May Day
“Among the changing months, May stands confessed the sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed.”
– James Thompson
On May 1, countless people around the world celebrate May Day, the spring holiday. Celebrating the Earth’s flowering season, May Day roughly marks the halfway point between the Northern Hemisphere’s Spring equinox and the summer solstice in June. The centerpiece of the May Day celebrations is the maypole dance painted with different colors. As both a celestial and geographic pole, the maypole symbolizes many things, among them the axis mundi, a point of connection (integration) between the earth and sky where the four compasses meet at the common center of the world. The maypole also symbolizes the soul’s liminal nature as nexus connecting the visible and invisible worlds, joining its entire being to the world and universe around them as the creative principle of all life. In the scientific world, the axis mundi is otherwise known as the Zero Point Field (ZPF) or Vacuum state, the invisible portal (quantum field) that embodies-incarnates-inspirits all things at all scales in the visible order, micro to macro.
Seems the world’s favorite season is spring, perhaps because all things seem possible as they “spring” anew, endings turning into new beginnings everywhere in the ongoing Circle of Life.
May 1 is also the earth birthday of Teilhard de Chardin, SJ some 143 years ago. Recall, Teilhard was the French scientist, philosopher, paleontologist, and mystic best known for his theory that mankind is evolving mentally and socially toward a final spiritual unity, which he termed the Omega Point of history. Toward that end, his vision pivots on the development of a Spirit-Science Synthesis informed by the axis mundi as Source, and the identification of its substance in the implicate (invisible/quantum) order which informs and gives rise to the explicate (visible/material) one. Lest we forget, Teilhard emphasized that spirituality is primarily about seeing, particularly seeing in wholes and the interbeing nature (oneness) of all things. Without spiritual light (enlightenment), there can be no spiritual sight, indispensable to seeing the big picture and telling the New Story in a comprehensive way.
New discoveries in science and archeology/paleontology are happening regularly now, and must eventually be pieced and woven into the new universe story. Among them has been the recent discovery that the Tigris-Euphrates Valley (Fertile Crescent) was only one of a half dozen “cradles of civilization,” emerging in modern-day Iraq, Egypt, India, China, Peru, and Mexico between approximately 4000 and 3000 B.C. And as the ice continues to melt at the poles, complex structures like pyramids are beginning to poke through their slushy surface, raising questions as to who built them, and further queries into mankind’s ancient origins.
Too, studies in quantum physics and the nature of reality are pointing to the existence of a multiverse (as many as 26 quantum fields), implying that creation itself is an interface, a simulated reality with consciousness as its operating system, and atoms its bits, being run by a grand “computer,” (digital Creator) who all things point to beyond the simulation. It’s been suggested that perhaps humanity is this specific dimension in order to find its common denominator, and that elusive quality of love that heals and connects (that all things other than human manage to find, and with little difficulty), in preparation for advancing to another world (alternate reality) in the multiverse. At any rate, it seems our history books, already sorely in need of factual corrections and updates from decades past, will need more revisions moving forward.
Like the multi-colored maypole (axis mundi), a grand synthesis brings differing fields and apparent contraries together, like science and religion. But would you believe a Jesuit paleontologist and a story-telling troubadour? Generations and worlds apart, I’d like to think that Teilhard de Chardin and story-song writer Harry Chapin would have gotten along swimmingly. So much so that I imagined what a May Day Chapin birthday tribute to Teilhard might sound like to the tune of the latter’s 1974 hit song, “Cat’s in the Cradle” (click Resource tab). Oozing goodness from every pore, each man had a heart to serve humanity, and long after leaving this world each has left his indelible mark and legacy. No better way to celebrate new life and a new story other than with a new story song. With Old Man Winter readying to exchange his winter garb for colorful seasonal shorts and sandals, imagine sitting around the campfire with Harry retrofitting his old tune to a new story.
