The day after tomorrow is May Day! Since I plan to post on my Mystic Lands tour tomorrow, I'm going to give a little attention to May Day today.
There was a time early in America's less than recent history when the
settlers and immigrants brought their old ways to these shores and popularized
what the Puritans considered pagan holidays. The Puritans were a gloomy lot and
held a grim view of religion. Pagan customs were a frequent bone of contention
and May Day celebrations with their lighthearted dancing around the phallic May
Pole was a thing they could not stomach.
Things have probably not changed so much in our country. The offspring of
the Puritans are with us still, sounding their shrill alarm about the dangers of
serving creation rather than the Creator. And I grew up knowing little about May
Day aside from a few silly childhood ditties, now long forgotten, that I learned
in kindergarten.
But, happily, one can still find May Day celebrations being held, but I wish
we would restore on a wide-scale the merriment of the celebration of the annual
renewing of the land as winter gives way to spring.
Happy May Day to all my readers in the Northern Hemisphere. Now go dance
and be merry!
8 comments:
Will do! You have a great May Day too.
You know, the Puritan distaste for pagan celebrations lives on. In my region, a large-scale May Day Fairie Festival takes place each year, with music, dancing, costume, and all-around fun. Local fundamentalists protest the gathering as "pagan," earning them laughter from attendees.
I love the thought of celebrating end of winter... There is so much life and beauty around us in this world, it's worth celebrating!!
Of course, here it is Autumn (fall) but also beautiful - where I live there are a lot of English-type trees, in fact a huge, beautiful Manchurian Pear right outside my window - so we get to enjoy all the gorgeous colour changing. Until I moved here I had never experienced that kind of deciduous tree cycle. I love that even when they are dormant, they are so clearly not "dead"
But I'm rambling... We don't have May Day here at all - but Yayy for celebrating life and seasons!!!
Thanks for the link, I had never seen Maypole dancing.
Look, "maypole" is in Blogspot's Spellcheck!
Kinda harsh, considering?
@ Ahab,
I've written many times about how when I was growing up my family celebrated the pagan elements of Christian holidays, mostly without realizing we were doing it. The Christians are still quite successful with tying paganism in with Satanism. The rank and file Christian seems to be quite ignorant abour religious history, especially outside their traditions.
@ Kerry,
Well, you guys need to get busy and inaugurate some May Day celebrations! That is the thing I love about Paganism and nature-centered religions. We attune ourselves to nature's cycles.
@ imascatterbrain,
You're quite welcome. As I wrote, I did that type of thing back in kindergarden, but somehow it has almost competely faded from my memory.
I also think, at least for me, the association of May Day with the (sic) "commanists", blighted our celebration even more. I remember the huge military parades in Moscow that were seen on the evening news. It certainly "colored" my view of May Day.
@ Don,
Yeah, I thought of that aspect of it. But older still is the nature celebration and that is what I think really matters.
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