The Pagans are Coming! The Pagans are Coming!

Every year, on the first Sunday after May Day (or Beltane) people come out of the woodwork to gather in the woods behind the state house in Montpelier, Vermont for an event we call All Species Day.

I learned about it three years ago and it happened that my birthday, May 1rst, was on that first Sunday, so I got to celebrate it in this old traditional way. It was like a coming home. A hundred or so people of all ages gather in a circle in a feild around noon and witness or join in in a ritual to honor all the directions and their elements.

All the winged creatures of the East dance around in a procession within the circle.... little kids with paper mache beaks, old men on stilts with raven's wings. Then the summer creatures of the south, the lions, the goats (there was an actual goat on a leash this year!) took their turn within the circle singing their song to the south. Next came the pretty blues of the western waters... dolphins, little girls in their mermaid playclothes, a beautiful woman adorned in long blue dresses and silks and bells. And lastly, the earth creatures of the north... the elk, the deer, the bear. Old Abenaki women in leather mocassins and a man with the skin of a coyote draped across his shoulder.

After all the directions are honored, a bent old crone comes creeping into the circle, staff in hand. She crawls into a ring of haybales and disappears under her dark cloak. The familiar troop of dancers that organize this event every year start shaking their hips in their long white skirts and enter the circle in teasing waves, moving closer and closer to the center of the circle, to the heap of old crone and hay bales. They throw their petals onto the crones cloak, the dormant earth, convincing spring to come and then they sway back and forth, into and out of eachother and to and from the center.... like waves. Like sex. And only when the drums could beat no faster slender white fingers start to ripple from that heap of hay and then elbows and shoulders and long locks of dark brown hair and the shimmering green robes of the spring maiden. She's enticed, like Persephone, to come up from the underworld and bring with her the warmth and growth and rebirth that comes after every long winter. And meanwhile, the stag in his huge masked head and stilts, waits in the woods to guide us all in a drumming parade down the hill, across the street, around the roundabout and down Main Street and State Street in a long, colorful medley to the state house lawn. The dancers, still swaying their long white skirts, lead the parade and there are little kids dressed as rabbits, fairies, turtles, etc. all following parents dressed as older rabbits, fairies, turtles, etc. all walking slow in the procession. One of my friend's daughters trailed along a white paper mache crayfish, about two feet long and all trimmed appropriately in shades of pink, fastened to a little plastic rollerskate.

Once at the state house everyone spreads out their blankets on the big lawn and feeds their (by now) whinying, hungry children. People kick back to watch the spring maiden and paper mache stag do their hand fasting and copulation dance on the steps of the capital. The kids come back to life and jump off the canons, play chase, freak out and do their thing. Some more drumming, some more African dancing, a may pole dance led by fiddle and guitar and then everyone slowly trickles home to wait for next year.

I think sometimes about the people of my hometown, that old coal mining town where the politicians are all crooks and the general population is just generally disgruntled. Where it seems the atmosphere and enthusiasm are still coughing up old coal dust.... and I wonder what they would do if this scene came strolling into town, drums beating and plopped themselves down in front of the courthouse.....if a spring maiden and a handsome, bearded stag simulated good lovins right there with cars driving by and life going on. I look up at Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, all gold and overlooking atop the capital building and I thank something or someone somewhere that I landed here, of all places.

The whole thing might be a little more foof than I prefer but I love it all the same and am so grateful that my daughter looks forward to it every year.

Oh, and if anyone knows how to spell paper mache, let me know.