(The phrase above is a prompt and prompts are counted inside parentheses.)
I have always loved the month May. In the area of the U.S. in which I grew up May was filled with blossoms. Probably due to being a May baby, the lilac blossoms, peony blossoms, trillium, lily of the valley, hepatica, and so many more seemed like they heralded the arrival of my personal holiday. (1 prompt)
May is a boom time for blooms. What is blooming where you live? Saguaros are blooming, a bit early, where I live. What is the the official flower of your state? (2 prompts!)
May 1st
May Day
May is welcomed in with celebration, or at least it once was. May Day, May 1st, was a time for festivals, maypoles, may baskets, May Queen, washing in the early morning dew so you will be beautiful throughout the year. May Day traditions lived on in the Rural United States with pageants, Queens, and poles through the early part of the 20th Century. (6 prompts.) And then of course there is the enigmatic Led Zeppelin lyric involving, “a spring clean for the May Queen.” (7 prompts)
Labor Day
And of course everywhere but the U.S., or so it seems, observes Labor Day on May 1. International Workers of the World and all that. (1 prompt)
Beltane
Beltane was observed in Celtic regions on May 1st and most likely was forebearer of the more recent May Day. Beltane is the halfway point between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. Beltane would be the beginning of Summer in any calendar that considers the Summer Solstice to be the height of Summer, the longest day, and often the hottest day of the year. (3 prompts)
Mothers and Others
May closes the contemporary rituals of Spring that celebrate the female and renewal. We have those? Yes we do! International Women’s Day, March 8th, starts the contemporary celebration of women. Earth Day follows as the second node of this new tripartite set of events. Mother’s Day of course provides the third point.
Mother’s Day as a “card and cake” celebration is a recent invention and not one ever intended to be celebrated so superficially. Last year I wrote about the Two Mothers of Mother’s Day. Both trace to the post-Civil War era when the U.S. was still mourning the staggering loss of life in that war and dealing with the self loathing associated with the slaughter of kindred. But as that article states the momentum toward creating a Mother’s Day that remembers the sentiments behind its conception.
In the meanwhile, let us remember all mothers throughout time. The love of mothers through time is proved time and again, most recently in the 4,800 years old remains of a mother and child found in Taiwan.
Now moving from scenes of birth to celebrations of birth (with no less than 8 prompts jumping out at you), let us turn to women worthy of a few words by you, if you are so inclined:
May 4, 1916 (2006) – Jane Jacobs, journalist, author, and urban studies activist, wrote The Death and Life of the Great American Cities in 1961. She opposed the “urban renewal” that demolished supposed urban blight and destroyed vibrant, urban, and chaotic communities.
May 5, 1942 (1998) – Tammy Wynette, country music singer, after first success in 1967 had more than 20 songs go to #1, Grammy Award for “Stand By Your Man” (1968)
May 5, 1864 (1922) – Elizabeth Seaman, pen name “Nellie Bly,” investigative journalist, wrote expose of mental asylum (1887), set a record for circling the world in 72 days (1890)
May 11, 1894 (1991) – Martha Graham, modern dance innovator and choreographer, first dancer to perform at the White House
May 12, 1907 (2003) – Katharine Hepburn, actor, performed for more than 60 years, won four Academy Awards for best actress including “The Philadelphia Story” and “On Golden Pond,” named top American screen legend of all time by American Film Institute (1999)
May 18, 1970 – Tina Fey, television writer, producer, and actor, first female head writer for “Saturday Night Live” (1999), creator of television series “30 Rock”, youngest winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (2010)
May 26, 1951 (2012) – Sally Ride, astrophysicist, first American woman astronaut
May 26, 1924 (1977) – Thelma Hill, dancer, choreographer, educator, co-founder of the New York Negro Ballet Company (1954), one of the founders of the dance troupe that became the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, after an injury focused on teaching dance
Rachel Carson , 1940. Official Fish and Wildlife Portrait.
May 27, 1907 (1964) – Rachel Carson, scientist, environmentalist, and author of several books. “The Silent Spring” which became a cornerstone of the modern environmental protection movement was her most successful and influential work.
