May Day Play Day

Happy May Day! This past week has been a busy one - ha, who am I kidding, every week is busy - a week where I've had a million and one ideas for blog posts without a minute to put my thoughts to bits and bites. Today being May Day, a day of new beginnings and the Joy of Spring, I think it's the perfect time for a new post!

the very beginnings of a home-grown strawberry

May Day is a dual holiday for me: As a born and raised political liberal and fan of the labor unions, I am happy to recognize all the working class people that fought so hard to make our lives easier today with the 40-hour work-week and safe working conditions on International Workers' Day! As a pagan, I also observe May Day as Beltane, the celebration of Spring, fertility, and life.  So, just to make our day as full of celebration as possible, we decided to honor both holidays today!

International Workers' Day became our social studies lesson for homeschool today: We looked up the history of the celebration, discussed what I call "the proud history of protest in the United States," talked about the important role of the union in Capitalist society, and mutually wondered why a holiday as American as baseball isn't even celebrated in this country.

We then continued our social studies exploration of May Day by discussing Spring celebrations in different countries: Did you know that, in Lithuania, their Spring celebration involves hanging a swing in the woods and pushing friends and family on the swing? The J-Rex thought that was a marvelous idea that we should implement in our neighborhood!

Moving from this discussion, we went on to do something I rarely incorporate into homeschool: some spiritual learning. I read a passage about how and why we celebrate Beltane and we made some initial plans for the rest of our May Day celebration.  After this, I took the J-Rex through a pre-writing and writing exercise wherein she composed a beautiful poem she'll share during our evening ritual about the Joy of Spring.

Letting the poetry-writing conclude our homeschool day, we proceeded with an afternoon of outside play and planting. We are trying to use and appreciate our bodies today - taking joy in all the wonderful things it allows us to do, like roll down a hill or till soil.  We planted two Sunflower plots (figuring the birds will be distracted by one and leave the other alone), Clary Sage, Curly Parsley, Chamomile, and Chinese Money Plant.  Then, we inspected the garden for the beginnings of new life, finding new sprouts of Summer Savory, Summer Squash, Tomatoes, and, most excitingly, about 9 proto-Strawberries!

Clockwise from top left: cucumber, summer squash, and savory

Reaching the time of day when the public school kids get home, the J-Rex ran to her friends' house to invite them to come play in the yard.  Now, these are two girls right around her age and ridiculously similar in personality, but she's only played with them twice before because our schedules rarely coincide.  As a result, I was delighted to see that they were, in fact, home and could come out and play.  How I love those moments, when I'm sitting on the porch listening to loud discussions, giggles, and shouts of delight as my little girl makes those peer connections that are such a strong part of childhood memories. As they played and rolled down the hill over and over again, I thought to myself, "How perfect that on May Day, a time of beginnings and relationships, the J-Rex has these moments to solidify what might turn out to be a wonderful childhood friendship."

Now the play-date is over, my plants are watered and weeded, my daughter's studies for the day are complete, I've experienced the limits of my body tilling Georgia Clay, I've pampered that same body and thanked it for my own physical and mental fertility, I've taken a moment to thank the workers of the world fighting for fairness and Mother Earth for what they've each given our world, and everything from here on out today is simply icing on the cake.  We have plans to take a nature walk, read poetry and songs honoring Spring, feed the fairies, and make wishes on fairy dust this evening.  I have a feeling, though, that the winds of the day will take us where they wish and we will feel like happy little flower children no matter where that is.