Beltane: The Oracular Garden

Floromancy & Flower Divination

In some agricultural communities, Beltane stands at summer’s threshold.

If your soil is newly thawed, your spring garden barely rooted, don’t fret – for a sabbat is not limited to a day, but a season. This means some Witches and Pagans honor Beltane on April 30th (Walpurgis Night) or May 1st, while others make their plans according to nature.

---

“Christianization of the pagan Goddess of Walpurgisnacht (May Eve), the orgiastic festival of springtime sacred marriage. Walpurga was the May Queen whose cult remained so popular in Germany that the church had to adopt her in its usual way, by spurious canonization. The name of Walpurga’s monastery means literally ‘home of the heathens.’”

Barbara Walker, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets

---

In the old world, the Beltane fires were only lit once the thorn trees bloomed. At the same time, farmers were moving their animals out to pasture. Since May Day flames were believed to protect from ill fortune, farmers walked their herds between two lit pyres on their way to the fields. Smoke from Beltane fires drove away the mischievous fairies that caused blight, pest infestation, and other threats to their future harvests. To appease any remaining fae folk, people hung bells and planted extra rows of flowers in their gardens. Others crafted flower crowns and thorny wreaths to hang around the home.

As the Wheel of the Year turns and spring inches toward summer, roses return to the gardens and wild places. In their oracular gardens, Witches and Pagans engage with flower magick. Flower divination is known as floromancy, and you’ve likely been practicing since childhood - do you remember plucking a flower and announcing, 'they love me…they love me not…' each time you removed a petal? This childhood pastime was a form of floromancy, a way to intuit how someone felt about you according to the flower.

Crossing paths with certain flowers on certain days of the week is also a form of flower divination. Just like the bees and the birds, in the old world, people saw flowers as oracles.

---

“Primroses are quintessential flowers of early spring in Europe. The name comes from the Latin prima rosa, meaning ‘first rose’. They are associated with Freya, Norse Goddess of love, and are also a fairy flower. According to folklore, if they grow outside your house they will protect it and also attract fairies. Some tales suggest primroses give people the ability to see fairies, by eating their petals or placing a posy on a fairy mound.”

Lucya Starza, Every Day Magic

---

Floromancy & Flower Divination

The Victorian Era popularized flower scrying and flower gazing by emphasizing the language of flowers. While meditating with a living plant, a person would intuit messages according to the shapes, patterns, visual flaws, and peculiarities of the plant. Another form of flower scrying involved asking a question before sprinkling a handful of petals into a bowl of water. Beneath a soft light (like a candle or the moon), people gazed into the bowl and searched for secrets amidst the floating petals.

For modern practitioners, Flormancy might involve tending a small garden, pressing dried flowers into your grimoire, or bringing potted flowers indoors to encourage their seasonal unfolding alongside ours. Flowers possess unique subtle vibrations that interact with humans on a cellular level, and this month is a potent time to work with what’s blooming—just ask the moon.

Nicknamed the Flower Moon, Planting Moon, Budding Moon, and Egg Laying Moon, traditionally, May’s moon is dedicated to blossoming plants and the humans who care for them. It’s also known as the Mother Moon. In much of the Northern Hemisphere, wildflowers are springing up and seeds are being sown. We're reminded that, like the garden, our growth does not follow a linear path but one that spirals.

---

“Energy moves in cycles, circles, spirals, vortexes, whirls, pulsations, waves, and rhythms—rarely if ever in simple straight lines.”

Starhawk, The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature

---

Starhawk writes that the use of language to shape consciousness is an important branch of magick, so throughout this month, the Month of Flowers, take note of how you care for what's taking root in our backyards and also internally. Do we speak to others (and ourselves) in flowers or thistles? Do you feel any thorns in need of trimming or boundaries redrawn?

A Flower Moon blessing to plant this month:

Beneath the light of this Flower Moon, may we recognize that we are more than our to-do lists, job titles, and our capitalist responsibilities. Like Mother Earth and her flowers, we are infinite, fruitful beings, with the capacity to bloom again and again.

---

Thanks for reading Beltane: The Oracular Garden! Pointy Hat Press is a place for fairy tales and folklore, reimagined. Follow us on Substack and Instagram, sign up for our Moon Letters, and consider adding our original fairy tales to your library. You can also find us telling stories and talking about our latest creative quests on the Pointy Hat Press podcast.

---