May Day Made Me a Pagan

Beltane (the first of May) is my favorite Pagan holiday. There's no mystery as to why. May Day catapulted me into the earth-based religious movement before I had ever heard the words "pagan," "goddess," or "ecology."

When I was 11, we studied the Middle Ages in school. We learned about King Arthur, and falconry, and how miserable it was to be a serf or a vassal. But since it was a very progressive school, our class also did some unusual things: We made parchment out of animal skins. We learned how to bind books and illuminate them. And in preparation for May 1, we learned several medieval May carols--like "Summer Is a Cumin In."

On the morning of May 1, I remember my mother taking me to school on the subway at 4 o'clock in the morning. I still remember looking at the people riding to work at that hour, many of them painters and bakers, their clothing spattered with paint and flour. My mother dropped me off at school, and our class was driven out to the countryside, where we were led to gardens filled with flowers. As the sky slowly reddened, and the sun rose like an orange flame, we picked armfuls of pink and purple blossoms. We carried as many as we could back to the cars and drove back to the city. Then, our arms filled with flowers, we walked from classroom to classroom singing and handing out bouquets to each class. When we reached the top floor, we went into the gym, and for the first time I danced around the Maypole.

It was the first religious ritual I remember, although none of the teachers would have called it that. And it hit me with such emotional impact, partly because it was the first truly conscious celebration of life and the earth that I, a child brought up by atheists and agnostics, had ever experienced.

Every year after that first May Day, I would buy bouquets of flowers to give to people or to wear in my hair. I didn't have a complex understanding of the holiday. I did not know then that May Day was based on Beltane, an ancient Celtic festival. I certainly would not have talked about fertility or about the planting of crops and the herding of animals.

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