When I was 69: May Day

Showing posts with label May Day. Show all posts

Saturday, May 2, 2026

Ye Olde Beltane

Sharing with Saturday's Critters!

Very small critters, ants are needed for peonies to bloom healthily.

Anthropomorphized May Pole Dancers

Maypole dancing in 2008 after I retired and moved to Black Mountain NC.

From The Crones Grove FaceBook page

Whisper in the Wind (circa 2018) by British textile artist Fiona Gill

A day late, my rabbit to wish good luck to everyone on the first of the month.

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May pole dance Sunday at 5 in Asheville NC sponsored by Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS)

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Since few of my blog friends commented yesterday, I'll just add a couple of shots showing the results of the rallies in support of the laborers in our lives.

Raleigh NC had thousands of teachers march for better pay (they are at the bottom of the 50 states) and for the NC legislature to finally agree upon a budget...since they are the only state not to have done so yet.

Protesters gathered in Asheville below.

World wide efforts to have people over billionaires.

My attempt to capture the full moon the night of April 30/May 1...

At dusk...

At 1 am.

Friday, May 1, 2026

The people reclaim May Day

On May 1 (International Workers' Day), organizers are calling for a national "No Work, No School, No Shopping" boycott to display economic power, protest corporate exploitation, and support worker rights. The "May Day Strong" initiative urges citizens to avoid spending money to protest corporate power and demand economic equality, building on a history of labor actions.

Today is the first of May, a date that may have more holidays than any other. It’s the date when many countries celebrate Labor Day, a tradition with its roots in the 19th-century labor movement in the United States. In 1886, unions around the country went on strike in support of an eight-hour workday. Since many of the organizers of the strikes were communists, socialists, and anarchists, May Day has also come to be associated with communism, and was a big national holiday in the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower tried to take back May Day during the Cold War by declaring it Law Day and Loyalty Day. It remains a day of rallies and protests in many parts of the world, and in 2006, protest returned to the United States on May 1st to call attention to immigrants’ rights.

Beltane - Its roots as a holiday run much deeper than the labor movement, however. It’s been a celebration of spring and fertility in places like Egypt and India, and in pre-Christian Rome it was the time of the festival of Flora, the goddess of flowers. In medieval England, people gathered flowers to “bring in the May” and erected a maypole bedecked with garlands. It’s also the date of Beltane, a Celtic calendar festival celebrating the start of summer. Beltane was known for its bonfires, and has been revived by neo-pagans all over the world as a major religious holiday. In Germany, May 1st was the date of a pagan festival that was assimilated by the Christians and turned into the feast day of St. Walpurgis. The night before — Walpurgisnacht — is still celebrated in parts of rural Germany as a kind of Valentine’s Day, with the delivery of a tree, wrapped in streamers, to one’s beloved. It’s also a day to celebrate Hawaiian history and culture, and it’s known as Lei Day in Hawaii. One of the largest contemporary May Day celebrations in the United States takes place in Minneapolis, with a parade and pageant staged by the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre. It’s been going on since 1975 and attracts about 35,000 people every year.

(Thanks Writer's Almanac)

RIGHT HERE IN BLACK MOUNTAIN TODAY!

May Day Protest

When: Friday May 1st, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Where: Black Mountain Town Square

A community gathering will take place at Black Mt Town Square, from 5-6. This event—part of a national day of action— includes a "Love-in-Action" request for food pantry donations. Dry food products, such as boxes of pasta, are encouraged.

While in Asheville NC...

May Day parades used to be full of workers! I did a bit of historic research at one time, finding old photos from New York and other cities of support of workers, much like Labor Day kind of does now.

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...

Today people have been urging each other to not shop, not work, nor go to school. (Unless of course you're an essential worker.)

So here in Black Mountain, or in nearby Asheville, there will be gatherings. There will be music. There will be justice oriented signs. And schools are closed!

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Recent reading which helps my own attitude:

We are bodies. We do not have bodies... If all our ‘inputs’ are visual and textual, and all we touch is frictionless surfaces, and if we have not reinstated the rich and varied physical life that lockdowns and contemporary electronic habits have stolen from us, then we will, very simply, be somewhat ill. One birth right of humans is a place in the ongoing physical life of earth. Without it, we are without context, (literally - not in the fabric), sullen, and prone to dubious medications peddled by the Machine.
Am I asking you to roll on the ground in the sunshine or push your faces into the hands of willing friends? Well, that would be a good start, as it would deliver a life-enhancing dose of the a vitamin we are mostly all deficient in - foolishness. Pioneers such as Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna based their lives' work on returning people to natural movement. I would encourage us all to urgently attend to the state of our tactile lives, to touching and being touched, to feeling things under our hands and feet that are not manmade.

SOURCE:

A Low Slanting Ray - Antidotes to the Hubriscene part 4, from the archive

by
Uncivil Savant carolineross@substack.com

Thursday, April 30, 2026

Eve of Beltane

Walpurgis Night is celebrated every year on the night of April 30th into May 1st. Historically, it marks the transition from spring to summer and is associated with bonfires, dancing, and old seasonal traditions.

The name comes from Saint Walpurga, an English nun from the 8th century who traveled to Germany as a Christian missionary. She was known for caring for the sick, promoting education, and founding religious communities. Her feast day became associated with May 1st after her relics were moved in 870 AD.

