Dry Slot

M'aidez!

Posted by: Bogon, 1:58 PM GMT on April 26, 2012

The rising and setting sun shines on the north wall of the house now. There are no dark corners left in the world.

It is the time of one of the cross-quarter days, the one that ends spring and begins summer. Half a year from Halloween, it has been named Beltane or Walpurgis Night or May Day. It lies midway between spring equinox and summer solstice. Astronomers reckon that (in the northern hemisphere) it falls near the end of the first week of May, but most of those who celebrate the tradition do so by the first of the month.

Halloween is all about death and deformity. May Day lies on the opposite side of the year, and its emphasis is just the opposite. May Day affirms life and fertility. Maybe it's just me, but those things seem much more worth celebrating than Halloween weirdness. I'll always wonder why we, here in America, send our children out in grotesque costumes each fall, while Walpurgis Night passes unremarked. That choice betokens a curious kind of negativism in our culture. I invite you to reconsider how that should work.