Along with spring cleaning this season, and with an eye toward clarity of vision in a fuzzy-thinking world, let’s not forget to cleanse the lens of holistic sight, aligning perception and thought accordingly in this season of renewal. As for “cradles of civilization,” ultimately there is only one cradle re: origins, and we owe it to Teilhard for being among the first to suggest as much, as well as to continue his work in telling that story with renewed vision and creative thought — even in song. One might say, especially in song. Already in progress, perhaps the details of that new story will come into greater focus on the spiraling road to Kingdom/Omega Come.
There is only one Keynote in the universe, one Keynote Speaker, and one power with many apps that informs and enlivens all things great and small. Divinity is all and in all, not all in some. All of nature inclines toward being in harmony with same, except on the human scene, where globally all must be renegotiated and redirected to align with this sacred ZPF axis/portal — governments, economies, schools, and religions. And all creation stories combined into one story consistent with updates in science. As foretold, coming events tend to cast their shadows before, making all things one in a universal Spirit-Science and all-inclusive Big Story.
Heaven and earth shall pass away. But my words shall not pass away .  .  . all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth (Matt. 24:35; 28:18,19).
Accompanied by Chapin’s tune below, may Teilhard’s christogenic song (lyrics) be sung on his May Day, earth day-birthday, perhaps while festively “dancing” around the maypole (spiritual axis) of your choice, literal or metaphoric.
To sing, it is said, is to pray twice:
Christ in the Cradle
A child arrived in France one day,
he came to the world in a curious way.
And there were fossils to find, and rocks to survey,
nature had so much to say.
And he was praying before you knew it,
and as he grew, he said,
“I wanna see like you, Lord,
you know I wanna see like you.”
And the Sheep and the Shepherd, and the Golden Rule,
the 23rd Psalm and Sunday School,
“When you comin’ back, Lord? I don’t know when,
but we’ll see together then, Lord,
we’re gonna be of one mind then.”
He became a priest who worked outdoors
on bones and fossils of carnivores,
where he caught the vision of sacred union
‘tween Spirit and matter in deep communion.
He’d say, “The Good Book was written in days of old,
with half the story still untold:
The kingdom come, thy will be done,
when Spirit and matter are seen as one.”
“There’s a fire,” he said, “that testifies,
to a spark in things that sanctifies.
Faith and science will merge one day,
but not before I pass away.”
He wrote and spoke about his vision,
while Rome held him in great derision.
They banned his books, and sent him away,
yet all the while he’d softly pray,
“I still wanna see like you, Lord,
you know I wanna see like you.”
And the Sheep and the Shepherd, and the Golden Rule,
the miracle at Bethesda Pool:
“When you comin’ back, Lord? I don’t know when,
but we’ll see together, then, Lord,
we’re gonna be of one mind then.”
He hoped to see his works in print,
but churchmen would have none of it.
Exiled in silence, now old and gray,
he up and died one Easter day.
Decades have passed, little is new,
wars continue and hate crimes too.
The earth is cooking as the oceans rise,
and the foolish overrule the wise.
Clerics are shamed, prophets ignored,
folk are divided, unity deplored.
Yet the man who was exiled far away
saw the world in a different way,
in the books he wrote, and the things he’d say
that hearts might change, and minds would sway:
“There’s a fire,” he said, “that testifies,
to a spark in things that christifies.
Faith and science will merge one day,
but not before I pass away.”
And as I pondered his words it occurred to me,
he saw things just like you, Lord,
he lived and died like you.
He was Christ in the cradle, and at Sunday School
preparing to play the holy fool
in the books he wrote, and the things he’d say,
that we might see in a better way.
And the Sheep and the Shepherd, and the Golden Rule,
the 23rd Psalm and Sunday School,
The Good book was written in days of old,
with half the story still untold:
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
when Spirit and matter are seen as one.
When you comin’ back, Lord? I don’t know when,
but we’ll see together then, Lord,
we’re gonna be of one mind then.