Onesixfour

CharlaXFabels

M’aider

There is a first day in every month but disregarding April 1 the foolish day we strive to feign importance for the first day in MAY. Trees have been linked to a part of celebration, perhaps, to the days ancient New York rites of Spring. In ipso factoid the skyscraper that the giant monkey wiped his feet on was built and finished on this day in history making it the tallest structure in the world. The association of trees to this celebration day arrived on the back of the spring festival in ancient Europe. Trees were always the symbol of the great vitality and fertility of nature and were often used at the spring festivals of antiquity. There is a strong relationship between the ancient tree related traditions of the British and the Romans. According to the description, as a part of the May Day celebration, the youths in old Europe cut down a tree, lopped off the branches leaving a few at the top. They then wrapped it round with violets like the figure of the Attic, the ancient Roman Chester Drawers. At sunrise, they used to take it back to their villages by blowing horns and flutes. In a similar manner, the sacred pine tree represents the god Attic and was carried in procession to the temple of Cybele on Rome's Palatine Hill during the Spring Festival of March 22. At last, winter is dead. To celebrate, thousands of people will strut their stuff on Sunday as part of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre's 34th annual MayDay Parade along Bloomington in Minneapolis. The walking theatrical production will wind its way along Bloomington Avenue to Powderhorn Park, where a ceremony and festival will follow. The parade will start at 1 p.m. at the corner of Bloomington and East 25th Street in Minneapolis. If the weather turns foul, the parade and ceremony will be held on May 11. A 200-person pageant in the park will begin at 3 p.m., featuring dancers, puppeteers, a live orchestra and four giant puppets representing Prairie, Sky, River and Woods. The festival, which includes, music, dancing, poetry, food and canoe rides, will continue until dusk. The parade in Tucson was done before noon with only several hundred people in attendance. The simultaneous confusion was an echo of Minneapolis. May Day (May 1) is a spring festival celebrating human fertility and the renewal of nature. The festival originated with the celebration of the Roman goddess Flora and spread to other countries of the Roman Empire. May Day was especially popular in England during medieval times. Activities centered around the maypole, a tree collected from the woods and brought to the village to celebrate the upcoming summer. Many people participated in temporary sexual encounters while they were off in the woods. The Puritans frowned on May Day, so the day has never been celebrated with as much enthusiasm in the United States as in Great Britain. But the tradition of celebrating May Day by dancing and singing around a maypole, tied with colorful streamers or ribbons, survived as a part of the English tradition. The kids celebrating the day by moving back and forth around the pole with the the streamers, choosing of May queen, and hanging of May how she swayed to and fro from the doorknobs of folks -- are all the leftovers of the old European traditions. Mayday is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure communications, derived from the French m'aider. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as police forces, pilots, the fire brigade, and transportation organizations. The call given three times (mayday, mayday, mayday...) in a row indicates significant danger (for example, a threat to life). May Day (I know, that was 22 days ago) is a big deal in France. A national holiday--the workers' holiday--to be exact. In fact, celebrating the cause of workers (what we now celebrate as Labor Day) on May first is a custom that originated in the United States in the 1800's when the labor unions were at the peak of the fervor and righteous battles against abusive labor conditions. The celebration had a distinctly left-wing--even communist--flavor, and perhaps that's why in the US the date was quietly moved to early September and the name of the holiday changed to Labor Day. If there was a day for everything you have given to me as a mother, it would be Mother's Day every day. Thanks for always helping me to remember what is important in life... and today it is you! You're the best! Thanks for all you do. M~aider.