Creative fire, Beltane, and chicken dancing (edited version)

What truly kindles the passion within us?

At my school, in the pre-Internet era, there was a small cubicle-like room with a single desk, two chairs, and several sets of plastic drawers haphazardly stuffed with leaflets about the variety of careers that we students might like to consider. I touched every single one of those pieces of paper. Not because I was confused about my career choices - I had already set my heart on law with a side dash of authorship. Rather it was because I had so little aptitude for a career in sport that I convinced a teacher to let me off a cold winter hockey session if I promised to tidy the room up. Ever since I have been fascinated by all the niche jobs I have learned about which we were never told about at school.

For example, how do you get to be the person who officially allocates American National Days? In my research for a May celebration to include in this festival series for paid subscribers I stumbled across the fact that today, May 1st is in fact Law Day in the US. It is also National Mother Goose Day. I cannot tell you how the celebrations differ, sorry. The person in charge seems to take a balanced approach, however, as tomorrow is both the rather staid National Password Day and National Life Insurance Day but, for good measure, also National Play Your Ukulele Day. They really warmed up by May 3rd, however, which is not only International Wild Koala Day, National Chocolate Custard Day and National Raspberry Popover Day but also National Two Different Colored Shoes Day. I am not going to go through the whole list but I do feel maybe I should check in with you again on May 14th which is National Dance Like A Chicken Day.

All of which is really just a creative smoke screen of little-known facts to hide my unfamiliarity with my chosen May festival which is Beltane. I know many of you understand Celtic mythology far better than I do, despite my Irish name and Scots grandmother, so I was wary of writing about this festival. I got hooked by one specific aspect of it, however. On Beltane, the Gaelic May Day celebration, bonfires are lit. The tradition is that the fires in all the homesteads would have been extinguished, and the villagers would walk together to the festival site where, using friction, a ‘neid fire’ would have been lit. From that fire, each villager would take a flame and use it to reignite their hearth fires

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My Inner Pyromaniac is always drawn to research involving fire. (Including small practical experiments. One more fun fact: did you know that burning the foil on a Bendicks After Dinner Mint in a tea light candle produces the most gorgeous, coloured flare? It will also cause great alarm amongst the staff of a fine dining restaurant to which I can never return, but I tell you, it was worth it.) However, what caught my eye about this Beltane detail was the part of the ritual that dealt with the deliberate extinguishing of fire.

Fire is often used as a metaphor for creativity, referring to the burning need to create that we hold in our souls. When I started to look for material about putting out a creative fire, whatever wording I put in the Google search box I got a slew of determined articles about stoking, fuelling, and keeping that creative fire burning. Is the absence of writers suggesting we should deliberately douse a creative fire within us an indication that it is the last thing anyone would want to do? Or is it actually an indication that in our society we have lost an ancient understanding that a re-reading of the Beltane festival can help us regain?