May Day is laced with contradictory meanings. Its present association with world-wide political upheaval dates back to the 19th century when the date May 1 gained a new nomenclature as an International Workers’ Day. Recognition of the pitiful plight of workers had long been desperately needed. Finally, concerns exploded. At stake, of course, were basic rights such as a limited (eight-hour) workday, abolition of child labor, and help for injured workers. These were noble goals. Many of those who organized to achieve results were heroic figures.
Yet, as with any drastic reform, there were casualties and distortions. A terrible event in American history occurred in Chicago on May 4, 1886 during a demonstration of workers. Known today as the Haymarket Affair, it (and the legal trials that followed) aroused people around the globe. In 1904, an International Socialist Congress meeting in Amsterdam dedicated the day May 1 to serve both as a commemoration for the Haymarket Affair and as a rallying cry for the world’s workers.
Less altruistic overtones of May 1st followed quickly. In one of the most vivid manifestations, Russian Communists seized Mayday and turned it into a massive, rigid workers’ “festival”—an occasion to parade ideologically whatever did not get paraded during the November celebration of the Bolshevik regime’s grisly coup in 1917.
But let’s turn in a different direction, for May celebrations go back as far as the historical record—to the Romans, to the Celts—and surely beyond. After all, May is the month that leads us from cold into warm. For the Romans, April’s end brought a celebration of the goddess Flora (called Floralia) that continued several days into May. Traditions like the decorated Maypole developed and spread across Europe.
But the Maypole did not fare so well in America, partly due to Puritan influences and partly due to the rapid dissipation of so many lovely European traditions that came across with our ancestors. I have to say, though, that every May 1 of my young years included a celebration around a Maypole. As simple as they surely were at Huff Lane Elementary School in Roanoke, Virginia, those songs and dances around the Maypole remain a cherished memory.
Many young people today have never heard of a Maypole. They associate May 1 solely with the kind of deadly demonstrations we see now in deeply troubled Venezuela. Frankly, juxtaposing the images from my childhood against what is seen as May Day today would seem almost foolish.
Yet, this set-in-stone association with workers’ parades and street riots saddens me. In a world so fraught with chaos, would it not be nice still to have times when the old-fashioned understanding of May Day had its place? I’m not advocating the revival of the Roman goddesses, please don’t get me wrong. But I do hope we might restore a few May-Day traditions, such as Mayday baskets. Or, in we do in our family, waking each family member with a flower culled from the bushes or gardens outside. This small action is absurdly easy to do now that we are in North Carolina (reach out any window). But back on our ranch in North Central Texas, it meant a search in the pastures for any poor wildflowers not yet eaten by the cows.
We can also enjoy the plethora of music, art, and poetry inspired by May’s verdure.
Perhaps start with the lovely English madrigal Now Is the Month of Maying written by a wondrous Renaissance composer Thomas Morley. Luxuriate in the banquet of May poetry that used to fill anthologies, and now lies forlorn in the dust. Here is a surprisingly luminous verse from an often quite serious poet, George MacDonald.
May
Merry, rollicking, frolicking May
Into the woods came skipping one day;
She teased the brook till he laughed outright.
And gurgled and scolded with all his might;
She chirped to the birds and bade them sing
A chorus of welcome to Lady Spring;
And the bees and butterflies she set
To waking the flowers that were sleeping yet.
She shook the trees till the buds looked out
To see what the trouble was all about,
And nothing in Nature escaped that day
The touch of the life-giving bright young May.George MacDonald
And in quite a different vein, filled with majestic imagery, yet somber in its recognition of the fleeting nature of the seasons and, indeed, of our human lives, we find this portrait of spring.
Glycine’s Song
A sunny shaft did I behold,
From sky to earth it slanted:
And poised therein a bird so bold-
Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled.
Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,
All else of amethyst!And thus he sang: “Adieu! Adieu!
Love’s dream proves seldom true.
The blossoms, they make no delay;
The sparkling dewdrops will not stay.
Sweet month of May,
We must away;
Far, far away:
Today! today!”Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It’s true. The sparkling dewdrops will not stay. That shaft of light that illuminates the bird’s amethyst body will dissolve and move into a filter of dusty mornings and muggy evenings.
So go out now! Smell the roses, as they say. Bring in whatever verdure you have to decorate your breakfast table. Take the kids for an extra walk, even if it’s just into the neighbor’s yard. Watch the sky. Remember that the greatest thinkers in our Western heritage were deeply attached to, and responsive to, the natural beauty given us by God. And even if you missed the official May Day, you can still get some ribbons or crepe paper and make a Maypole. Our grandchildren will play for several days with the Maypole we made from our rotating umbrella laundry rack in the back yard. Pieced together with foam, Duck tape, and chain from Tractor Supply, It won’t win any contests for beauty, but they’re little, so they won’t know.
The social and political history associated with this day indeed needs to be studied, learned, and honored. But so too does the poetry and music inspired by May. Mostly, use May as a time to express gratitude for the beauty in our lives, those shafts of light that fall upon us, even when we do not see them.
