The beginning of May was a very popular feast time for the Romans. It was devoted primarily to the worship of Flora, the goddess of flowers. It was in her honor a five day celebration, called the Floralia, was held. The five day festival would start from April 28 and end on May 2. The Romans brought in the rituals of the Floralia festival in the British Isles. And gradually the rituals of the Floralia were added to those of the Beltane. And many of today's customs on the May Day bear a stark similarity with those combined traditions.
The tangible and visible dance of life celebrated at Beltane clearly grows from the dissolution, the dance of death and transformation at Samhain.
It is Beltane in the Southern Hemisphere, the season of sweet desire for being. That desire which holds all form together and allows the dance of life. In the Northern Hemisphere it is Samhain, the season of celebrating the falling apart of all form, the end of desire which allows death and transformation.
At these cross-quarters "the veil is thin that divides the worlds."
Recent scientific studies indicate that organic life may be born from inorganic matter. Particles of plasma, normally considered inorganic, can undergo self-organization resulting in helical structures that become charged and are attracted to each other, thus taking on qualities of living matter — they are "autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve".
