Bealtaine

Happy Bealtaine! Yes, already. Amazing, isn't it? And I'm more than a week late again, but what can I say, I don't tend to spend a lot of time on my computer on holidays.

In the Irish tradition, the year is divided into two parts, summer and winter, the heat and the cold. Bealtaine is the transition from winter to summer -- when our lives expand a little more into the outdoors. (I've already started drying my laundry on the line in the backyard.) It's the end of the storytelling season -- when all you can do at the end of work is sit by the fire and tell stories -- and the beginning of the season of action, when the work at the end of the day is done and there is still light to do something else.

It's also the traditional day for spring cleaning. I got the rest of my end-of-semester frustrations out by taking the rugs outside and beating them, scrubbing out the bathroom, and generally polishing my apartment until it shone. It was remarkably satisfying.

Not half as satisfying, though, as the other thing I managed to get accomplished for Bealtaine: I finished all of my final projects. Yep, I am now officially done with grad school -- and as of this Sunday, I will be able to put on my job applications that I have a Masters in Library and Information Studies, rather than that I'm working on one. Woohoo!

I'm ridiculously pleased that I managed to get everything done for Bealtaine, since all of my official due dates were actually after the fact. It was very important to me, though, to get it all finished before summer started. This is a major turning point in the year, and it's a major turning point in my life, and matching them up just made sense. I, too, am turning from studying to working -- at least I hope to be working soon -- and having that transition also seemed to help smooth my way through this psychically dangerous time of year. I always get depressed around Bealtaine and Samhain, but it wasn't nearly as bad this time around as it has been before.

So although it may be chilly outside right now (it certainly is in Wisconsin), happy summer! What are you doing this summer?