May Day: the Sermon
Here is the final section of the chapter on May Eve and May Day:
The Sermon
The theme of May Day is Consummation. Mythologically it is the uniting of the God with the Goddess that ensures the fruits of harvest, the birth of animals and the continuing life of the Gods Themselves. Mystically it is the uniting of the female with the male spirit to produce wholeness of soul, mystic understanding and the beginning of wisdom. In some ceremonies this has been symbolised by members of the party dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex, though I have not seen this myself, and therefore have not included it in the Ritual section. Nevertheless it is an expression of the unity of the opposites and describes the dichotomy that the sexual differentiation sometimes imposes upon us, and by momentarily abolishing this achieves a unity of outlook and feeling that underlies the concept of Consummation. The androgynous figure, a Hermes, is common to all mystic thought and important to the pagan understanding of sex.
