May Day! May Day! May Day!
May. 1st, 2013 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenHappy May Day everyone!! What does "May Day" mean to you?
When I hear, "Mayday Mayday Mayday!" I first picture airplane pilots in black and white war movies having mechanical troubles. They're going down in a blaze of glory. Then there's the "zzzzt!" of the radio going out as the camera pans back to military command center. It actually has nothing to do with "May Day": It is an anglicized form of "m'aider" from French, which means, "Help me!" and is always said three times.
When I read, "The 1st of May...", I think of Maypoles (in Germany, they're called "Maibäume", which is a fun word to pronounce in German - "my-boimah"). I have visions of little girls in pastel dresses dancing around a tall pole with ribbons, wrapping it up as they skip and sing. The Maypole history - in Germany - is how a "secret admirer" symbol arrived at a love interest's doorstep.
When I google images of, "Happy May Day", there are pictures of flowers, fists, Maypoles, propaganda, little children in pastel, worker marches, vintage cards, equality marches, flowery garlands... What a strange mixture. I captured some here for personal posterity. As with most all "holidays", May Day has its origins in pagan celebration.
Interestingly, May 1, 1707, is the date when England and Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Over the last century and a half, the first day of May became in some countries "Labor Day". Hence, there are also lots and lots of demonstrations regarding labor, workers, unions, and the like. Even though the US Labor Day bank holiday begins our autumn and is always the first Monday of September, worker and labor movements historically carry out many protests and demonstrations on May 1.
Lots of things converge, then, on May Day: flowers, pagan traditions, strife, fights for equal rights, riots, protests, Maypoles, love interests, political unions... The pagans knew something was special about the seasons changing, the spring sort of ending on April 30 and the summer sort of beginning on May 1. The welling up of the human experience in a way. From the statement, "April showers bring May flowers...", the expectation is set that so much will change when May comes around; there are brighter days ahead. People hope for change on May 1.
I place my hopes in positive change! HAPPY MAY DAY!!
When I hear, "Mayday Mayday Mayday!" I first picture airplane pilots in black and white war movies having mechanical troubles. They're going down in a blaze of glory. Then there's the "zzzzt!" of the radio going out as the camera pans back to military command center. It actually has nothing to do with "May Day": It is an anglicized form of "m'aider" from French, which means, "Help me!" and is always said three times.
When I read, "The 1st of May...", I think of Maypoles (in Germany, they're called "Maibäume", which is a fun word to pronounce in German - "my-boimah"). I have visions of little girls in pastel dresses dancing around a tall pole with ribbons, wrapping it up as they skip and sing. The Maypole history - in Germany - is how a "secret admirer" symbol arrived at a love interest's doorstep.
When I google images of, "Happy May Day", there are pictures of flowers, fists, Maypoles, propaganda, little children in pastel, worker marches, vintage cards, equality marches, flowery garlands... What a strange mixture. I captured some here for personal posterity. As with most all "holidays", May Day has its origins in pagan celebration.
Interestingly, May 1, 1707, is the date when England and Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Over the last century and a half, the first day of May became in some countries "Labor Day". Hence, there are also lots and lots of demonstrations regarding labor, workers, unions, and the like. Even though the US Labor Day bank holiday begins our autumn and is always the first Monday of September, worker and labor movements historically carry out many protests and demonstrations on May 1.
Lots of things converge, then, on May Day: flowers, pagan traditions, strife, fights for equal rights, riots, protests, Maypoles, love interests, political unions... The pagans knew something was special about the seasons changing, the spring sort of ending on April 30 and the summer sort of beginning on May 1. The welling up of the human experience in a way. From the statement, "April showers bring May flowers...", the expectation is set that so much will change when May comes around; there are brighter days ahead. People hope for change on May 1.
I place my hopes in positive change! HAPPY MAY DAY!!
