When I was a girl I read in a Susan Branch book about the folkloric belief in the healing and beautifying powers imbued in the dew of May 1st. Since then it's been thirty years, and I have made a point to celebrate May 1st by touching the dew, gathering flowers, crowning Mary and eventually collecting ounces of dew in bottles and pyrex measuring cups.
Images from my Instagram Memory entitled "May 1"
Wooden Marian shrine nailed to a flowering tree
Dew drops in blue bottles
May 1st by Beach Fossils
A dark recess in the bamboo provides a vignette for a suspended stick,
wrapped by a dead vine like a snake
Black rubber boots and a white April Cornell nightgown
Three miniature bottles of dew on the windowsill, corked
Recipe for Beltane lemonade
Cottonmouth vertebrae, painted gold, used as a crown
Deer tracks and tufts of hair in the cracked, muddy, entrance to the woods
A sighting of a centaur on the dirt road
Sandals with iridescent straps on the cypress porch
A turreted castle surrounded by lilac flowering bushes
A carpet of purple prairie verbena along the dirt road
Multi faceted crystal bottle of May dew with stopper
Thistle sprite
Giant wisteria bunch in the woods we called "our mistletoe"
An aproned woman disappearing into the darkness of the woods, surrounded by fireflies
A fresh bottle of dew with roses
Touching a drop of dew on the cattle fence
White dress and overlay doublet tied twice at the waist
May crowning and goûter at the Academy atop the Holy Coteau
Singing the Magnificat in rounds
Touching the dew that remained in the pine shadow to our faces
Self-heal flowering on my path
Procession and bouquet of blue Louisiana irises for Mater
Pink, light blue and white linen, a light blue cameo
Fresh swamp roses, a prairie painting
Marius plays the Mardi Gras song, adds a minor harmony
Blue pool, a clean journal page
Elderflower tops floating in the water
Dew drops in blue bottles
May 1st by Beach Fossils
A dark recess in the bamboo provides a vignette for a suspended stick,
wrapped by a dead vine like a snake
Black rubber boots and a white April Cornell nightgown
Three miniature bottles of dew on the windowsill, corked
Recipe for Beltane lemonade
Cottonmouth vertebrae, painted gold, used as a crown
Deer tracks and tufts of hair in the cracked, muddy, entrance to the woods
A sighting of a centaur on the dirt road
Sandals with iridescent straps on the cypress porch
A turreted castle surrounded by lilac flowering bushes
A carpet of purple prairie verbena along the dirt road
Multi faceted crystal bottle of May dew with stopper
Thistle sprite
Giant wisteria bunch in the woods we called "our mistletoe"
An aproned woman disappearing into the darkness of the woods, surrounded by fireflies
A fresh bottle of dew with roses
Touching a drop of dew on the cattle fence
White dress and overlay doublet tied twice at the waist
May crowning and goûter at the Academy atop the Holy Coteau
Singing the Magnificat in rounds
Touching the dew that remained in the pine shadow to our faces
Self-heal flowering on my path
Procession and bouquet of blue Louisiana irises for Mater
Pink, light blue and white linen, a light blue cameo
Fresh swamp roses, a prairie painting
Marius plays the Mardi Gras song, adds a minor harmony
Blue pool, a clean journal page
Elderflower tops floating in the water
