Modern May Day Celebration
Through the years I have blogged and preached around Earth Day in April, on Camping Sunday, and during the mini-season in the Fall named Creation Time. These were opportunities to celebrate Creation and also draw attention to some of the challenges of Earth care and restoration as we address the grim realities of Climate Change.
I have never focused on May 1st - May Day - as a day to ponder environmental awareness, but this morning I was reminded by the blogger "The Clerk of Oxford" that in the Medieval world May was a significant month in the imaginations of poets. Speaking about Chaucer:
...May is the month which receives more attention than any other from medieval poets. (Not to take anything away from April, with its 'shoures soote', its dew, and its nightingales.) As the month for lovers and for roaming abroad in the countryside, 'the mother of months glad' is a time when all kinds of things can happen, from trysts to dream-visions...
Maypole Dance 1920's
In Medieval Europe there was also the traditions of the Maypole, and the Maypole dance, which were probably pagan in origin and then Christianized in several countries.
Perhaps we should add May 1st to our list of days to acknowledge, despite or because of its association with lusty love. Spring is the time of sex, sex, sex in the natural world and without it our eco-systems cannot thrive. We need to celebrate all the earthy days we can, even if we adapt them for our time. And as humans we are healthier and more aware of the wonder of Creation when we do roam abroad. We certainly need to re-vision our relationship to the planet.
We are hoping to get outside today, probably in a canoe, and we'll do so as a celebration of the unfolding of Spring. I doubt we'll wear garlands, but you never know.
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