As I sit here at my desk, writing to you, I am roughly six feet away from a mature lilac bush in full May Day bloom, living just outside my office window. Her roots may almost extend to touch the ground under my feet. Lilacs literally made my list as one of the top ten reasons I moved back to Boulder six years ago - they have my heart.
At the first day of every month, I share a vibe for the month ahead — and as today is Beltane, a Gaelic celebration of fire, fertility, and rebirth, I will be sharing a list of wisdom and wonder along this theme, as told through flowers. I haven’t ever given much thought to April showers bringing May flowers, but as I reflected on what May feels like to me, I realized it actually has a lot to do with flora.
These monthly posts come out on the first of every month, and they include my curations of poetry, music, art, fashion, beauty, and/or other areas of expression. The full content of the monthly posts (including a Spotify playlist!) is accessible only to paid subscribers, but everyone gets a taste. 🍓
Happy May Day, lovelies! 🌼 🌹 🌺 🌻🌸🪻🪷🌷 May Day, or Beltane, is a pagan cross-quarter holyday halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It celebrates everything in the living world, as plants and animals are waking up in its warmth. There are fire festivals, maypole dances, and treats of strawberries and cream to celebrate this day of the goddess of love. It’s a day to celebrate fertility, creativity, and sexuality — and often flowers in bloom are used to signify such delights.
In this post, I’ll take you through a bouquet of memories and inspirations. I can’t create this post without a boatload of visuals, but I wish they were all scratch and sniff!
As I said above, lilacs are quite special to me. I have their tiny florets pressed into my journal from May 1996 when I had one of my first adult peak experiences of seeing the divine in the world, and they’ve felt like a symbol of our connected constellation of life for me ever since - their little flowers like stars. When I graduated from Naropa in May 2005, huge bouquets of locally-blooming lilacs scented our celebrations. And now, here I sit by a bouquet of lilacs from my own lilac bush whose roots are right under my toes.
In May 2019, I underwent an emergency appendectomy. I describe the scene in my book:
“As a team of nurses prepped me for surgery and administered the relaxation medications through my IV, Craig held my hand while I cried to him about parts of life I had yet to live. Slipping into a medicated state, I whined out loud, “I haven’t even had sex with a woman yet!” Craig squeezed my hand and promised me that we would make all of that happen and that he would always be there. As entertaining as that scene may have been to the nurses, the mortal urgency and his support that day were a call to action for me.”
Later that day, I received this gorgeous spring bouquet from my mom and sister, filled with bright, bursting peonies and other gorgeous flowers. Peonies for me have always conveyed this sense of taking up space with our softness — soft and bold. Peonies embody the idea that tenderness is mighty… which is the essence of how I am getting through this whole midlife emergence thang.
Poppies bring thoughts of my precious and precocious child to the forefront, highlighting the wildness of childhood. Though my 17-year-old was born in Virginia, they call California their home state because they spent their childhood there from ages 2-11. Every May, wild, golden California poppies would spring up in medians on the streets and in fields beside the highway. Giant matilija poppies were looming large all over our neighborhood in the Bay Area, like giant fried eggs reaching toward the sky, always in May, always around mother’s day. (And all of this month, my kid is starring as Dorothy in a community theatre production of The Wizard of Oz, where poppies play a role.)
We know lavender has a relaxing and often sleep-inducing scent, and it is also said to encourage emotional honesty. I used to have gorgeous English lavender bushes in my yard, and one of my favorite things to do with them, in the Mays of the early aughts, was to create fragrant, ribbon-woven lavender wands as gifts for friends (May begins a fun birthday season among my crew) and as end-of-year gifts for teachers. They make awesome sachets or talismans, even once dried. Back in the day, I published a popular art blog where I gave a how-to, but it’s no longer public, so here’s a YouTube video to inspire you to make your own.