Considering the lateness of this post, I’ll amend the title of this post a bit to say I hope your May Day was awesome!
May Day is a big deal in Hawaii. I can remember celebrating May Day for all my life. Schools host a May Day program where you have a Royal Court, usually the senior grade in the school, and the different grade levels perform for them (of course it’s for the families, but you get the idea), mostly the hula or something Polynesian. Sometimes different cultures like at one school I attended they did the May Pole dance and at another, they did a Filipino dance. Growing up it was called May Day and as the importance about equality and fairness among all the cultures represented (since Hawaii is the melting pot of the Pacific, so to speak), not just a Hawaiian tradition but more a local tradition, it changed to Cultural Day or something like that. Most importantly, it’s a celebration of multiple cultures.
That is one form of celebrating the changing of seasons, Spring into Summer, but another known celebration is Beltane. I’m sure you’ve heard of it–at least, I think you’ve heard of it. In case that’s not true, it’s a Celtic celebration. I’ve heard it called a pagan celebration.
Late last night, while conversing with a Russian language learning partner, I learned that May 1st was a Russian holiday, celebrating peace and work left over from Soviet Union times. My Russian friend had the day off from work, much like our Labor Day I’m guessing.
May Day and Beltane seem to be similar in spirit and both don’t seem related to the Russian holiday, but we also have Memorial Day. Another celebration that has nothing similar to the others, except that they all take place in May.
Where am I going with this? Nowhere. Just that I’m intrigued that they all fall, more or less, in may. That we celebrate/honor/remember things seasonally. That in January we have the New Year and February the New Lunar Year, and Easter around March/April, Labor Day at the beginning of fall, Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. And all the other minor holidays that mark the passing of the calendar year.
It’s a concept/idea, whatever you want to call it, that has been on my mind today since it’s the first and since “time seems to fly” or that we’re already almost halfway through 2018.
Sighs. I have to follow up on this later, though, because the book I was reading was left at work. It’s titled … drats. I can’t remember, lol. Well, for sure now I’ll have to post a follow-up. So, I’ll leave it here.
So, I’ll leave it here. Happy May Day, everyone!
Happy May Day, everyone!
Best wishes for a joyful month.