Look Out Upon the Myriad Arbor
Today is both Arbor Day and Walpurgis Night, two holidays to which I've never put a whole lot of thought. Frankly, I'm not quite sure why, if we already had Arbor Day, we really needed Earth Day, especially in the same month. Did the creators of Earth Day think Arbor Day had gotten too commercial? I know I'm sick of how you can't walk into a store at this time of year without finding racks of Arbor Day cards, green and brown M&M's, and novelty oak trees that play Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" when you clap your hands. And what about that annoyingly commercial mascot, Millie the Lonely Maple, the source of a song by Johnny Marks and a Rankin-Bass stop-motion special? Anyway, I hope you planted a tree today, because I didn't.
As for Walpurgis Night, it's actually named after St. Walpurga, the eighth-century English missionary to what is now Germany. It really sounds, however, like it should be some kind of creature that's part walrus and part something else. Maybe a cross between a walrus, a cat, and a jellyfish. If I knew how to draw, maybe I'd come up with my own depiction of this monstrosity, but I don't. Maybe one of my fans could do it, if I had fans. Anyway, in Germany, it's regarded as the night when witches meet for their crazy celebrations on the mountain known as Brocken or Blocksberg. I don't think you see as much of that here. America has a reputation of being unfriendly to witches, what with the stories of witches being burned alive by the Puritans in Salem. This, however, is entirely untrue. The Puritans actually HANGED witches, which is an important distinction. Hanging leaves the body intact and able to be resurrected with a spell like Life 3 from Final Fantasy VI. And really, what self-respecting magic-worker WOULDN'T take such a precaution before going to the gallows? The only problem was the people they were hanging WEREN'T witches, but simply unpopular people. Perhaps witch hunts were yet another case of the popular kids attacking the nerds. You know, the eggheads who thought medicine was more effective than a Hail Mary for curing disease.
Since it's past midnight, I guess that means it's technically May Day, which was widely regarded as the first day of summer before everyone became sticklers for the solstice. I'll be sure to celebrate by dancing around the maypole and watching that Rankin-Bass classic, Bella, the Beltane Bellbird.