Beltane, Birth, and Becoming: A Season of Rebirth and Radical Renewal

May 1

Trigger Warning: This post contains personal reflections on emotional abuse, trauma, and recovery. If you're in a tender place, please read with care.

May Day. Beltane.

A sacred threshold between seasons—

—when spring bursts into full bloom and the Earth herself seems to remember what it means to feel alive again.
Today, I find myself sitting at that same threshold.
Because rebirth isn’t just a seasonal cycle—it’s a personal one too. Whether you're emerging from the ashes of a broken relationship, from the fog of postpartum, or from the deep unraveling that trauma brings, this is your Beltane. A return. A reckoning. A becoming.
This morning in meditation with my dear teacher Hannah Muse, we honored the fire festival of Beltane—lighting candles, invoking blessings, calling in growth and transformation. I felt the resonance in my bones. The fire of change. The breath of possibility. The deep remembering of who I’ve always been beneath the layers of pain and adaptation.
In that circle, guided by breath, visualization, and poetry from John O’Donohue, we were invited to soften. To receive. To open again—to life, to love, to ourselves.
And it reminded me: **every form of birth is sacred.**

Birth Changes Everything

To give birth to a child is to be rewired on a cellular level.

Neuroimaging studies show that pregnancy and postpartum dramatically reshape areas of the brain related to empathy, decision-making, and emotional regulation. Gray matter shifts to support caregiving and bonding. The body, too, is forever changed.

And ending a relationship—especially one built on emotional abuse—is no different. It is a kind of labor. A loss. A becoming. A painful and powerful unraveling.

My Own Rebirth

I’ve never shared this fully before: I didn’t just lose a marriage—I lost my sense of safety, my income, my home, my community. I lost the story I thought I was living in.

Through manipulation, gaslighting, and slow isolation, I forgot who I was. It wasn’t until the abuse escalated that I finally woke up.

In that void, I discovered something greater: my own rebirth.

Trauma keeps the body flooded with cortisol—the stress hormone that affects everything from digestion to sleep to memory. It shrinks the hippocampus and hijacks emotional clarity. It took deep rest, therapy, yoga, and support to slowly rebuild not just my life, but my nervous system.

Birth Isn’t Just Physical

A birthing person’s emotions affect their baby—during pregnancy, and long after.

High cortisol levels in pregnancy can impact fetal development and increase emotional dysregulation in childhood. After birth, our babies attune to us. Our emotional state becomes their compass.

Even in labor, cortisol is crucial—it triggers contractions and preps baby’s lungs. But after birth, cortisol stays elevated for a while to keep new parents alert and responsive to their babies' cries and needs. This is part of nature’s wisdom.

Alongside cortisol, hormones like oxytocin and prolactin flood the postpartum body—priming us for love, milk production, bonding, and emotional regulation. These hormonal shifts are sacred—and sensitive. When fear overrides safety, the entire process is disrupted.

Tapas: The Inner Fire

In prenatal yoga, we practice tapas—a Sanskrit word meaning “inner heat” or “discipline.” Tapas prepares us for labor by building resilience. It tones the nervous system, quiets the ego, and cultivates surrender. It’s ancient wisdom for modern birth.

Ancestral Wisdom

We birth upon this Earth just as all women have before us.

Their blood soaked the soil. Their hands reach through time to hold ours. Their voices echo in our intuition.

Our bodies know how to birth. But our job is to prepare—by releasing fear and reclaiming trust.

Our ancestors didn’t have books or online birth classes. They had each other. They had midwives, elders, and circles of support whispering:
“You are safe. Let go. Let birth happen.”

You Deserve a Village

Whether you’re preparing for the arrival of your baby or piecing your life back together after heartbreak—you deserve support.

You deserve a village. You deserve to be held.

You are not alone.

When we lit candles and bowed to our hearts this morning, I felt the presence of every woman who came before me—Celtic priestesses, grandmothers, birthkeepers, survivors.

And I knew:
I carry their torch now.
And maybe, if you’re reading this—you do too.

May Beltane bless your becoming.
May you feel the breath of possibility move through you like wind in the trees.
May your healing be tender, real, and rooted in love.

🔥🌸🌿

For a New Beginning

By John O’Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear,
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.