Sorry, the newsletter is late this morning. Still recovering from a mini-va with a few of my sisters in Lake Havasu, Arizona.
Are you celebrating May Day? It's a holiday offering many choices.
It may have started as a spring festival of flowers, but today it is marked by violence as police crack down on protesters in Turkey, and in Baltimore citizens demonstrate after the killing of a young black man by city police. Six officers are charged with homicide in the case.
The Changing Face of May Day |
May Day may have it's origins in the ancient cultures of at least three continents: Europe, Africa and Asia. People in India and Egyptians celebrated the day with spring festivals. It was part of the Druid's worship of trees, and the Romans dedicated
the day to Flora, the goddess of springtime.
Today in England, May 1st is a Bank Holiday that once feted Robin Hood. European festivities center on the maypole,
originally a Germanic tradition. The pole is decorated with flowers, and circled by dancers holding streamers attached to the top of the pole. In some places it’s traditional to fill baskets with flowers and leave them at neighbors’ doors.
America was slow to adopt the occasion because Puritans in New England forbade
May Day celebrations, believing them to be pagan and sinful. Catholics in the United States dedicate the entire month of May to the Virgin Mary, and May 1st Catholic children may process to a statue and crown Mary with flowers praising her as Queen of Heaven.
All around the world May 1st is celebrated as International Workers Day, first declared in 1889 by Socialists in Paris who voted to support the U.S. labor movement's demands for an eight-hour work-day. The next year it was chosen in the U.S. as a day of demonstrations in for the eight-hour day, and in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago.
Workers in the U.S. still observe May Day, as in Los Angeles where thousands took to the streets this morning in support of worker and immigrant rights. Increasingly, it has become a rallying point for
people discontent with economic conditions.
Two years ago, people in Seattle, L.A. and Chicago joined in a series of international protests involving hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Did you know London Bridge is located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona? Yep. I saw it there myself a few days ago. The bridge stands in Arizona, but the hills you see beyond are in California. The London Bridge is Arizona tourism’s second-largest attraction after the Grand Canyon. It's a popular stroll for people on romantic getaways, but it's also great for palling around with your sisters.
You can learn more about this
bridge of nursery rhyme fame here. Including the fact that William Wallace's head was the first of many to be impaled on a spike and displayed for the London populace.
They've also got great hiking around Lake Havasu. This one
is known by the local's as Sara's Crack. On the left is the trek forward through the crack.
Above is looking back the way we came. |
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