by spyder
My own take on May the first in 2007.
The following represents the strands of ribbons to become entwined as we dance around the axis mundi in the commons of a forest meadow. Each a line of thinking of the royal screwing that this day represents, so fertile and fecund, so phallic and virile, dancing about the shaft that has been deeply inserted into the mother, into the consecrated Earth. Plunge that puppy right in there, and dance the night away.
The Rites of Spring
Beltaine was a time of fertility and unbridled merrymaking, when young and old would spend the night making love in the Greenwood. In the morning, they would return to the village bearing huge budding boughs of hawthorn (the may-tree) and other spring flowers with which to bedeck themselves, their families, and their houses. They would parade back to their homes, stopping at each house to leave flowers, and enjoy the best of food and drink that the home had to offer. In every village, the maypole—usually a birch or ash pole—was raised, and dancing and feasting began. Festivities were led by the May Queen and her consort, the King who was sometimes Jack-in-the-Green, or the Green Man, the old god of thewildwood . They were carried through the village in a cart naked save the covering of flowers and enthroned in a leafy arbor as the divine couple whose unity symbolized the sacred marriage of earth and sun.
To Celebrate Beltaine Today
Arise at dawn and wash in the morning dew: the woman who washes her face in it will be beautiful; the man who washes his hands will be skilled with knots and nets. If you live near water, make a garland or posy of spring flowers and cast it into stream, lake or river to bless the water spirits. Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill, then give it to one in need of caring, such as an elderly friend. Beltaine is one of the three “spirit-nights” of the year when the faeries can be seen. At dusk, twist a rowan sprig into a ring and look through it, and you may see them dancing about the fairy rings identified by the trail of perfect mushrooms. Make a May bowl —wine or punch in which the flowers of sweetwoodruff or other fragrant blossoms are soaked (yes and even those mushrooms from the fairy rings)—and drink with the one you love.
Acid Commercial
Hands up Charlie and-uh…
Now if you’re tired or a bit run down,
Can’t seem to getcha feet off the ground,
Maybe you oughta try a little bit of L.S.D.Only if you want to
Shake your head and rattle your brain,
Make you act just a bit insane,
Give you all the psychic energy you need —Eat flowers and kiss babies
L.S.D.
For you and me!
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ‘em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is nowhere at all
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen says “off with you’re head”
Remember what the dormouse said:
Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head.
from a 9th century Irish ballad
May day! Delightful day!
Bright colours play the vale along.
Now wakes at morning’s slender ray
Wild and gay the blackbird’s song.
Loaded bees with puny power
Goodly flower-harvest win;
Cattle roam with muddy flanks;
Busy ants go out and in.
Men grow mighty in the May,
Proud and gay the maidens grow;
Fair is every wooded heights;
Fair and bright the plain below…
Robert Herrick 1591-1674:
So when or you or i are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
All love, all liking, all delight
Aies drown’d with us in endless night.
Then while time serve, and we are but decaying;
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s all go a-Maying.
middle school low-brow May Day chant:
Hooray Hooray, the First of May
Outdoor fucking starts today!!
Yes, the Ruling Class War is on, folks - replete with Democrats who look middle-class economic disaster in the eye and demand more tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans who give company owners the middle finger, and Beltway reporters who toast it all to flutes of champagne provided by runway models. While our country is driven into the ground, it’s party time in Washington. And when the rest of us outside the Beltway look back, our kids will have just one question: What did we do to stop it?
and here is something i read from Haffner’s DENYING HITLER:
~~ Amid all the misery, despair, and poverty there was an atmosphere of light-headed youthfulness, licentiousness, and carnival. Now, for once, the young had money and the old did not. Moreover, its nature had changed. Its value lasted only a few hours. It was spent as never before or since; and not on the things old people spend their money on.
~~Bars and nightclubs opened in large numbers. Young couples whirled about the streets of the amusement quarters.~~…Everyone was hectically, feverishly searching for love and seizing it without a second thought. Indeed, even love had assumed an inflationary character.
And from Alexandra Richie’s FAUST’S METROPOLIS
of the twenty-two murders committed by the left, seventeen of the perpetrators were severely punished, ten with the death sentence; but of the 354 murders committed by the right between 1918 and 1922, only one was punished. Vigilante groups made up of unemployed ex-officers and criminals continued to occupy the streets, murdering at will, clubbing and beating people accused of ‘unpatriotic’ activities.
Juxapose this with the report that two University of Minnesota professors recently “compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats.” Interesting to note that among the GOP cases were those involving Abramoff, Cunningham, DeLay, et al.
And as the dream died, and the first of May became the fourth and fifth of Mays, Country Joe MacDonald crafted this lovely lament:
When dawn comes to touch my purple haze
And evening’s drowsiness to carry me away
I know once again that there is nothing we can save,
So I’ll pack up my things, I’ll be on my way.Yes, here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of days gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Thoughts of you and I.Swirls of giant colors swam madly through my head,
I looked around to find you, but I just found it instead.
It might have been a dream for all the things we said
But you promised me —
Darling you promised me —Yes, and here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could cry.Father’s gone to fight the war,
He left us here alone.
I shiver in the lonesome night
Beside the telephone
But time brings no word,
I guess he’s not coming home,
It feels like the end,
It feels like the end, my friend.Here we go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could die.
Oh, yeah!
from Robert Hunter’s Corrina sung to the ever-insistent accompaniment of a Huichol peyote rattle and the Iquitos shaman’s drum.
If, who, how and why
don’t mean that much to be
long as it don’t hurt too much
believe we’ll let it be
Outside major darkness
where the circle is complete
there is no fear that lovers born
will ever fail to meet
Corrina / wake it up baby
Corrina / Shake it down easy
Corrina / Shake it on up now
Corrina / Shake it back down
Corrina / Makin’ me crazy
Corrina / C’mon baby
Corrina / Shake it all day
Corrina / Tell me what’d I say
Corrina / Shake it up closer
Corrina / Shake it away
Corrina / Shake it in the shadow
Corrina / Shake it in the shade
Corrina / Shake it on the shakedown
Corrina / Shake it uptown
Corrina / Shake it in the short haul
Corrina / Shake it around
Corrina / Shake it at the window
Corrina / Shake it at the door
Corrina / Shake it on the stairwell
Corrina / Shake it on the floor
Corrina / Shake it in the mornin’
Corrina / Shake it in the dawn
Corrina / Shake it all night babe
Corrina / Shake it on down
