Showing posts with label Springtime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Springtime. Show all posts
Sunday, May 1, 2011
May Day 2011
May Day used to be a big deal in this country. Hell, May Day used to be a big deal, period. People used to decorate and have parties. Girls would wear white dresses and dance around the Maypole wearing flowers in their hair. I don't know what the men did. I guess they watched.
We like to watch girls.
May Day is a fertility festival (aren't they all?) celebrating Maia, a Mother/Spring goddess (for whom the month is named) and Nature in its generative state. Maia (mother of Hermes) is the same as Flora is the same as Maya (virgin mother of the Buddha, just saying) and even sort of Mary (whose month the early Christian church made May, probably to co-opt the festivals of pagan Europe).
The holiday is related to Whitsuntide and to Beltane and to Walpurgisnacht and the Floralia. All the different cultures have festivals at this time of year. Or had, anyway. Christianity never saw a fun thing it couldn't try to ruin.
Sigh.
In the old days, they got up early on May Day to go out into the woods and wash their faces in the dew (seriously) and gather branches of hawthorn trees and then they'd come back into town, singing and decorating and whatnot. Then, you know, the maypole dancing (because, in those days, girls were into phallic symbols) and then the fornicating in the woods.
Basically, a good time had by all.
May Day, in my secular paganism, is the third big deal holiday of the year (after Candlemas and Easter). It is a festival of Springtime in full bloom. It falls halfway between the equinox and the solstice, so it is also the holiday celebrating the cusp of Summertime. On May Day you can start to think seriously about putting away the sweaters for another year.
Also, in my May Day festivities, we don't get up early and wash our faces in the dew. That dew is motherfucking COLD.
If Chiara were here for May Day this year (she's in Italy), I'd name her the May Queen. She'd wear a white dress and I'd put a crown of flowers on her and everyone at the big May Day party would have to pay her a compliment. She'd probably hate that. She'd like this bit, though - the Queen of the May just watches the other people dance, she doesn't dance, herself.
Chiara likes to watch other people dance.
We'd put up a big pole of some kind and have a bonfire and get drunk and think about sex and then, later, and not in the woods (because of how the woods are COLD) we could have actual sex. May Day is that kind of a holiday to me. I dunno. Seem like the best reasons I can think of for a holiday.
And, as ever, the main advantage of my secular paganism is the predictable scheduling of everything. You always know when you'll be having a party. None of this "first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox" nonsense, like with Christian Easter.
So, come to my May Day party next year, I guess. Wear white and bring some flowers and a bottle of wine. I will provide the funk music and cheeseplate. That is all.
We like to watch girls.
May Day is a fertility festival (aren't they all?) celebrating Maia, a Mother/Spring goddess (for whom the month is named) and Nature in its generative state. Maia (mother of Hermes) is the same as Flora is the same as Maya (virgin mother of the Buddha, just saying) and even sort of Mary (whose month the early Christian church made May, probably to co-opt the festivals of pagan Europe).
The holiday is related to Whitsuntide and to Beltane and to Walpurgisnacht and the Floralia. All the different cultures have festivals at this time of year. Or had, anyway. Christianity never saw a fun thing it couldn't try to ruin.
Sigh.
In the old days, they got up early on May Day to go out into the woods and wash their faces in the dew (seriously) and gather branches of hawthorn trees and then they'd come back into town, singing and decorating and whatnot. Then, you know, the maypole dancing (because, in those days, girls were into phallic symbols) and then the fornicating in the woods.
Basically, a good time had by all.
May Day, in my secular paganism, is the third big deal holiday of the year (after Candlemas and Easter). It is a festival of Springtime in full bloom. It falls halfway between the equinox and the solstice, so it is also the holiday celebrating the cusp of Summertime. On May Day you can start to think seriously about putting away the sweaters for another year.
Also, in my May Day festivities, we don't get up early and wash our faces in the dew. That dew is motherfucking COLD.
If Chiara were here for May Day this year (she's in Italy), I'd name her the May Queen. She'd wear a white dress and I'd put a crown of flowers on her and everyone at the big May Day party would have to pay her a compliment. She'd probably hate that. She'd like this bit, though - the Queen of the May just watches the other people dance, she doesn't dance, herself.