The connection to witches comes mainly from German folklore. During the Middle Ages, people believed that witches gathered on mountaintops—especially at Brocken in Germany—for rituals, dancing, and spiritual gatherings. Villagers lit large fires to protect themselves from evil spirits and to welcome the warmer season.

Walpurgis Night also has pagan roots because it overlaps with ancient spring fertility festivals such as Beltane. Over time, older folk traditions blended with the Christian celebration of Saint Walpurga.

Today, Walpurgis Night is still celebrated in parts of Northern and Central Europe with bonfires, music, costumes, and spring festivals.

The is the night of fertility celebration, welcoming spring and all the wonders of animal and plant life that regenerate at this time of the annual cycle of life on our planet. I wrote about Beltane and bonfires a bit in the past on Alchemy of Clay.

A May Day tradition was for children to pick flowers and then distribute them throughout the town. Of course the gardeners were not always happy to have kids trampling through their roses!

Sharing with Floral Friday Fotos

Wild roses or dog-roses

Wisteria brought home!

Unknown source, with Stonehenge included

Wear some artificial flowers in a crown, it does make one feel like a girl for May Day!

Of course many traditions start with bonfires on May Day Eve. I haven't ever taken part in those, but have read about them! With droughts so prevalent in the US, I hope there are very few bonfires this year.

Tomorrow is called May Day. Historically this was a day workers would have marches until the Communists made big parades with military equipment which stopped the holiday celebrations in the US.

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Health care update.

No news from the insurance debacle, except late Tuesday I got a call from that Dr.’s office from a new person (Bonnie) who said they would make sure I could keep my appointment with my PCP (primary care provider) and have the certification meeting the insurance requirement by next week.

I’m not holding my breath! But they did send me a confirmation this morning that I have the appointment.

As of 1:30 pm Wednesday…

Nobody had called me back and I looked at my trembling hands and realized I could not put a needle into an IV line to save me as the nurse practitioner had told me I needed to do.

So I called the infectious disease (ID) office and left a message for the nurse to that effect,and mentioned that the nurse practitioner (Amy) hadn’t called me back yesterday afternoon.

So another nurse called within an hour to explain that the lab results that Amy had looked at were from the hospital before I was discharged and then took antibiotics orally for 2 weeks. So I didn’t need any more antibiotics.

At the same time the lab results from my bloodwork at ID were on my patient portal, with normal range of white blood cells! You all probably know when they’re elevated, it means you have an infection.

I sighed with such relief. And I said how worried I’d been that I needed all this treatment still.

I remembered telling Amy the sputum test which showed the fungus had been taken the 7th and not reported till the 20th, but she didn’t hear that as meaning I was still in the hospital. Glad she conferred with the Dr. before any more mistakes were made.

The best part was then being able to look at the results of ID’s bloodwork and talk with this nurse about other things that weren’t normal! So since I don’t drink alcohol, we figured my high liver enzymes are due to taking Tylenol for pain. Fortunately now I can switch to ibuprofen. Nothing that needs treatment showed as of first tests, but there may be more results and this nurse said she’d call me and let me know when they come in. I’ll also be checking the patient portal!

And I’m feeling better day by day. Didn’t make it to exercise, but I joined friends for lunch at least!

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Happy Beltane, May Day!

In 1895 workers were still being honored.

Once the efforts of labor, and unions especially, were honored on May first. Then the anti-communists didn't like that the Russians had a militaristic celebration on May Day. So labor kind of wasn't celebrated on May Day any more, and we Americans had a new holiday in September called Labor Day.

And back into deep history, the pagans would celebrate the springtime with sharing flowers, dancing a May-pole dance, or washing their faces with the first dew of morning.

2008 intergenerational Maypole dance at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Swannanoa Valley

Some years back I was happy to celebrate the wheel of the year's springtime rituals (I'm on the left in black lace in the last photo.)

There were perhaps some bonfires lit on May eve last night somewhere, with young dancers who might or might not remember that the old ritual included walking the cattle through the smoke of fires before setting them out for their summer pastures...perhaps to kill off any vermin. And the other aspect of spring's arrival would be the coupling of humans in the woods of May eve! The story of the king's mating with the goddess was also linked to May Day.

Today our myths should add how we are all stewards of this earth, and all her beings of flora or fauna. Our ecological consciousness is invited to remember that our children's future, and that of their children unto the seventh generation (I like borrowing phrases from other sources!) depends on our saving what is left of the world of nature.

And to echo other posts of mine, may the political situation return to working to serve the needs of our great nation, in a peaceful manner.

Today's quote:

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

-Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, biologist, author (1941-2002)

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Update on current news:

From the Facebook page of the Unitarian Universalist Association at about 3:15 pm on April 30, 2025...

We celebrate the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi from federal custody. He was arrested by ICE on April 14 while attending a naturalization interview. Outside the courthouse today, he told supporters:

“I want to thank my people in Vermont. I’ve always learned that home is where you feel safe and loved — and those who surround you there are my people, and you are my people. In Vermont, we have the people and the representatives — Democrats and Republicans, spiritual people and intellectual people — all come together to say, ‘The people united will never be defeated.’”
Mohsen’s release is a testament to the power of community — the people who showed up, spoke out, and refused to be silent. But the fight is far from over.
As one supporter noted, this wave of detentions echoes the fear-driven politics of the Red Scare and McCarthyism — chapters of U.S. history we must not repeat. We must keep showing up for one another and resisting systems that criminalize immigration and dissent.

Watch the video of Mohsen’s release: