Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Southlake, Texas
The Rev. Kathryn A Schmitz
May 4, 2008
Spring: An experience in Immortality.
Henry David Thoreau, American Transcendentalist and Unitarian
The world's favorite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May.
Edwin Way Teale, American Naturalist
Meditation: Spring from Admire the Moon by Mary Wellemeyer
Readings: The Unexpected Stairway from In the Simple Morning Light by Barbara Rhode
To Worship by Jacob Trapp, #441 from Singing the Living Tradition
May Day! … What image does this expression conjure up for you?
May Day! … With Maypoles and spring flowers? or
May Day! … The international workers holiday? Or perhaps
May Day! May Day! …The distress call which comes from the French for Help Me! (m'aidez help me!) and means that someone is in danger of death and needs immediate assistance
In spite of my knowledge of the other two meanings of the expression, May Day always has, and I expect always will, take me back to my childhood and the spring celebration on the green in center of my hometown of Amherst, New Hampshire. There were May Poles to dance and there was a parade. A parade of children and bright colors, decorated bicycles, and only one rule: All costumes, all decorations, had to be made of crepe paper. I remember carefully weaving the streamers in and out of the spokes of my tires and I remember one year a lovely crepe paper tutu constructed, I assume, by my mother, which made me into one really fine ballerina.
Neither my mother nor I can remember who was responsible for making this annual event happen. Most likely the Jr. Women’s Club or the Congregational Church. I can tell you that I took the event for granted. That is, like Easter, and Halloween, I assumed that people in other places knew about this holiday and celebrated it in much that same way. Imagine my surprise!
But imagine my delight when, as an adult, I got involved in my first Unitarian Universalist congregation, First Parish in Chelmsford, and discovered that one of their major annual events was The May Breakfast. Not only was there good food but there were beautifully crafted, hand-made, May Baskets, decorated with crepe paper and filled with homemade fudge. And I knew I had found my tribe, at last.
As a child, and in my early days as a Unitarian Universalist, I knew nothing about the Pagan Holiday of May Day (known to Anglo-Saxons and many modern day Neo-Pagans as Beltane). And in truth, like the origin of many ancient celebrations, these are hard to trace with certainty. But we do know that May Day is one of the 8 holidays celebrated by many Earth-Based traditions that mark time by the Earth’s movement round the Sun: The 2 Solstices, the 2 Equinox’s, and the mid-points of each season. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, May Day falls at the midpoint of Spring just as Halloween falls at the midpoint of Autumn.
To put this in context, here is the wheel of the year. (Show slide.)
It shows the times in which one is likely to find celebrations in Earth-Based traditions. In Neo-Pagan groups that have reclaimed ancient, often pre-Christian practices, the exact celebrations vary from tradition to tradition.
Thinking of it as a clock, the dates at the quarter hours mark what we call the beginning of each season.
At 12:00 is the winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, the first day of winter.
The popular holiday we know around this time is Christmas.
Earth-Centered traditions, such as Neo-Pagans, celebrate Solstice.
At 6:00 is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the first day of summer.
We don’t have a popular holiday at this time, unless you count “getting out of school for the summer.”
Earth-Centered traditions celebrate solstice, the Summer Solstice.
At 3:00 is the first day of Fall. At 9:00 is the first day of Spring.
These are the Equinoxes, the times when days and nights are the same length.
Together, the two Solstice and the two Equinox are called Quarters.
In some Earth-Based traditions, they are the most important days.
In other traditions, the mid-point of each season is what is important. These are the Cross-Quarters.
Starting in the upper right, we have Imbolc, this is close to Groundhogs Day. I’ll come back to that.
In the lower right, we have our current season, Beltane, which corresponds to May Day.
In the lower left we have Lammas, which has no popular counterpart that I know of.
And, in the upper left, we have Samhein, which is not spelled like it is pronounced. It corresponds to our Halloween, and in many Neo-Pagan traditions is considered the most important holiday.
