MAY, 2008

 May 1 - 8:

5/1 - 3 (3 days):

Beltaine, the great Mid-Spring Festival. It comes midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, and is therefore observed throughout the northern hemisphere as one of the eight great festivals of the year. The word "Beltaine" itself consists of the name of the god known as Bel (Mesopotamian), Baldur (Norse) and other cognate names. The phallic implications of the maypole surmounted with streamers (see next) are obvious in this month that celebrates the burgeoning of fresh green leaves. At this time plants reach maximum growth; thus the end of April to the top of May on the year wheel is directly opposite the festivals of the dead on Hallowe'en and November 1. In Sweden this festival is celebrated as the annual victory of summer over winter.

The powers that be in the United States would have nothing to do with a labor holiday at which people waved red flags, sang the Internationale and compared Morgan, Rockefeller and the rest of the robber barons to wolves and other fanged beings. That's why the US government placed Labor Day on the first Monday in September, where it has no mythic charge at all, but it does obediently lead off the back-to-work, back-to-school week that follows the end of summer. What to do with May 1 in America? Dwight D. Eisenhower declared it Law Day in 1955. But law, as Mae West might have laughed from the bottom of her very deep throat, once had nothing to do with it.

For people all over the northern hemisphere, especially in Europe, the original May Day was the year's most thrilling festival. On this day, people would go into the meadows and forests and make love in the wild thyme and red clover. It was understood that unless you were hand-in-hand with your beloved, or otherwise clearly taken for the night, you had to say yes to anyone who asked you. This is why so many little Aquarii were born on and around the following Feb. 1. Some of the mid-winter mothers who bore these children had been so caught up in the joys of May Night that they had no idea who the fathers of their babies were, so the little ones were said to be the children of the fun-loving wood sprite Robin Goodfellow, better known to us as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Robin was always happily busy on May Night, and that is why we still have today so many people named Robinson.

For Roman Catholics and some other Christians, this day is the feast of the Ascension, always reckoned as 40 days after Easter Sunday. On this day Jesus is said to have ascended in glory to Heaven, as shown here by Pietro Perugino. Note that in this painting the cherubs are arranged around Jesus in the famous shape of the vesica piscis, symbolizing the union of spirit and matter in the divine and human natures of the Christ.

In the annual Roman Catholic calendar of saints' days, May 1 is the feast of Sts. Philip and James "the Less," Apostles. One index of the immense importance that the peoples of the Northern hemisphere have always assigned to May Day is the decision by the Roman Catholic Church to change the traditional meaning of the day by designating it as the feast day of not one, but two of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus himself. While Philip was noted for his faith and his ability to stir the faith of others, the choice of St. James (left, by El Greco) is especially intriguing because the purity of this lifelong virgin, who prized chastity above all other virtues, is directly opposite to the ancient meaning of this day in celebrating the sexual vitality of nature. James, also called James the Just, was the first Christian bishop of Jerusalem, so treasured for his sanctity that the devout would stop to touch the hem of his robe, and show other signs of reverence that were rarely, if ever, accorded to other apostles.

In this year's Jewish Calendar, May 1 is Yom ha-Shoah, the day of remembrance for those who perished in the Holocaust.

Also the birthday of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881), author of The Phenomenon of Man, whose seminal ideas on the unity of natural and human consciousness have influenced nearly every Gaian and holographic thinker of the last half-century. Teilhard said, "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of divinity."

Mercury happily enters Gemini, the true sign of his rulership -- though traditionally many have considered him the ruler of Virgo as well. The voluble currents of Mercury's quickness and playful flexibility can work wonders while he is in Gemini, provided that mercurial types on your team are paired with more target-focused types, so their Gemini eagerness can be productivem and they'll be less likely to dissipate all their inspiration in mere talk.

5/3 - 6 (4 days):

 The annual Dolphin Convocation in Indonesia. Every year on these days, huge numbers of dolphins, totaling perhaps in the millions, are said to gather in the treacherous, eddying waters between Bali and Lombok islands, and to swim for a few days in a gigantic wheel or spiral pattern. The reason for this gathering, and its timing, remain a matter of speculation. As yet there have been no human diplomatic expeditions to the area between Bali and Lombok at Dolphin Convocation time. It is only a matter of time before one or more boats of humans and other animals sail to the periphery of the conference and ask the dolphins' permission to participate as observers.

In the Roman tradition, the festival of the Good Goddess, Bona Dea, begins on the evening of May 3 and is celebrated through the next day. It was customary -- still is in places where women's mysteries are practiced -- to decorate hawthorn trees, which flower at this time, particularly those located at sacred places.

Among adherents of the Sufi tradition, this day is sacred to the memory of Rabi'a al-'Adawiya (d. 801), one of the earliest of the great Sufi mystics, who preached realization through the triple path of love, wisdom and action. 

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the night of 5/4 and morning of the following day. This meteor storm, with a faint average magnitude of 2.9 and a frequency of only some 20 per hour, is best observed in the southern hemisphere. Viewing is excellent this year, as the Moon is dark.

5/5 (Mon):

In the ancient calendar of Khemit, the "Black Land" that the ancient people of the Nile called their country, this is the Day of the Children of Nut, honoring the direct and indirect offspring of the primordial mother netert (not "goddess"). As Nut was the most ancient of all feminine deities - her name, cognate with neter, means "the divine feminine" and the mother of the Sun (Ra), the Moon, called Djehuti (Thoth) and the five "epagomenal" neters Asar (Osiris), Aset (Isis), Set, Hor (Horus) and Nebt-het (Nephthys), Nut embodies universal feminine fertility, the eternal limitless abundance of the womb (Month of Payni, day 21).

Copyright 2008 Dan Furst. All Rights Reserved.