The first day of May has passed, and it was not at all what it once was.
Some will say it is now a day to celebrate labor; others will say it is “Law” day; and this year those favoring illegal immigration even tried to convince us it was a day to celebrate immigrants – as if Americans, who are virtually all immigrants including Native Americans, who arrived several thousand years earlier than Europeans and others – need another day on which to celebrate themselves.
But May Day traditionally is one thing and one thing only – an observance of spring, a festival of rejoicing in Nature.
It was celebrated with flowers. Only a few decades ago one would pick spring flowers, put them in a paper cone, and leave it on the doorstep of someone loved (whether a sweetheart, a relative, a friend, a teacher, etc.). Then after a knock at the door one would quickly run away and leave them to happily discover the bouquet.
And there was dancing, with gaily-dressed children holding colorful, long ribbons attached to the top of a Maypole, and skipping and weaving in and out among one another to form a decorate pattern in colored ribbons on the pole.
And singing. When I was a boy, after the Maypole Dance we sang in chorus,
Welcome sweet springtime,
We greet thee in song,
Murmers of gladness,
Fall on the ear….
A bit old-fashioned those particular words today, but the point was to express joy and gladness in the rebirth of flowers and greenery and the return of the warmth and happiness of spring, to celebrate Nature and to celebrate our joy in Nature.
Put that way, it sounds very hokku-like, doesn’t it? And of course it is. What could be more appropriate to our present times than to once more turn to expressing appreciation of, and kinship with, Nature? It is the forgetting of such observances that not only encourages, but also is symptomatic of, the unhealthy, arrogant exploitation of Nature that has become so characteristic of the modern world — an attitude that has led to our present climatic disruptions and the destruction of the environment.
So think about these things. Perhaps next year, when May Day comes again, you will have greeted it by restoring the old celebration of flowers, dance, song, and springtime to something approximating in some way its former glories, and perhaps you will even think of new ways to celebrate these things and our joy in the return of spring of the first day of May — May Day.
An old German song celebrates the time:
Der Mai ist gekommen,
May is come,
Die Bäume schlagen aus,
The trees are budding,
Da bleibe, wer Lust hat,
So stay, who will,
Mit Sorgen zu Haus!
At home in sorrow!
Wie die Wolken dort wandern
As the clouds wander there
Am himmlischen Zelt,
In the firmament of heaven,
So steht mir auch der Sinn
So my mind too goes out
In die weite, weite Welt.
Into the wide, wide world.
David
