To Death in Spring
‘Experts’
told me
you would
not rise
too old
they said
abandoned
purple and rose
no one
envisioned
resilience
patterns
and
roots
form
to
field
Underground
an Ancient Story
Drums on.
Peepers
chant Love
songs
Twin
saplings
rise
lime green
leaves
seek
sun star’s
light.
Bittersweet blossoms
bean pods
close the Circle
Seeding Life.
Oh, Remember
who you
are!
Winter Wren
at Twilight.
Scarlet Runner
Sunrise.
Passion,
Auburn Light.
Queen of May.
About 70 years ago as a child I danced around a maypole ….we gathered flowers from our local country woodlands and wove our crowns from reeds, danced with abandon and joy.
I loved this ceremony and didn’t realize that I was participating in an ancient pre – christian ritual re-enacting celebrating the Queen of May until I was an adult.
As a student of mythology I learned that every tradition has some kind of celebration on or around this time each spring to honor spring beauty. Indigenous peoples included. What we are acknowledging here is the Power of Nature who is bursting with new life as Queen of May.
Only recently has dreary sentimental Mother’s Day replaced an ancient ceremony that celebrated Nature’s power to resurrect herself. Even the first ‘mother’s day’ came into being because women were advocating for Peace (thank you FAR). This day has little to do with motherhood that continues to be sentimentalized and commercialized, even as our cultural hatred of women is on the rise. Mother Blame is endemic crippling women even more.
Women have been stripped of their most basic human rights.
However, Nature holds Memory through Deep Time, and one day the Powers of Nature will once again rise to celebrate the Queen of May.
feminismandreligion.com 
Beautiful nature pictures, Sara! Thank you. I especially liked this sentence from your essay: ”This day [Mother’s Day] has little to do with motherhood that continues to be sentimentalized and commercialized, even as our cultural hatred of women is on the rise.” So true. So many are duped into “honoring” mothers by giving her breakfast in bed (ugh!), taking her out to a restaurant, or some other such gesture such as a bouquet of cut flowers or a bottle of cologne. What we need is legislation to insure our reproductive freedom! SMH
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It wasn’t so long ago that May Day was still celebrated in some ways. I remember when I was a child our mother taught us to make little baskets out of construction paper and we would fill them with flowers and take them around to the neighbors. I think this was a custom from her childhood that she passed on to my sister and me. I do find that there are a lot of small town events in May that carry some element of May Day – plant sales by Garden Clubs, community-wide celebrations of spring (I’m leading a community art project focusing on trees in our community celebration of spring in just a week or so), and such – but May Day itself does seem to have been forgotten. I wonder if there are ways – even just by, for example, renaming a plant sale or celebration as a “May Day” event – we can all work in our own communities to bring back consciousness of this wonderful holiday?
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No such thing as an expert so when they say you can’t do it, prove em wrong every time.
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I have been celebrating Mayday (Beltane) for many years, either in public ritual (often with a Maypole) or private gathering. As you say “Nature holds Memory through Deep Time, and one day the Powers of Nature will once again rise to celebrate the Queen of May.” And as Carolyn Lee Boyd says “we can all work in our own communities to bring back consciousness of this wonderful holiday”.
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I’m not sure we can unless we become part of all of nature – just one more species – we are so separate now that WE DON’T KNOW THAT WE DON’T KNOW AND THINK WE DO.
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Another fantastic owl today! Beautiful photographs.
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LOVE!
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