Tomorrow is May Day.

May Day is actually a lost holiday, which is hard to imagine since everything is a holiday.
But, this one actually is.

I think it’s largely been forgotten because it’s overshadowed by Cinqo De Mayo. It is also a holiday that was dismissed by the early Puritan settlers as being unclean and lewd. It isn’t related to Christian saints, which is why St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day survived.

May Day is just there. It’s understated. While I don’t celebrate it, it’s a holiday that I always tend to mentally note and have so for years. I think that this is because “Dracula” begins on May third. A lot of “Dracula” is written from the journalized viewpoint of Harker. His first entry is on the third of May and hints that he began his journey a couple of days prior – May first – also May Day.

Also, I think there’s a low-key mysticism to May Day and to the month of May in general.

The names of the months were chosen with great care. August, for example, is from Augustus Ceaser. July is from Julius Ceaser. Some months take their names from major gods like June is named for Juno, the wife of Zeus. Some months, like November, are simplistic if not a little confusing November, at one point, was the ninth month of the Roman calendar. That’s what it means. “Ninth month” although it’s our eleventh month. I guess whoever was creating the twelve month calendar didn’t think it worth correcting.

May isn’t named after a god or an emperor. Rather, it’s name after Maia. Depending on your view, Maia was a willing lover or raped by Zeus. She became the mother of Hermes, the mercurial god of the travelers, thieves, and gossip.

Personally, I prefer to think that Maia was a willing partner of Zeus. The goddess of May and the Taurus horscope sign is Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Following is Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury (Hermes). Following love, the union of Maia and Zeus, a child is born Hermes. Gemini and Taurus share the same month, May. If there was violence involved, I don’t know if one would come after the other. Rather, I prefer to think that the child and mother will always be united. Well, at least in this situation as Hermes needs stability so he can fly.

May or Maia also means ‘to be strong,’ ‘to be able,’ and ‘to have power.’ It also means mother and nurse. I feel that this is important as it is gearing up for what lies ahead. May Day is the small but important pivoting point between Spring and Summer. At this point, Spring is (in theory) halfway over. Summer should be just around the corner.

May Day is taking the energy of a growing earth and projecting it into the body of life sustaining plants that will, eventually, be cut down by humans. Or, in the case of trees, spend that energy to prepare for Autumn and Winter, the dying, death, and sleep that they will endure until it is time for a reawakening.

The cycle continues.

It’s like the Big Bang.
At one point, everything in creation was pushed out. People, planets, and stars have and are assembling. Right now, with Spring, plants are pushing out of the ground and fashioning themselves into a lifetime.

But, at one point, the universe will begin to pull itself back together. The core of a universe has a gravitational pull that will bring everything back home. In doing so, everything that was created – people, planets, and things – will be merged together where they are everything and nothing. This is kind of like Winter. The Earth stops growing and sleeps or, in some cases, dies until it is time for a reawakening.

I guess my Wiccian is showing.

Anyway, I really wanted to write something but wasn’t sure what. This is what I came up with.
I feel like, as I have for the longest time, that I’m in a transitional phase with writing. I’ve been wanting to write professionally for most of my lifetime and I haven’t and I don’t know why.

A couple of days ago, I found some stories I wrote back in 1993. Yeah, I actually dated them with hand-written scrawled notes on who I sent them to for publication and who rejected them – practically everyone.

I wrote a lot. Why I can’t show the same devotion and optimism to my craft now as I did then is a complete mystery. Well, sort of.

I feel that there’s a void inside and, much like the idea of flowing out and pulling in, maybe I’m in the ‘pulling in’ stage. Twenty years ago, I was flowing out. Or, maybe, I’m just making up excuses for a perceived lack of talent, devotion, or that I just want to be more than what I am.

I don’t know.

But, I do know I’m going to take a shower and actually read a book for a while.
I picked up/stole “Flowers in the Attic” from one of those free library boxes. A person can’t be a writer if they don’t read. That sounds like a good evening.