The difference between those who celebrate seasons on the Quarters and those who celebrate them on the Cross Quarters can give us an interesting example of cultures colliding.
It is easiest to demonstrate by backing up a bit, to Groundhogs Day. This is Imbolc, (pronounced IM-bullug and other ways, spelling I-M-B-O-L-C), an ancient Celtic holiday that would later be appropriated by Christianity as Candlemas.
If you look at a calendar you will see that about 6 weeks after Groundhogs day is the day that we consider the first day of spring. Some cultures arrange their calendars a little differently. The days we consider the seasonal beginnings, they consider the seasonal midpoints. Thus, rather than the longest day of the year being the first day of summer it is the mid-point of summer (This by the way is the when Shakespeare's "A Mid-Summers Night's Dream" takes place.)
You might think this is just a question of words… but if you lived in a culture that was much more connected to the seasons, it would be important to have a system by which to communicate. So consider what happens when, through migration or perhaps conquest, two cultures come together who name their seasons differently. Those in charge are in a quandary. Do we do the first rites of spring at the Quarter or at Cross-Quarter? There is no clear answer, and so they decide, perhaps both systems are right -- sometimes. We will let the earth tell us, after all that is where we place our faith. And thus we find in Candlemas lore…
If Candlemas day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.
--E. Holden
In other words, if the Groundhog sees his shadow, we get 6 more weeks of winter, so don’t do the rites of spring yet. But, if the Groundhog doesn’t not see his shadow, then, let the festivities being.
So, now we find ourselves at Beltane, May Day. Depending on your calendar, the mid-point of Spring, or the beginning of Summer.
If Saheim, in the Fall, represents the death of the God and Goddess, Beltane in the Spring represents their rejoining, rebirth. Green is the color of this festival. There are legends of fairies that coax the world back to life, and flowers, May poles, and sacred fires.
An interesting contrast of the seasons is found in their door rituals.
In the Fall, we have trick or treating, where you open your door to find masked beings demanding treats.
In the Spring, you open your door to find the mysterious beings have left baskets of flowers and sweets.
It is the season of life’s return, re-birth, new possibility.
Celebrations have varied but typically have themes of re-birth and fertility and sometimes a fair bit of romantic license. During more Puritanical periods its celebration has been curtailed. This was done in England in 1644 by an act of Parliament. It was not only the setting aside of normal sexual mores that distressed certain leaders, but also that on May Day (and other similar occasions) the normal rules of social hierarchy were set aside. Those on the top of any hierarchy tend to frown on anything that threatens their position and power.
At other times, the holiday has been somewhat of a Merri Olde England celebration which, while still based on fertility, tended to highlight new growth and purity as young maidens dressed in white danced a choreographed Maypole.
So how did this Earth-Based holiday come to also be the day of recognition for the Labor Movement.
This calls for a little review of the events of the 1880s. And particularly, the event known as the Haymarket Massacre or the Haymarket Riot depending on who is telling the story.
In Chicago, in early May of 1886, laborers were demonstrating for an 8-hour day. Things were peaceful. Then someone, never identified and widely believed to be someone intent on sabotaging the peaceful protest, lobbed a bomb into the crowd killing a policeman. The police fired killing a number of demonstrators. In spite of scant evidence and international out-cry, eight of the labor leaders were subsequently arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.
Accounts of the events vary, and monuments were built on each side. It is yet another sad illustration of the way in which an aggression (the throwing of the bomb) can be greeted with a heavy-handed response (the shooting of people unconnected to the bomb) which does nothing to better a situation and instead perpetuates a cycle of violence.
During the 1880’s Labor Day celebrations had taken place on different days in different areas. Three years after the event, in 1889, Socialists meeting in Paris declared, May 1st the International Workers’ Day in commemoration of the events at Haymarket and consolidating the many disperse celebrations.
