May Day is for celebrating spring and laborer's rights

Happy May Day to all! Or Happy Beltaine to all my pagan friends!

Just look who has returned! The Lilies of the Valley!
These photos were taken Sat. April 25, just before a lot of rain. I'm so glad these plants came up through the mulch which had been spread lavishly around.

The laborers used to parade down the streets on May Day...here are a few photos of New York parades.

These laborers in mills, factories, and food processing plants would take the day to display that they were doing the work that kept our world going.  They might just do it again today...

 I didn't even notice the hairy dead thing there, but I wonder if it will regenerate.

The flame azaleas are blooming, but don't seem very prolific anywhere.

Today's Quote:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver
In Blackwater Woods