QUEEN OF THE MAY -- THE GODDESS MAIA

It’s May! It’s May!
The lusty month of May!…
Those dreary vows that ev’ryone takes,
Ev’ryone breaks.
Ev’ryone makes divine mistakes!
The lusty month of May!
- from Camelot, Lerner and Loewe

I don’t know what you have planned for the month ahead, but in the olden days, lusty young men and maidens were running off to the woods together, with nary a virgin returning. Beltane is celebrated in the Celtic tradition starting on the eve of May 1 and lasting throughout the day. However, in days of yore it was often celebrated with feasting, dancing, and merriment all the way through May 15. In the Gaelic lands of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Beltane refers to the entire month of May. So there’s nothing that says you can’t extend your celebration through the end of the month!

This is the time when Maia, the maiden, Roman goddess of–you guessed it: fertility–as well as playfulness and granting wishes–was feted. Her name means mother and this is really the time when the maiden of spring gave way to the mother of summer. Maia was Queen of the May and was celebrated with flowers and blooms in abundance.

The May Pole was first a tree festooned with flowers and ribbons, symbolizing the phallic energy of the season and the renewal of Mother Earth. Bonfires were set atop hills and celebrants would run between two fires for cleansing and to bring about a bountiful harvest and good luck in the year ahead.

When the Christian religion supplanted the pagan traditions and sexuality was split off from spirituality, some remnants of the old traditions remained. In fact, Mary became known as Queen of the May:

O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the angels, Queen of the May

In honor of Mary, young girls wore flowered garlands around their head, maintaining the symbols of fertility (flowers are the sexual organs of plants), new growth, and the maiden.

Happy Fae Day!

Spread your wings and let the fairy in you fly!

And as the seasons come and go, 

Here's something you might like to know.

There are fairies everywhere: 

Under bushes, in the air, 

Playing games just like you play,

Singing through their busy day. 

So listen, touch, and look around - 

In the air and on the ground. 

And if you watch all nature's things, 

You might just see a fairy's wing.

Have you made a home for the Fae in your garden yet?? ♥

[PULE] Halau's Closing Prayer

May we walk this path

With love,

With light,

With joy,

With deep inner peace and

A profound knowing;

May we stretch and reach and grow,

Trusting always that

We are held in the arms of 

A kind and compassionate universe.

Malama pono ... Aloha!

[PULE] SOPHIA'S SPRINGTIME PRAYER

Springtime Prayer

O Dancer of Creation,
the earth awakens to an urgent call to grow.
In the hidden recesses of my wintered spirit
I, too, hear the humming of your voice,
calling me, wooing my deadness back to life.

My soul yawns, stretches, quickens,
as the energy of Spring revives my weariness.
I sit with wonder, observing the steady activity
of downy woodpeckers and newly yellowed finch.
I do so wait with the avid attention of a child's first look,
savoring the colors and shapes of earth's loveliness.

As the filtering patterns of early sunlight
lift the shades of green in every growing thing,
I enter into spring's unlettered words of life.
For a while my doubts, anxieties, and worries
become like chapters in some ancient book
whose text no longer claims my full attention.
I am content to sit, watching Spring
turn the pages of this animated publication,
eager to discover the invigorating story
reflected in my own springtime revelation.

Tell me, Wise Awakener,
why is it easier to believe in a stem of new grass,
or the opening bud of a fresh purple crocus,
than it is to believe in the greening of me?

---Joyce Rupp