As a note: 5 years after that declaration the first Monday in September was established as a federal holiday to be known as Labor Day, in a move that the Labor movement has long understood as a way of separating US workers from the workers of the world.
But we still have the question of whether there is any connection between the Pagan holiday and the Workers’ holiday. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is just a coincidence. But some have suggested that because the long celebrated pagan holiday was very much a people’s holiday it was a natural choice for a workers holiday. The ancient holiday was popular in the truest sense of the word, and as I mentioned earlier it was a day when the normal hierarchies of social structure were turned upside down. Perhaps, then, in fact it was the perfect workers holiday.
And to connect to the third understanding of May Day, perhaps we could claim that people struggling for better working conditions are calling for help, perhaps they are calling May Day! May Day! …to tell us they are in danger of death and need immediate assistance.
But there is more than one kind of death. I want to talk about a strike known as The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. These women probably wished that they were striking in May rather than the mid-winter of New England. But strike they did.
The strike began when new labor laws protecting workers prompted management to demand more of workers in others way – reducing pay and speeding up production. Already on the edge of poverty and unwilling to live with increased dangers in the factory, the women went out on strike.
The challenges were immense. Strikers were sprayed with water in the freezing temperature. Charged with loitering, they may have been then first to form moving picket lines. Traditionally all-male labor unions refused to work with them. Illness was rampant among the workers and their children.
But while the challenges were immense, an equally immense organizing effort arose to meet those challenges. Without going into the full history, one of the most amazing things was that an organizing committee was formed with representatives from the 14 largest ethnic groups and general meetings were translated into 25 different languages in an effort to unite across the various immigrant communities.
The demands of the strike had to do with pay and with working conditions but also with human dignity and quality of life – though it may be partly mythology – is was said that it was not just bread they wanted, they wanted roses too!
A poem from James Oppenheim, published in American Magazine in December 1911,
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
Aside from the technicalities of the strike and its demands, the women were creative at community building and supporting each other. But still after several months, their tireless efforts were taking a toll on both themselves and their children. A decision was made to send many of the children out of town so that they could be safe and well cared for well their mothers continued their strike. On the train platform, as the mothers said good bye to their children, they were attacked and beaten by police. Images of the attacks were caught and the world learned of the situation in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This turned the tide of the public opinion and soon turned the negotiation in favor of the strikers.
While their demands were not met in full they were significant. They showed the possibilities of united effort and they, shall we say, inspired the management of similar mills in other cities to improve working conditions to head off similar uprising of their own. And while the cost of fair working conditions, both in this country and around the world is (to borrow a phrase from Thomas Jefferson) “eternal vigilance” it is inspiring to look at the stories of those who, under conditions most of us can barely begin to imagine, fought for not just bread, but had the imagination to fight for roses, too.
This is important for us to remember in our modern, busy, and so-called full lives.
Do we give our attention both to the bread and to the roses?
Or are we, like the couple in the reading (The Unexpected Stairway) in danger of missing the unexpected stairways of our lives?
The poem says, “Hearts starve as well as bodies.” In our busy lives and in our busy times, we need to be sure that our hearts get the attention that they need. And only we can ensure that.
In our world right now, there are many things that call out to us May-Day, May-Day. And I hope we will give them our attention. I hope we will find time to march and write and call and lobby for the things that claim our passion.
But I hope too that we will find time for the roses. I hope that we will find time to remember May Day’s other meaning. A celebration of fertility and growth, of that which is waiting to happen. A time of hope and possibility, a time to make room for what is waiting to unfold in your life.
But now, please join me in a moment of silence.
(silence)
We march, we dance.
We tiptoe and stomp.
We walk and run.
We move through life.
Maybe fast. Maybe slow.
With grace perhaps. Perhaps without.
Sometimes together. Too often alone.
On the journey of life through which we move, let us reach out a hand and add a word of encouragement to those with whom we travel.
For whether today is your day to march or dance, tip toe or stomp it is good to be together.