May Day: Celebrating Warm Weather, Poles with Ribbons, and Things to Come

In medieval England, people celebrated the start of spring on the first day of May by going out to the country or woods and gathering greenery and flowers to "bring in the may." This tradition derived from pagan Anglo- Saxon custom and is most commonly associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility and revelry with festive community gatherings. Typically, seeding work had been completed by this date and it was convenient to give farm laborers a day off.

Another medieval tradition was the maypole. Some towns had permanent maypoles, and others put up a new one each May. In any event, the pole would be brightly painted, hung with greenery and ribbons, and serve as the centerpiece for traditional dancers circling with ribbons.

Having not been to a actual May Day celebration prior to the annual gathering at Sandhill Farm this past May, my notion of such an event was mostly historical in context. It came from images in movies depicting medieval festivals, and passages in print describing this day of revelry amid the incipient growing season, a respite from the toils of the spring planting, something I suspect was greatly appreciated and anticipated.

That same sense of appreciation and gratitude for the opportunity to come together as a community was pervasive this year at Sandhill Farm. To finally shake off the shivers of winter, to breathe deep the prospect of another season of growth, and refresh one's being in song and dance, with good food, drink, and friends under a warm sun — surely the cultural ancestry that handed down the May Day tradition, the many generations preceding us who'd found solace in the soil, and comfort in community, would be proud were they to see the hardy souls in celebration at Sandhill this spring.

That gift of community, and our honoring of it, was on my mind as we slowly filed down the road at Sandhill Farm, making our way toward the maypole site, enjoying good company and conversation along the way. Induced by a beautiful day and the cultural legacy of the celebration to come, I remember thinking there was something different about the trees surrounding the field where this year's maypole lived. It seemed easy to imagine that each new green leaf was the incarnation of a participant from all those May Day gatherings of old. There they sat, our agrarian community predecessors, at the ends of so many lofty branches atop the Oaks and Maples. As they looked down upon this year's revelers, I could imagine their hearts were full, grins on their faces, and pleased at what they saw: so many colorfully adorned figures in wreathes of Spirea, so many brightly painted faces hinting at Celtic or Gaelic ritual, and so much excitement in anticipation of joining others in community around the maypole.

As folks took their places, a duo of fiddles commenced. This started a giddiness which seemed to wash over all of us. Then came a thin coating of harmonica and with it another contagion spread causing rhythmic movements of shoulders and hips and feet. With that, we began to dance, ribbons in hand, wefting and warping as we weaved our way around and around. High then low we would go, sometimes spinning in place, dancing with grins on our faces. Soon the boundaries of who was who began to blur as each of our paths became intertwined in dance. High then low we went, passing again and again, our neighbors, our families, our friends, in that moment, in that place, in community.

That rejoicing and celebration would continue well into the evening and it became clear to me that no movie or written discourse could describe accurately the feeling of culture and community and appreciation felt on that beautiful spring day in early May. I have sometimes wondered since, whether this small group of communities in northeast Missouri (and intentional communities in general) might at times draw special attention from those in history that passed on this cultural gift we call community. And if indeed they do sit atop the trees looking down upon us, what might they be whispering to us in the leaves? Perhaps if we listen closely when the breeze blows by, we will hear a collective sigh of satisfaction.

Dancing into Spring at Sandhill Farm

March Hare Spring 2009 Issue 59

May Day		Rounds at Song Circle
I ♥ Dancing Rabbit		Childbirth at DR
Notable Quotables		YABRS Charter

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