Chiara likes to watch other people dance.
We'd put up a big pole of some kind and have a bonfire and get drunk and think about sex and then, later, and not in the woods (because of how the woods are COLD) we could have actual sex. May Day is that kind of a holiday to me. I dunno. Seem like the best reasons I can think of for a holiday.
And, as ever, the main advantage of my secular paganism is the predictable scheduling of everything. You always know when you'll be having a party. None of this "first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox" nonsense, like with Christian Easter.
So, come to my May Day party next year, I guess. Wear white and bring some flowers and a bottle of wine. I will provide the funk music and cheeseplate. That is all.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Easter 2011
So, in my secular paganism, today would be (is?) Easter. Easter would always be on the 21st of March, because the 21st of March is the Vernal Equinox.
Today, in the old world, was the Beginning. This is why we have April Fool's Day (another post) and why the financial year still begins at this time on the calendar; this is the New Year. This is the day on which the sun regains its hold on the day; after this and until September, the days are longer than the nights.
Passover. The resurrection of Jesus. Nowruz. The rebirth of Mithras and of Attis, consort of Cybele. This time of year has always been about birth and rebirth.
That's why eggs and rabbits and baby birds.
Easter is named for Eostre who is also Eos who is also Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, which is, in a way, the dawn of a new year or the dawn of the living things that have been sleeping under snow.
All of that is well and good, but it isn't why today is my Easter. Today is my Easter because, damnitall, holidays should be predictable and evenly distributed throughout the year (as I've mentioned before) and they should have good decorations.
And, since we in America celebrate Easter entirely in a pagan sense anyway, and clearly regard it (as it is) as a festival of Springtime and fertility, we may as well do the thing on the Spring Equinox.
So, today is for eggs and rabbits and birds and flowers and chocolate and peeps and brunches and fancy hats. Winter is finally dead today, at least for another turn of the wheel.
Of course, that's why I'll be so infuriated when it snows in April (but not when Prince does so), because GET IN THE GROUND, Winter!
Botticelli (as always) knew what was up:
Today, in the old world, was the Beginning. This is why we have April Fool's Day (another post) and why the financial year still begins at this time on the calendar; this is the New Year. This is the day on which the sun regains its hold on the day; after this and until September, the days are longer than the nights.
Passover. The resurrection of Jesus. Nowruz. The rebirth of Mithras and of Attis, consort of Cybele. This time of year has always been about birth and rebirth.
That's why eggs and rabbits and baby birds.
Easter is named for Eostre who is also Eos who is also Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, which is, in a way, the dawn of a new year or the dawn of the living things that have been sleeping under snow.
All of that is well and good, but it isn't why today is my Easter. Today is my Easter because, damnitall, holidays should be predictable and evenly distributed throughout the year (as I've mentioned before) and they should have good decorations.
And, since we in America celebrate Easter entirely in a pagan sense anyway, and clearly regard it (as it is) as a festival of Springtime and fertility, we may as well do the thing on the Spring Equinox.
So, today is for eggs and rabbits and birds and flowers and chocolate and peeps and brunches and fancy hats. Winter is finally dead today, at least for another turn of the wheel.
Of course, that's why I'll be so infuriated when it snows in April (but not when Prince does so), because GET IN THE GROUND, Winter!
Botticelli (as always) knew what was up:
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Chiara Heresies II
On Easter, Chiara and I eschewed the traditional family brunch and went for a walk around the Avenues - the neighborhood where we live.
The weather was fine for walking as long as you stayed in the sun, but turned bitter cold as soon as you went beneath the branches of a tree or the shadow of a house. We had intended to make a picnic outing of it: stop at the neighborhood market, buy some provisions, sit in the park and get our mind off of things, but it was just too cold in the wind and the ground was still too damp from the previous day's rain.