(at least 8 birthday prompts)
Women’s Achievements of May
May 1, 1950 – Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. named Library of Congress’s Consultant in Poetry (later called Poet Laureate) in 1985
May 8, 1914 – Anna Garvis succeeds in having an official day honoring her mother and all the mothers that held Mother’s Friendship Day Gatherings after the Civil War. President Woodrow Wilson signs a Proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
May 21, 1932 – Amelia Earhart Putnam becomes the first woman to complete a solo-transatlantic flight by flying 2,026 miles
May 29, 1977 – Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to qualify for and complete the Indy 500 car race
( 6 prompts for events – if you count the Indy 500 as a separate prompt)
Music
The music prompt for this month is an image by John Paul Filo – Pulitzer Prize, 1971 – of an event at Kent State on May 4, 1970 that prompted Neil Young of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to write, “Ohio.”
That totals up to over 35 prompts for this month! Now go write or record up a storm about these folks, you, and/or the month of May!
Mothers are probably the most influential people in the world. I am not sure that it was always this way for every culture in the world. In Sparta, mothers gave their sons over to the state to begin training as warriors at age seven. In upper class, historic, European families mothers did not nurse or breastfeed their children, were largely reared by wet nurses, nannies, and governesses , then sent away to school at an early age. In earlier times children older than toddlers essentially were treated as small adults, worked in the fields alongside adults, and had hard lives with no special treatment by mothers and others.
Other things that could have impacted motherly behavior and attitude was the very high rate of infant and child death, a large number of pregnancies, and older siblings providing most of the care for younger siblings. The mother of today was not the mother of yesterday, but we will never really know the full story, as home life and women’s roles were often ignored, diminished or mischaracterized in documents that mentioned them as all.
And The Others
Not all women are mothers, but all women can, theoretically, mentor, influence and love. When you consider the people who have shaped your life in unexpected ways, mentors, role models, heroines from history might all have nourished the spark of an idea within you, or nurtured an aspect of yourself when no one else cared to do so. There is no reason to believe that earlier times were different, although the communities and information bases to which girls had access were quite small compared to the size and number of spheres of interaction in today’s world.
Teachers are probably the most often mentioned persons that have significant influence on children and young adults. Those influences can be recalled fondly by adults who took encouragement from the attention and guidance of someone who took the time to help, instruct, or just talk to them when they were children in a way or at a time that was critical in their lives. Teacher working at her classroom desk
Surrogate grandmothers and neighbor ladies are undervalued in their influence. The women who offer the alternative views to the status quo, eccentrics, old maids, crazy cat ladies, pigeon feeders, and other women who have born labels such as witches, the outliers to so-called appropriate society hold a wealth of knowledge to which mainstream society would prefer go away or be suppressed. These are the secrets of folk medicine, underground railways, speakers of truth to power, and of life based on what really happens when you break the rules.
Nearly forgotten family women, the women behind the old lockets, letters, and handkerchieves tied with ribbons in boxes and attics, can capture our imaginations with the small details remembered through decades and even centuries passed. These women, known perhaps only by first names and husbands’ family names become iconic nails in the wall of a hallway of memories and stories through which we walk when we need to gather up and draw upon the meanings we may have layered over them and which we cannot find among our current experiences. They allow us to claim family or genetic origins for the strength, inspiration, and traits we need to summon up in ourselves.
The image below is of Gene Stratton-Porter. She was one of the early amateur science writers and photographers who employed ethological methods unheard of in the scientific literature until half a century later when Jane Goodall made time-intensive, nonaggressive acclimation standard procedure in her studies of chimpanzees.
Women involved in natural sciences, travel, and documentary production often received sparks of inspiration from women like Goodall and Gene Stratton-Porter. Rachel Carson drew inspiration from Gene Stratton-Porter’s best selling fiction, such as Song of the Cardinal, the method through which Porter financed her amateur science publications. These oft unknown influences and role-models shapes the behavior of women at the very highest levels of societal organization.
There are so many ways that women through time support those women who come after them. We only know the stories of some of these women. Many stories of influence just are not preserved. It is not only good, it is world-changing when we acknowledge our inspirational foremothers.
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May 4, 1916 (2006) – Jane Jacobs, journalist, author, and urban studies activist, wrote The Death and Life of the Great American Cities in 1961. She opposed the “urban renewal” that demolished supposed urban blight and destroyed vibrant, urban, and chaotic communities.
