Tag: may

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

It’s time to stand still a moment, look up, and breathe. Saturday night at 11:34 PM EDT the moon will reach its perigee, its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit and one minute later it become full. According to NASA, 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the other full moons of 2012.

Saturday also marks the midpoint of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The exact moment between the March equinox and the June solstice occurs at 10:11 a.m. EDT May 5.  

High tide will be higher and low tide will be lower. The only worry there is if Manhattan slides away into the Atlantic but Long Island would have to go first.

But whatever you’re doing, take time to go out side, stand still a moment to look up at the night sky and breathe.

Cross posted at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Beltane, the old Gaelic name for the month of May, is the last of the three Wiccan spring fertility festivals, the others being Imbolc and Ostara. Beltane is the second principal Celtic festival (the other being Samhain). Celebrated approximately halfway between Vernal (spring) equinox and the midsummer (Summer Solstice). Beltane traditionally marked the arrival if summer in ancient times. It is one of eight solar Sabbats.

Beltane, like Samhain, is a time of “no time” when the veils between the two worlds are at their thinnest. No time is when the two worlds intermingle and unite and the magic abounds! It is the time when the Faeries return from their winter respite, carefree and full of faery mischief and faery delight. On the night before Beltane, in times past, folks would place rowan branches at their windows and doors for protection, many otherworldly occurrences could transpire during this time of “no time”. Traditionally on the Isle of Man, the youngest member of the family gathers primroses on the eve before Beltane and throws the flowers at the door of the home for protection. In Ireland it is believed that food left over from May Eve must not be eaten, but rather buried or left as an offering to the faery instead. Much like the tradition of leaving of whatever is not harvested from the fields on Samhain, food on the time of no time is treated with great care.

When the veils are so thin it is an extremely magical time, it is said that the Queen of the Faeries rides out on her white horse. Roving about on Beltane eve She will try to entice people away to the Faeryland. Legend has it that if you sit beneath a tree on Beltane night, you may see the Faery Queen or hear the sound of Her horse’s bells as She rides through the night. Legend says if you hide your face, She will pass you by but if you look at Her, She may choose you. There is a Scottish ballad of this called Thomas the Rhymer, in which Thomas chooses to go the Faeryland with the Queen and has not been seen since.

Tonight, when the Beltane fires are lit, there will be some sadness in out hearts. A good man, and one of my favorite DFH activists, Ben Masel has passed through that thin veil to the Summerlands.

Ben was from Wisconsin and the perennial candidate for public office, including the US Senate. He was diagnosed earlier this year with lung cancer and was in the hospital when the protests in Madison started. Against all advice, he left the hospital to join the protest. he diaried them at Daily Kos, he tweeted and documented the events on his FaceBook page.

I met him in Pittsburgh and looked forward to seeing him this June. We exchanged e-mails and private tweets about his health and the wisdom of leaving the hospital to join the protests in Wisconsin. It was what he wanted to do in the time he had, while he still could.

I can still feel his hug when we met. He will always be in my heart.

He will be remembered tonight when we light the Beltane fires.

May the Goddess guide him on his journey to the Summerlands. May his family and friends find Peace.

Blessed be. The Wheel Turns.

I’ve been trying to get around to posting a follow-up on the May One at Faneuil Hall thing. I’ve got lots of great pix but my battery went semi-dead the last week. Not the camera battery, my posting battery. Maybe it’s my digestion – of life in Bush’s America circa 2008. Turning over the compost piles and planting things has been taking up my mind. So I was thinking earlier that it’s been seven full days since then and rising up from memory comes the book of the title name. Synchronicity sends me wandering down the rabbit hole.

Seven Days in May was both a book and a movie, both of them pretty good. It’s a political thriller about a plot by the Pentagon to pull off a bloodless (more or less) coup to overthrow the president. The problem with the president is he’s not sufficiently anti-Communist for the right-wing plotters. He’s actually about to sign a treaty with the Soviets to mutually nuclearly disarm.

The plot itself, called ECOMCON (for “Emergency Communications Control”), entails the seizure of the nation’s telephone, radio and television network infrastructure by a secret United States Army combat unit created and controlled by Scott’s conspiracy and based near Fort Bliss, Texas. Once this is done, General Scott and his conspirators will control the nation’s communications assets; then, from their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called “Mount Thunder” (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), they will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty.

The book came out in ’62 and the movie in ’64. The movie was shot in ’63 while Kennedy was still alive. He encouraged the filmmakers by heading home to the Cape when they needed to get shots done around the White House; the Pentagon was none too pleased. If written today the authors would have to add in cell phones, cable and the internet to complete the communications media needed to be controlled. Take a jump to the link above for some solid background and I’ll give you a tour of the rabbit warren. We’re going to visit Granddaddy Bush and Dick Cheney’s Undisclosed Location – Raven Rock. We’ll see an actual coup d’etat plot against FDR, Lee Harvey Oswald will jump up in a plot line you’ve probably never even heard of and you may even get a whiff of a hint of a sense of the presence behind the curtain. Who knows?

Feel free to break out the Reynolds Wrap.