May Day

[Sue (Ayt)]

Happy May Day (I think?)

My sis and I were wondering what May Day is really all about. We had some ideas, but realized we never really thought about it much.

We both remember braiding long threads of ribbon or crepe paper around a long pole in our grade-school days. It was FUN, and we equated it with celebration of Spring which was nice. Do they still do that in schools, we wondered? (It actually was kind of odd, we thought, that what was likely a pagan holiday was celebrated in US schools.) But we still have nice memories around it.

:flower::sun::flower:

[Pris]

Without looking, I'd have to guess May Day is a term used for distress. A war term based on some historic event.

[Bill Ryan]

Without looking, I'd have to guess May Day is a term used for distress. A war term based on some historic event.Yes, and here's the interesting history: It's a kind of play on [French] words. :)

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday:
The "mayday" procedure word was conceived as a distress call in the early 1920s by Frederick Stanley Mockford, officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport, England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the term "mayday", the phonetic equivalent of the French m'aidez ("help me") or m'aider (a short form of venez m'aider, "come and help me"). The term is unrelated to the holiday May Day.

[Bill Ryan]

Regarding May Day (not 'mayday' :) ), here's more history, which (Wikipedia notwithstanding!) I think is accurate.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day


May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. Traditions often include gathering wildflowers and green branches, weaving floral garlands, crowning a May Queen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Queen) (sometimes with a male companion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_in_the_Green)), and setting up a Maypole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maypole), May Tree or May Bush, around which people dance.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire)Bonfires are also part of the festival in some regions. Regional varieties and related traditions include Walpurgis Night (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night) in central and northern Europe, the Gaelic festival Beltane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane), the Welsh festival Calan Mai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calan_Mai), and May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_devotions_to_the_Blessed_Virgin_Mary). It has also been associated with the ancient Roman festival Floralia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floralia).

In 1889, 1 May was chosen as the date for International Workers' Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day) by the Second International (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_International), to commemorate the Haymarket affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair) in Chicago and the struggle for an eight-hour working day. As a result, International Workers' Day is also called "May Day", but the two are otherwise unrelated.

[Matthew]

Happy May Day (I think?)

My sis and I were wondering what May Day is really all about. We had some ideas, but realized we never really thought about it much.

We both remember braiding long threads of ribbon or crepe paper around a long pole in our grade-school days. It was FUN, and we equated it with celebration of Spring which was nice. Do they still do that in schools, we wondered? (It actually was kind of odd, we thought, that what was likely a pagan holiday was celebrated in US schools.) But we still have nice memories around it.

:flower::sun::flower:

We did that in England in the late 70's early 80's, dancing round a maypole at school. The lessons were called 'Country Dancing'. Maypole dancing and other classic moves like the do-si-do. Still happens in some places but not sure if they have a whole lesson in the timetable dedicated to it?

ncIAdeQGxoo

Typical seasonal celebration, call it pagan but pagan or not because of the season it feels right for an event on or near 1 May approx... everything is growing and the insects are going mad.

[9ideon]

Here ya go.


May Day, also called Workers' Day or International Workers' Day, day commemorating the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement, observed in many countries on May 1. In the United States and Canada a similar observance, known as Labor Day, occurs on the first Monday of September.

:sherlock:

[jaybee]

Typical seasonal celebration, call it pagan but pagan or not because of the season it feels right for an event on or near 1 May approx... everything is growing and the insects are going mad.

really enjoyed watching that video (two posts above)... cheers.... :thumbsup:

[Kryztian]

May Day or Beltane, is one of four traditional Gaelic festivals, all of which occur half way between an equinox and a solstice. Another way of thinking about these days is that it is that they are exactly in middle of the season. For example, Spring started with the Spring Equinox (about March 21st) and ends with the Summer Solstice (about June 21st). The other days are Lughnasadh (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st) and Imbolc (February 1).


https://i.imgur.com/pxfxjur.jpg
Saint Walpurga, 8th century German saint.


May 1st is also Saint Walpurga's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Walpurga)Day. Christians often celebrate not just the day that honors the saint, but also the vigil, the evening before. That evening also coincided with the pagan festivals celebrating the arrival of Beltane. Since paganism became a taboo, many Europeans could continue these pagan rites under the guise of it being a Christian Saint's day celebration. Some how, between the time St. Walpurga was canonized by the R.C. church (870 A.D.) , and the middle of the 19th century, Walpurgisnact (Walpurga's night) developed a reputation of being an demonic witch's gathering.


CvezKgSIJiM
The Walpurgisnacht ballet scene from Gounod's opera Faust (1859).

May is also the month of honoring Mary for Roman Catholics. This tradition may only go back a few centuries which makes this fairly recent in the catholic church.

[Pris]

Without looking, I'd have to guess May Day is a term used for distress. A war term based on some historic event.Yes, and here's the interesting history: It's a kind of play on [French] words. :)

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday:
The "mayday" procedure word was conceived as a distress call in the early 1920s by Frederick Stanley Mockford, officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport, England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the term "mayday", the phonetic equivalent of the French m'aidez ("help me") or m'aider (a short form of venez m'aider, "come and help me"). The term is unrelated to the holiday May Day.



Phonetic equivalent to "m'aidez"?! Learn something new everyday!

And, thanks to everyone for their input. So there's May Day (the festival, celebrated by different traditions), mayday (distress term), and Worker's Day. :)



https://i.pinimg.com/736x/47/88/30/4788302ac5729ae50366498bb8b6e15f--may-days-time-out.jpg

[Tintin]

...and more here from The National Trust https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/the-history-of-may-day

The rites of spring
May festivities were first recorded in Ancient Roman times. The Floralia – the Festival of Flora – took place between 28 April and 3 May in honour of the goddess of flowers, fertility and spring. It involved athletic games and theatrical performances.

