Beltane (May Day)

If not a bowl of thy sweet cream,
Then a cup to bring me cheer,
For who knows when we shall meet again,
To go Maying another year.
~ Cornish Folk Song~

 Beltaine or "La Baal Tinne" starts at sundown on or about April 28 (not May first) and lasts three days. At
sundown Druids would light the "Bel-fires" or "Need-fires" on the top of the nearest 'beacon hill' thus marking the
beginning of the celebrations. Local people would jump through these fires to take advantage of their healing
properties and their protection. Naturally they were 'sky-clad,' clothing burns. It was also common practice to drive
herds of cattle between two of these fires. The next day these cattle would be driven to their summer pastures.
     The more favored traditions of this festival are the may-pole dance and the rites of passage into adulthood that
usually occurred at this time. Young men and women would stay out in the forest to greet the May sunrise. Upon their
return they would bring boughs of flowers and garlands to decorate the town (or village) with. It was common for a
returning young woman to be 'with child,' so common in fact that the puritans outlawed this celebration altogether.

                                                      Whose brainchild  was Mother's Day?

                 From Afghanistan to Costa Rica, more
                 than 46 countries honor mothers with a
                 special day, but not all nations celebrate
                 on the same day. In the United States, for
                 example, it is always the second Sunday
                 of May. But England's Mother's Day falls
                 on the fourth Sunday of Lent (March 17,
                 this year). And the International Mother's
                 Day is always May 11. (In the U.S., there
                 is even an official Mother's-In-Law-Day
                 -- the fourth Sunday in October.)

                 We honor Mom with sentimental cards, potted plants, breakfast in bed, an
                 ENTIRE day without chores ... but how much do we know about the
                 origin of this holiday?

                 While there is some conflicting evidence that local Mother's Day
                 celebrations may have occurred in the late 1800's in different places
                 throughout the United States, the idea for Mother's Day is generally
                 credited to Anna M. Jarvis . Most sources agree that Mother's Day was
                 first celebrated at a small church in West Virginia in 1907. It was a special
                 service arranged by Anna M. Jarvis to honor the memory of her own
                 mother. Seven years later, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed
                 Mother's Day a national holiday.

                 History books, even the field of women's history, often overlook Anna
                 Jarvis' one-woman crusade. Perhaps this is because women were engaged
                 in so many other reform efforts during the early 1900s. These reforms and
                 the avenues they opened for women give historical context to the campaign
                 for Mother's Day and the life of Anna Jarvis.

                 Women are extremely prominent in early 20th century history. For
                 example, the National American Women's Suffrage Association's struggle
                 to attain the vote is widely recognized, as are progressive reformers such as
                 Jane Addams, who, with her Hull House, worked to ease the social ills,
                 particularly the woes of immigrants and the working class. In recent years,
                 enlightened scholars have also highlighted the tireless efforts of Black
                 women, such as Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, who sought to
                 organize both for women's rights and for the protection of African
                 American rights.

                 Many of these reformers were mothers as well as activists, but their
                 contribution as mothers was often overlooked. The creation of Mother's
                 Day as a national holiday restored Mom's status as a cornerstone of the
                 family and the nation.

                 Anna Jarvis came of age surrounded by Progressive reform efforts. She
                 was raised in the small town of Grafton, West Virginia (now the site of an
                 International Mother's Day Shrine). She taught school in Grafton, cared for
                 her blind sister and her mother, participated in the temperance and suffrage
                 movements, and was active in the local Methodist church. When her
                 mother died in 1904, Ms. Jarvis sought a special memorial Mother's Day
                 Service at the church. It took three years, but she eventually got her wish;
                 the first Mother's Day service, mostly a gathering of friends and family
                 members, was held on May 10, 1907.

                 The roles of women -- and mothers -- were changing rapidly during this
                 period as women stepped down from the pedestals of Victorian
                 womanhood. The Progressive Era (1900-1920), saw women emerge from
                 the cocoon of the household into the vastness of community building and
                 politics. Women such as Ms. Jarvis explored beyond their roles as
                 housekeeper, mother, homemaker, and wife, but did not reject those roles.
                 Rather, they expanded them into the public arena. "The statement that the
                 home was woman's sphere was not an argument against women's suffrage
                 but in favor of it," notes feminist scholar Aileen S. Kraditor, "for
                 government was 'enlarged housekeeping,' and it needed the experiences of
                 the nation's housekeepers."

                 Ms. Jarvis spent two fortunes, wrote thousands of letters to influential
                 persons and authored many pamphlets in her effort to gain recognition for
                 the traditional female role of motherhood. Nine years after she first sought a
                 memorial service, Pennsylvania declared Mother's Day a state holiday in
                 1913.(Jarvis had moved from West Virginia to Pennsylvania in 1904 to
                 take a positions as a literary editor for a Philadelphia based company.)
                 Congress followed Pennsylvania's lead a year later, proclaiming the second
                 Sunday of May as Mother's Day.

                 Today, most of us celebrate Mother's Day with little awareness of how it
                 began. But we can identify with the respect, love and honor that Anna
                 Jarvis displayed nearly a century ago. Women, especially mothers, face
                 face new challenges in society today, but motherhood remains a lasting
                 influence on us as individuals and as a nation. The love that was officially
                 recognized in 1907 is the same love that we celebrate today. We may not
                 be as reform-minded as Anna Jarvis, but in our own way we can make this
                 a special day.

 
     Want to show your mom you care for free, online?
Click the rose to try the very excellent DearMom.com.