven’s Beltane celebration when we honored Flora, springtime goddess of flowers. I wanted to bring into our mind’s eyes the joyous feeling of a Floralia celebration, but make it somewhat akin to fairs we may experience nowadays. The Floralia, a days’ long event in ancient Rome, was held approximately April 28 – May 3 and celebrated springtime, flowers, and sexuality.]

The Guided Meditation

Get comfortable and relax in your seat, close your eyes or soften your gaze. You are completely relaxed in your chair. Forget about the cares of the day. Feel where in your body is tense, loosen your neck, loosen your shoulders, your chest, your back. Loosen any tension in your hips and legs. Feel the earth beneath your feet. 

You find yourself walking along a woodland path. Dappled sunlight marks the way and your feet crunch softly on the well-worn path you follow. You smell flowers and realize you wear a crown and garland of beautiful, fragrant blossoms. Soon, you start hearing sounds of celebration. Merriment and cheer is not far off. You realize the path is leading you towards the sounds and soon you find yourself at woodlands’ end and facing a meadow. It is a carnivalesque scene: tents dot the meadow, people dance and carouse, jugglers perform. You hear cheering and see that many revelers are congratulating wrestlers who just finished a set. It is like you have stumbled upon a carnival that is in a time between times. Everywhere you look there is joy and celebration. You make your way to the center of the carnival where you are faced with a beautiful tall statue of Flora, the Goddess in whose honor this celebration is being held. Strewn at the base of the statue and over her shoulders and head, flowers of every hue bedeck the Goddess. She is alive with the flowers of the Earth. You breathe in their intoxicating scent and feel a rush of joy. You have been brought here to know that there is holiness in pleasure: Embodied pleasure of our senses and physicality, making merry and humor. Take a flower from your flower crown and lay it at Flora’s feet. Thank her for this knowledge and say to her anything else you wish. …

Soon, the sounds of merriment begin to lessen. It has been a long day of fun for all. You make your way out of the carnival and back to the woodland’s edge. Follow the pathway through the woods. Soon, all you hear and sense are bird sounds and a soft breeze. Eventually, you sense yourself in your chair. Feel the sounds of the day, feel the environment here. As you become more aware of your surroundings, move your legs and arms and awaken to your surroundings here. When you’re ready, open your eyes.

Bibliography

Bell, Robert E. (1991). Oxford Univ. Press: Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical
Dictionary. 

Monaghan, Patricia. (1997). Llewellyn Publications: Magical Gardens: Myth, Mulch, and
Marigolds. 

[Hayley Arrington is a writer of mythological and dark poetry and prose. She believes that myth is a verdant landscape where the Goddesses and Gods of old can be felt in the present. Her writings have appeared in a variety of venues, most recently in Alchemy and Miracles: Nature Woven into Words, Eternal Haunted Summer, and Weird Fiction Quarterly. Hayley lives in southern California with her husband and son. Visit her Arthurian witchcraft blog, https://loathlylady.wordpress.com/]