I’m having beautiful memories of May Days past. I don’t have a photo credit for this image, but remember a wonderful May Day in Union Square full of Occupy friends, the People’s Puppets, The Rude Mechanical Orchestra. This May Pole served as a reminder that all our grievances are connected, as are all of our solutions.
Fourteen years ago, I got to celebrate May Day in Padstow (Cornwall) & I have some grainy video to prove it:
Having been in isolation the last couple months, I feel a lot of longing for these crowds: the noise and laughter, feeling the drumming in the body, the singing and dancing– celebrating spring, celebrating life.
I’ve been singing these songs for decades. So grateful to the “eccentric” teacher I had in middle school who made us all sing May Day songs as we paraded over the hills, dancing and leaving flowers as gifts at the May Pole. Earth cycles are worth celebrating– we’re halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice now. (Happy Beltane, witches!)
I found another clip from the Alan Lomax archive from 1953 with some of the lyrics of “Unite & unite.” Death, resurrection, fertility– May Day’s got it all! We all will unite in the merry morning of May. So it will be. So it is.