Lusty May

Lusty May

On the calendar the lusty month of May begins with May Day, In Slavic countries it begins with Green Week. Astronomically the midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice is around May 5. And all around the world May begins with International Worker's day.

A day and a week of celebrating Spring, emerging growth, fertility, love and joy. And a day, throughout the world, of acknowledging the labor of the workers: International Worker's Day. A time to recommit to our community and our solidarity…to promote the legal establishment of safe and fair working conditions, and to act for a world of love and justice.

The worker day and the flower day, occur on the same date and even though they are different, we can celebrate them together: a celebration of the renewal of spring and a celebration of the work we all do, and the people who labor. We celebrate renewal of the self and soul so that we can enter into the work with new energy. We glorify our work, “whistle while we work,” let our lives be songs, and do the work that must be done.

Appreciating the work that the land does to create food and shelter and beauty to sustain all that lives need not be separate from appreciating the work that the people do to create food and shelter and beauty to care for the earth and the people on it.

My May Heritage

"Love has no Labels" credit Brian Emerson

In my pre-Christian Celtic, Norse, Gaulish, and Slovak cultures May Day was all about the joy of young love and human sensuality and sexuality. It is written that in Great Britain, France, and parts of the American colonies on the first day of May young men and women would go out into the fields to celebrate spring with acts of love and pleasure. In so doing, they would bless the crops, and be blessed with fertility by the land.

This tradition has continued in some areas as a sort of day-of-rule-breaking. That fits the tradition well. The immigrant Americans of the early 1600’s who celebrated with may dances and costumes were the hippies of their day. They wanted peace with their Native American neighbors, not war. And they weren’t interested in the uptight rules followed by their puritan neighbors. The most famous group settled in merrymount, which is quincy MA now. The stories of that settlement make great reading!

Morena and Vesna

Morena doll

In Slovakia girls of the village carry a straw effigy of the goddess of death and winter: Morena, to a local stream. To banish winter they set it on fire and throw it in a defrosting stream. This symbolises the end of winter and the arrival of spring, the end of the domain of the death Goddess and the beginning of the love goddess: Vesna.

Lots of cultures burn straw figures to banish something. I've personally attended many rituals that included burning slips of paper. We first would write something we wanted to get rid of on the piece of paper, and then we'd each throw our paper into the fire.

May was traditionally called the month of love in Slovakia. In this period, a maypole tree was the most important of all plants. The maypole was usually a spruce without bark, whose top the boys had decorated with coloured ribbons. On Mayday, people still erect maypoles, usually on the square or in the middle of the village. In the past young boys erected maypoles for young girls whom they wished to court, or all young boys erected a maypole in honour of all young girls in the village. Throughout Europe, the May Pole has been one common way to celebrate May Day for centuries.

In Scottish Gaelic, Latha Bealtainn (pronounced "laah Bahl-tinnuh”) or “Beltane” is celebrated at the beginning of the month of May. Bel-Tinne was a time for blessing livestock. Great bonfires were lit and the cattle were driven between them from the winter pasture to the freedom of the summer pastures.

Fire and Dancing

Slovak Green Week, Fire Leaping

Jumping over the fire is a custom that existed in all parts of Europe and its purpose was to ensure fertility as well as to protect people and cattle from evil forces. The fires, the maypole, Jack-in-the-Green parades, May Baskets and crowning of the May Queen are Beltane/May customs that survive today in the United Kingdom and have been embraced by many Neo-Pagans around the world; celebrating Spring, purifying and ensuring fertility.

These celebrations are snatching life out of the jaws of death. When we lose someone we want to hold those who we love even closer. When we come to the other side of pain or privation we want to dance and sing. Even when we are still just barely defrosting from hardship, fear or sadness, we want to light a fire, to remind us of what warm and joyful feels like! And always, we need community.

Slovak, Walking with the Copse/Queen

I went through this daily when I was a chaplain at a hospital. After a day of visiting with the sick and dying, fearful and despairing, I’d stop by the new babies window and smile at the sweetness of new life. Those babies cast a magic spell that conjured renewal so I could return and give again.

Slovakia has their own version of May Day baskets. It’s called Walking with the Queen. pine branches, twigs or even entire small trees– adorned with ribbons, handmade ornaments, egg shells or flowers – are carried from house to house. The copse is usually carried by girls, who walk from house to house, dance, sing and extend best wishes to the hosts. In this ritual they are casting a spell, or conjuring up blessings and relationships in the community.

These rituals announce the coming of spring, a time of joy and song, a time when the Earth bears new fruit. And they connect the community.

Lust as Thirst

The lust of May is a lust for life, a thirst for life, a love for life. This thirst to live fully and joyfully, and this love of living things, is what gets me up in the morning willing to do the work I must do.

The love we have for our own children, our friends, our pets, and the land where we live motivates us to care for them. We as humans, universally, feel responsibility for the whole web of life.

The workers in U.S. factories of the turn of the century reached across their different languages and cultures to fight together because they didn’t want their children, or their neighbors’ children to have to labor in dangerous factories.

International Workers Day, or Labor Day was initially called for at the international Socialist Congress in Amsterdam in 1904. They called for demonstrations to push for the legal establishment of the 8 hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace. and they instructed all workers to stop work on the first of May. - to take a holiday.

Let’s celebrate May Day

From MayWorks

One of the chants used by strikers and demonstrators of that time was “Give us bread AND Roses”. They wanted both bread (wages) and roses (time for the activities that nourished the mind and soul.) They knew that time for community, for story, for joy was just as important as the time for work.

Let us remember that, particularly now. Let us hold back the tide that is sweeping away the protections that so many worked so hard to get. We need one another to make it. We need renewal, community, joy, and roses.

Let's celebrate May Day by bringing one another bread AND roses.