What images come to mind when you hear about May Day celebrations? May Day baskets with flowers or treats left on someone’s doorstep? May Pole dancing, an ancient fertility ritual? Or Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” connecting May Day with Midsummer rituals? Perhaps a Stephen Foster song, “The Merry, Merry Month of May.”
Then there’s, “Mayday, Mayday!!” –- a signal of imminent danger requiring assistance. And we shouldn’t forget the May Day commemoration of Chicago’s “Haymarket Affair” in 1889 when a bomb was thrown at police who were dispersing a peaceful labor movement rally in support of an eight-hour working day. Also, many of us have likely seen TV footage of the annual May Day military parade in Moscow’s Red Square, celebrating VE Day –- and Russia’s military power.
My husband recalls hearing about a British good luck ritual of washing one’s face with dew from the grass on the first of May.
A wild mix of May images – from celebrating springtime, to calls for help, to violence in the midst of a worthy human cause, to displays of power and victory.
My own May Day ritual on our farm is watching the first signs of planted corn emerging in neat field rows, their shoots forming tiny “Vs.” As I view these petite green shoots from my ATV ride with the dogs each morning, it instills a sense of hope for an end to the pandemic and victory over despair.
I’m Connie Seraphine, and that is my May Day Perspective.
