What Is May Day?

May 1st May Day and Beltane!

What is May Day?

A sermon excerpt

… As this relates to May Day, we gain our first appreciation of its origins from the Roman revels of Flora, the goddess of the flowers, and most likely an earlier Pagan celebration that they adopted. Historically, the people of Southern Europe or more temperate climates observed that Spring could easily begin in March.

However, if you lived in Northern Europe, or in the Northeastern and upper Midwestern parts of our country, a good claim could be that Spring really doesn’t arrive until May 1st!

But May… Ah, May… Well, we can always hold good thoughts about the weather in the month of May… It is after the cold winds of winter and before the harsh heat of summer…

It is the month of Camelot… the merry month of May when we can celebrate our delight in the flowers and in all greening and growing things…And so it is that we derive our best source for the origins of May Day from Merry Old England… Of course!

Many of you already know something about the Celts and Druids. They were famous for many things that later became infused into our modern culture. Among the more curious and phenomenal were the ideas associated with nature spirits, leprechauns spirits, fairies and the like…

But we also have the marvels of Stonehenge, and we have the vivid scenes from Shakespeare’s plays that are filled with nature, alchemy, and symbolism such as MacBeth’s witches with all their toil and trouble!

More importantly to our spiritual quest, there has been a revival of deep and earnest interest in the divine feminine and in the ideas and practices associated with the worship of the goddess.

The classic text that is almost required reading for those interested in this feminine spiritual outlook would be Margot Adler’s Drawing Down The Moon.

What is one major importance for us is that these practices, images and symbols were pre-Christian. (and from what I have observed here in the Low Country, they are post-Christian) 

The central teaching is that we cannot live our lives apart from nature or without a central correspondence to nature as a source of wisdom and understanding. We cannot or should I say, we dare not live hermetically sealed off from nature in our condos and skyscrapers, or tuned out from nature by being constantly connected to our Smartphones!

In fact, there is now a new malady making its appearance among our youth- a deficit of Nature that keeps them alienated and out of touch with how nature teaches us to live. They are removed from healthy food, exercise, exploration of the natural world, and are living in a largely artificial way! While technology can certainly be useful, it needs to serve our aesthetic and compassionate values, not create them!

The major obstacle to a more full and joyous celebration of earth based holidays such as May Day, Midsummer’s, Equinox, even Halloween, comes from the suspicion associated with them being carnal, being visceral, being joyous… or in short, not being Christian, and therefore evil!

Furthermore, these revels associated with May poles, and bonfires might be demonic and could corrupt your orthodox and pious soul!

And yes, if these festivals are lived out as they are portrayed in Hollywood, they are certainly lascivious and “over the top” and could easily be seen as a corrupting influence on youth and society as a whole.

However, most of these rituals and rites are respectful and celebrate the connection of our bodies with our souls, and that our lives are drawn from nature and to give thanks and to be exceedingly grateful that our existence depends on keeping a respectful balance and correspondence to the natural cycles and rhythms of the year…

Another objection to celebrating May Day and the earth festivals is simply because… Well, Pagans do it! What is a Pagan? Is it someone like Aristotle, Plato, or Marcus Aurelius- someone who does not believe in a Christian understanding of God?

In short, the word pagan has been drastically abused, and when it has been employed it is often derogatory and dismissive. Its Latin origins simply meant to be a country dweller in contrast to someone living in walled cities…

The truth is that religion has always taken the ways and rituals for worship from its environment or natural surroundings. If you live among the animals, amidst the trees then these living things can take on a symbolic expression and have a spiritually significant meaning for you.

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed … Almost all the great religious leaders of humankind did not draw their most enduring teaching stories from life in the “concrete jungle.” The NT parables are filled with natural symbolism… Similarly, the Native Americans looked to animals, birds, and trees, as did the Celts.

However, when the Christian missionaries arrived in Northern Germany, France, and the moved into the British Isles, they were… Appalled to see such displays of joy and celebration! It was so licentious and it was accompanied with heathen drumming, flute playing, and dancing- Horror!

They saw it as their moral duty to root out this decay, and to train people to abandon their bodies in favor of their rational sensibilities… In doing so, their aim was to break their spirit, and abolish their Myths and symbols.

In other situations and circumstances, where the Myth and the cultural observances were deeply ingrained, and the resistance was too great, they decided to “sanitize” their festivals and practices and gave them new, tame meanings… From those efforts we have the origins of the Christmas tree, the Easter egg, etc.

So all this review brings me to May Day, a joyous Pagan Holiday! Among the Celts and Druids, it was called Beltane, and it was celebrated as part of the wheel of life, one eighth that signals Summer’s impending arrival!

Of course, May Day is the more tepid and tame version of Beltane… Originally, Beltane was a holiday celebrating and encouraging fertility! 

And the May Pole… well, it’s an upright symbol that is to be encircled by flowers. All who wished to be fructified, or to encourage their own fertility were encouraged to use this time to seed the soil or the waiting wombs so that there would be a joyful harvest in the coming seasons! Young women would dance around the large trunk/pole and offer signs and songs for fruitfulness- in any way you wished to desire it!

Other, more tame customs associated with May Day were hobby horse riding, Morris dancing, and washing one’s body in the morning dew!

When I was preparing this topic, I purposely spent time in my home garden… While I am usually filled with the ideas of the tasks to be done, this time I stood, and walked mindfully through the rows…

As it was, by the time and phase of the Moon, time to plant, I took some seeds and stooped over, made some rows with a hoe, and started to lay out what I hope would be an abundant summer harvest…

As I began the process, I became lost in thought… My mind flashed on how universal and timeless this act of seeding was! Most every year of my life has had a garden in it…

Across the generations of my family life, up and down the rows of humanity, people have planted… Humans have planted their seeds, their hopes and their desires for a million years, and I am but one of the recent ones and it is just my time in the unfolding centuries to take my place, make my effort to grow food for my life …

Suddenly, my reverie ended… And I stood up and was still … It was almost totally quiet …empty… Expectant… Well, almost quiet until a defiant mockingbird decided to wake me up and bring me back to his particular form of celebration, and his enthusiasm seemed to have no bounds!

Yet, for a short precious time… I was one with the Chinese rice farmer, the Cherokee planting the early corn, my grandfather putting tomatoes deep into the soil…

Now I could begin to understand how the reverent Celt would have felt when he or she was confronted by the many mysteries of nature and how it enveloped life, and how deserving nature is of our care and dedication. It was a feeling that made me quietly content, serene, happy…

If this is a more enlightened form of what it means to be a Pagan… Then count me in!

I am a Pagan, too! Whether our concern is for ecological integrity or personal peace, try to take some time this May Day to offer someone a flower, a smile, some loving regard…

Go for a walk, open up your senses to all the natural lessons, epiphanies and miracles there are to behold…

Take nature into your keeping, and place it near to your heart…  Amen; So Be It; Blessed Be….