Maypole Redemption
Finding community and meaning in the real-life observance of May Day — and more
“That looks kinda like Children of the Corn,” someone — an urbanite no doubt — commented on my Facebook video of the maypole dancing that took place last Saturday atop the hill at High Mowing, unchallenged seat of the Waldorf realm.
On the one hand, this is a flippant and disrespectful comment to make about something I find beautiful and moving and intrinsically human; on the other hand, I kind of agree. This is nothing new for me. As someone raised entirely outside and unaware of this whole way of living, witnessing traditional rituals like this always makes me acutely aware of my state of corruption, a corruption that may not rule my conscious mind but yet runs deep. I don’t beat myself up about it, of course — it’s the same corruption pretty much everyone has. It’s the corruption that makes me feel as though I can only experience Waldorf-type living through a pane of glass, able to get the sense of it, even grasp it pretty well intellectually, but never actually feel it. And it’s that corruption that renders me unable to entirely suppress the reflex to scoff, with an air of jaded superiority, at these anachronistic, forest-dwelling cultists.
Now, even in my corruption, I still think thoughts like that with a hint of love. It’s skepticism I’m expressing, not scorn. Indeed, at one point in one of the videos, you can actually hear me remark something like, “I feel like an anthropologist, studying this foreign tribe.” See — I can’t quite suppress it, but I’ve had enough years to wrestle with it. I’m aware of it, to the point where I’m not at its mercy. I know well that behind the smug modernist superiority lies no small measure of jealousy. Perhaps more jealousy than actual skepticism. More recently, I’ve become aware that even the jealousy is rather unnecessary. It turns out, there’s actually a chance I can be a part of this after all.
If nothing else, my life today, with all its overlapping communities committed to meaning and commemoration, would seem to suggest as much.
In a different sense, it’s my corruption and “typical” upbringing that allows me to see how special the annual May Day ritual dance really is. What positively smacks me in the face every year is that the dancers — all barefoot, all dressed in white, all adorned with flowers, all prancing about before the eyes of all the community — are teenagers, high school students. I cannot believe any high schooler would assent to anything resembling that kind of activity. I’m not even sure what words would convey how utterly foreign this is in contrast to my experience of high school. It’s not even like they’re doing it to fulfill a required role; you can, after all, mandate such things through use of force. No, it’s pretty easy to see — they mean it. They’re actually sincere about this! Not a trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness — and, in this case, on a freezing, windy day, they actually endured a fair amount of physical pain to do so.
They seem to get all of this, probably more than I do. They get it and they do it and mean it and feel no shame.
What a way to grow up!
Those of us who didn’t grow up that way have a lot of work to do before we can say we’re at the level of these high school students. Fortunately, I’ve got enough time left.
The point of all this spectacle, of course, is to do honor to the eruption of new spring, which, though the Equinox is several weeks behind us, is only happening just now. We witness the symbolic decapitation (okay I’m kidding, it’s just banishment) of the “Winter King” and displaying the human manifestation of new, pure spring as our maturing young dance around in white. Is there a better reason to observe ritual and straight-up celebrate?
It’s a funny thing that intention — intending a thing — can do.
We can argue until we’re blue in the face as to whether there’s actually anything you can do with your mind or your attitude or even your faith that can influence events in your favor. What I do know, though, is that if you intend to do something, those things are much more likely to actually happen. In a very non-mystical, non-mysterious way, intention makes it more likely that you’ll do things and put yourself in places that directly further what you’ve intended. I believe that this works even when we set aside or even forget these intentions. If they are sincere, we work toward them even if they are suppressed or sub- or unconscious.
Almost seven years later, I find myself now in a place in which I can no longer hang on to this lamentation, at least not on a personal level. The scheme may be far from perfect, it may be less-than-half formed, but in my life, there are now celebrations and observances and sacred traditions throughout the entire year to an extent I’d barely before have been able to imagine.
Half the reason I started The Wizard of Monadnock in the first place was to lament a lack of sincere, regular, sacred celebration and ceremony. In my life and in everything I saw around me in our society (and especially in the crypto-fascist workplace where I spent half my time), I felt we were entirely neglecting the proper marking of the seasons and the passage of time, completely failing to do justice to the reality of this universe in which we find themselves.
Almost seven years later, I find myself now in a place in which I can no longer hang on to this lamentation, at least not on a personal level. The scheme may be far from perfect, it may be less-than-half formed, but in my life, there are now celebrations and observances and sacred traditions throughout the entire year to an extent I’d barely before have been able to imagine.
Not just that, for in my low expectations I had pretty much always imagined that in a best-case scenario I would be able to experience this kind of life mostly solo, perhaps with family and a very small number of others. I advocated for something I believed to be a universal human need, and yet I somehow did not think I’d be able to find others interested in the same thing. A bit silly, looking back on it.
Instead, I’m grateful to say that this shift toward richness and fullness and even (if I may be so corny) a more sacred way of living is in no way something I’ve had to invent entirely on my own out of nowhere. Somewhere along the way, through mechanisms I can’t call conscious, consecutive events only tenuously connected in the normal way, I have discovered a whole burgeoning community centered in this very region that places a very high premium on this sort of life and these sorts of necessary holy-days.
It’s not entirely accurate to call it a single, defined community, even if from my individual perspective it might as well be one; in truth I benefit from connection to and participation with the Unitarian Universalist church here in town, the Waldorf enclave centered in Wilton, and the unusual and often inexplicable community in Peterborough itself. I like to think I add to these genuine treasures with my Wizard stuff, but all of this exists without me.
And if you live in this area and know even half of what I’m talking about, I hope you know how lucky you are, and I hope you’ll stick around for a long time to celebrate and commemorate and observe with me. I value that more than you know.
Like I said, I thought I would have to create it, and that in doing so it would be a precious but ultimately isolated innovation. I prayed to find something like this, but the reason I’d relegated such an idea to prayer in the first place was because I didn’t think it possible. I didn’t think it existed. For the longest time I couldn’t see or experience any of it, even though it was right in front of my face.
If you’re feeling like I did, maybe my path can be helpful. Consider trying to put the thing together yourself, and maybe you’ll end up finding out it’s lingering just beyond what you can see right now.
And if you live in this area and know even half of what I’m talking about, I hope you know how lucky you are, and I hope you’ll stick around for a long time to celebrate and commemorate and observe with me. I value that more than you know.
We can live a life that marks the time like this if we want to. I know now that it’s possible and that a good many of us want it and need it. A lot of us, whether we have the words for it or not, can sense that this is what it means to really live.
Cast aside for a moment the specifics of the coming month’s cosmic outlook and breathe in the awareness that it’s May Day and spring has come. The brilliant flashing zenith of the Solstice is just around the corner. Our spirits can rise with the season, rise in a way that was common back in September and is all but forgotten now. We’re back.
And if we’ve got any last-minute planting to be done, now’s the time. We’ve got six more weeks.
So a very happy May Day, a very happy spring to all. May you mark the time in the best way available to you.