We walked back to our house through the cemetery. It is, or so I'm told, the largest city-operated cemetery in the United States, so it is gigantic. It is filled with tombstones worn down to illegibility by the years, pitched at odd angles as they slowly sink into the earth. Here and there something really tragic, like the stone from 1870 that listed a woman and three unnamed children - a death in childbirth we guessed. Mostly we tried to spot the masonic symbols and the most old-timey names:
(Jedidiah, Zebedee, Tharquad).
At the edge of the cemetery sits a church. Parishioners were filing out of the doors in their cheap suits and floral dresses, heading home from Easter Sunday services. We tried to guess their denomination based on their hairstyles and clothing. A group of teenagers were sitting in a circle on the grass, be-suited and be-floraldressed, reading from the bible and talking.
I had to stop Chiara from shouting at them "Aren't you tired of believing in imaginary people?!" by admonishing her that it was Easter.
She reminded me that I was the one who was always on about the pagan origins of Easter - its Anglo-Saxon roots as a holiday for Eostre, Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, celebrated as a fertility festival with colored eggs, rabbits, and baby birds.
All true enough, but still . . .
As it was, she pointed at them and barked out, in Nelson the Bully's telltale singsong, "Haa-Haa!" as we passed.
I don't know if they looked over at us or not. I looked firmly at the wet ground and the misshapen headstones and quickened my pace. Chiara chuckled evilly.
"Aren't you glad we can sleep as late as we like on Sundays and then go for a walk or do whatever we want?" she asked me with a smirk.
I said that I was glad of those things. And that we didn't have to sing unmelodic and droning songs in the company of our neighbors every week. And that there were at least two days of the week we didn't have to leap out of bed at some (un)godly hour. Still, I didn't want to taunt those poor dopes - look at their haircuts!
Then we went home and made waffles. We picnicked at the kitchen table and watched the Daily Show on TiVo.
"Happy Easter," said Chiara to me.
"Happy Easter," said me to Chiara.
The weather was fine for walking as long as you stayed in the sun, but turned bitter cold as soon as you went beneath the branches of a tree or the shadow of a house. We had intended to make a picnic outing of it: stop at the neighborhood market, buy some provisions, sit in the park and get our mind off of things, but it was just too cold in the wind and the ground was still too damp from the previous day's rain.
We walked back to our house through the cemetery. It is, or so I'm told, the largest city-operated cemetery in the United States, so it is gigantic. It is filled with tombstones worn down to illegibility by the years, pitched at odd angles as they slowly sink into the earth. Here and there something really tragic, like the stone from 1870 that listed a woman and three unnamed children - a death in childbirth we guessed. Mostly we tried to spot the masonic symbols and the most old-timey names:
(Jedidiah, Zebedee, Tharquad).
At the edge of the cemetery sits a church. Parishioners were filing out of the doors in their cheap suits and floral dresses, heading home from Easter Sunday services. We tried to guess their denomination based on their hairstyles and clothing. A group of teenagers were sitting in a circle on the grass, be-suited and be-floraldressed, reading from the bible and talking.
I had to stop Chiara from shouting at them "Aren't you tired of believing in imaginary people?!" by admonishing her that it was Easter.
She reminded me that I was the one who was always on about the pagan origins of Easter - its Anglo-Saxon roots as a holiday for Eostre, Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, celebrated as a fertility festival with colored eggs, rabbits, and baby birds.
All true enough, but still . . .
As it was, she pointed at them and barked out, in Nelson the Bully's telltale singsong, "Haa-Haa!" as we passed.
I don't know if they looked over at us or not. I looked firmly at the wet ground and the misshapen headstones and quickened my pace. Chiara chuckled evilly.
"Aren't you glad we can sleep as late as we like on Sundays and then go for a walk or do whatever we want?" she asked me with a smirk.
I said that I was glad of those things. And that we didn't have to sing unmelodic and droning songs in the company of our neighbors every week. And that there were at least two days of the week we didn't have to leap out of bed at some (un)godly hour. Still, I didn't want to taunt those poor dopes - look at their haircuts!
Then we went home and made waffles. We picnicked at the kitchen table and watched the Daily Show on TiVo.
"Happy Easter," said Chiara to me.
"Happy Easter," said me to Chiara.
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