Pollinator Picnic 2025

Our Pollinator Picnic for Beltane was a lovely celebration of the season and community. This gathering was family friendly and it was completely wonderful to have friends, children, partners and other family members join us.

Everyone arrived dressed to celebrate with lots of summery clothes, floral patterns and some even dressed up as the pollinators we were celebrating. 

The gathering began with flower crown making that included flowers and greenery brought by community members from their own yards and gardens. Emily Bagley shared her artistry with fun and beautiful face painting for all the children attending. Everyone was invited to make some strings of bells to tie around their ankles in a nod to the bells worn in the English folk dancing that is especially prominent at this time of year. 

With everyone crowned in flowers and jingling with every step they took, we had our formal welcome with a meal blessing song to honor the trees and then enjoyed a picnic lunch.

After lunch, Channing led the children in an playful interactive storytime that acknowledged all the various types of pollinators and the important roles that they play. 

We moved from storytime into some fun crafts and activities to further honor the season and our local pollinators. A pollinator relay had us all dashing around collecting different types of pom-pom pollen. Our offering to the land for this gathering was the decoration of pollinator baths that everyone could take home to place in their outdoor spaces to safely offer pollinators a drink. With colorful ribbons in hand, everyone had a chance to learn how to weave over and under while dancing the Maypole. 

After randomly selecting a May Queen/King and attendant everyone got to place their written farewells to winter in a basket while being showered with the blossom heavy love and promise of summer.

We closed out our gathering singing Hal-an-Tow and Små Grodorna around the Maypole all together, basking in the sun and joyful time spent together.