Later depictions of these events have an elegant air but in the ancient world they were notorious for lewd and chaotic behaviour. Vegetables were pelted and wild hares and deer were released into the crowds as symbols of fecundity.

The Feast of Flora by Johan Georg Platzer
In Roman mythology, Flora is the goddess of flowers and spring. The Austrian artist Johan Georg Platzer’s oil painting, from the collection at Basildon Park, captures the fertile energy of the feast.

https://images.ntpl.org.uk/hppa-zooms/00000000826/cms_267118_1_.bro

The Beltane festival
In the Gaelic world, the opening of the summer pastures for grazing was marked by the Beltane festival. Wild blossoms decorated the doors and windows of houses while great bonfires were built on the last night of April to bestow their protective powers on livestock and their herders.

First recorded in the early medieval period, these rural traditions had come to an end by the middle of the 20th century but have since been revived as an evocation of even older Druidic rites. In Wales, where the first day of May is known as the Calan Mai or Calan Haf, these customs never died out.

The first day of May
This began to emerge as a day of feasting and dancing in towns and villages across the British Isles from the medieval period. A host of exuberant traditions developed to mark the day, now mostly forgotten.

Chimney sweeps wearing gaudy clothes would make mischief on the street and hustle for coins. Milkmaids would dance for pennies while balancing towers of borrowed silverware on their heads.

Fashionable Company, with a Coach and a Maypole
A beribboned May Day reveller receives a coin in this anonymous 19th-century painting at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire. Maypole dancers can be seen in the background.

https://images.ntpl.org.uk/hppa-zooms/00000000713/cms_pcf_207838.bro

The origin of May Queens
Like many other festivals, May Day was a topsy-turvy affair when a ‘lord and lady’ would be chosen from among the ordinary people of the community to preside over the day. Eventually the focus shifted completely onto the woman and she became known as the May Queen.

This figure reached the height of her importance in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, by which time she was embodied by a young girl decorously dressed in white and crowned with flowers. Accompanied by a ‘court’ of other girls, the May Queen had become a symbol of purity and the promise of spring.

Around the maypole
The quintessential image of May Day is of dancers weaving the long ribbons of a maypole into intricate patterns. This practice was first recorded in mid-14th-century Wales but eventually spread far and wide.

As time went by, it evolved from an opportunity to flirt into a picturesque pastime for children, often tinged with nostalgia for a simpler and more innocent way of life.

[Paul D.]

May day or Beltane is a time when the veil between worlds is at it's thinnest .The same can be said for the other three, Lughnasadh, Samhain & Imbolc .
I love them as you can experience the thinning easily , reality is perceived differently similarly to the psychedelic experience.
May day is especially nice because of the connection with nature & archaic tradition is to the fore.
It's a very important time for the occult both light & dark , perhaps the most important. Regardless I see it as a celebration of life & rebirth.Real love & light time .🌱🌿☀️

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/59318

DDGeopolitics/59318

[Pris]

May Day or Beltane, is one of four traditional Gaelic festivals, all of which occur half way between an equinox and a solstice. Another way of thinking about these days is that it is that they are exactly in middle of the season. For example, Spring started with the Spring Equinox (about March 21st) and ends with the Summer Solstice (about June 21st). The other days are Lughnasadh (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st) and Imbolc (February 1).


https://i.imgur.com/pxfxjur.jpg
Saint Walpurga, 8th century German saint.


May 1st is also Saint Walpurga's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Walpurga)Day. Christians often celebrate not just the day that honors the saint, but also the vigil, the evening before. That evening also coincided with the pagan festivals celebrating the arrival of Beltane. Since paganism became a taboo, many Europeans could continue these pagan rites under the guise of it being a Christian Saint's day celebration. Some how, between the time St. Walpurga was canonized by the R.C. church (870 A.D.) , and the middle of the 19th century, Walpurgisnact (Walpurga's night) developed a reputation of being an demonic witch's gathering.


CvezKgSIJiM
The Walpurgisnacht ballet scene from Gounod's opera Faust (1859).

May is also the month of honoring Mary for Roman Catholics. This tradition may only go back a few centuries which makes this fairly recent in the catholic church.



Paul William's wrote and sang his interpretation of "Faust" in his upbeat yet heartbreaking song (as Swan) made for the movie, "Phantom Of The Paradise". Fantastic movie by the way.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfnthfR8qHk


Producer: Paul Williams
Composer Lyricist: Paul Williams
"Faust"
(from "Phantom Of The Paradise" soundtrack, 1974)


I was not myself last night
Couldn't set things right
With apologies or flowers

Out of place as a cryin' clown
Who could only frown
And the play went on for hours

And as I lived my role
I swore I'd sell my soul
For one love who would stand by me
And give me back the gift of laughter
One love who would stand by me
And after making love we'd...

Dream a bit of style
We'd dream a bunch of friends
Dream each others smile
And dream it never ends

I was not myself last night
In the morning light
I could see the change was showing

Like a child who was always poor
Reaching out for more
I could feel the hunger growing

And as I lost control
I swore I'd sell my soul
For one love who would sing my song
And fill this emptiness inside me
One love who would sing my song
And lay beside me while we'd...

Dream a bit of style
We'd dream a bunch of friends
Dream each others smile
And dream it never ends

All my dreams are lost and I can't sleep
And sleep alone could ease my mind
All my tears have dried and I can't weep
Old emotions
May they rest in peace and dream
Dream a bunch of friends - rest in peace
And dream, dream it never ends

[Bill Ryan]

Mod note from Bill:

I've moved half a dozen posts to the Edward Riordan (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116416-Edward-Riordan) (remote viewing) thread, where they best belong and will be easier for others to find later. :thumbsup:

:focus: