May is both a beautiful and intelligent month, being under the two signs of Taurus (Art of Living, flowers) and Gemini (Mercury’s messages). The Taurus keynote is “Let Struggle within duality be undismayed” allowing harmony to emerge from conflicts and chaos. Gemini’s keynote is“let instability do it’s purifying work.”Humanity learns through struggle and instability. They help each of us build a strong interactive personality, the vehicle that interacts with nature and the beauty of form and matter.

May Day (May 1st)is a day of various celebrations and commemorations, from ancient times to the present. It isthe Festival of Flora (Roman Goddess of flowers). Floralia was a five-day Roman celebration. For the Druids, a new fire was lit on Beltane (May Day) signifying the life of the springtime sun. Cattle were driven through the fires for purification. In Catholicism, May is Mary’s month.

On May Day the Virgin Mary, Queen of May is crowned with flowers. At Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood, Mary’s Day (directed by Sister Corita) was celebrated yearly with parades, art, flowers, singing.

In earlier, simpler times, May baskets, containing sweets, breads, fruits and flowers, were given as gifts, left anonymously on doorsteps, hung from doorknobs.

In India, May 1st is International Workers Day. In China it’s Labor Day, a public holiday. In England (and in America) there’s Morris Dancing and festivities around a Maypole (circle dance with ribbons). May Day in earlier times celebrated springtime fertility, early harvests with fetes and community gatherings. In America, May Day is International Workers Day, Loyalty Day, and Law Day.

May Day marks the end of the unfarmable winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. We also know Mayday as an international distress signal, an emergency code word, from the French venez m’aider, meaning ‘Come help me’. The puritans frowned on May Day (celebrations). We end the month with the Festival of Humanity. For more information each day and during May see Risa’s website – www.nightlightnews.org/Daily Studies.

ARIES: Be aware this month of defining your self-identity (a good thing) in terms of possessions (not necessarily reality). It’s good to have needs met, informing us of our financial capabilities. However, possessions don’t define identity or self as valuable – a spiritual lens is needed for continual refreshing and remembering. What is the message here? You’re valuable not only in money but in spirit.

TAURUS: Attempt to express thoughts and feelings of love, appreciation, care and nurturance to those close to you. You’re considering ways of using resources for future investments. Yes, this is good. But first you must tend to unfinished business, communications, finances, and responsibilities. This may be difficult and will take discipline. But you must have order to have the presence of mind for your next endeavor that answers to a world in need.

GEMINI: Working quietly and in solitude (even if in the world), preparing to dream and remember those dreams, asking yourself serious questions and awaiting the revelatory answers is part of this week and month’s inner agenda. Simultaneously, something may appear that becomes a resource, like a group you finally identify with. Each day search for what’s hidden and valuable. Your values are becoming universal. Community beckons.

CANCER: You need to communicate more, share experiences, aspirations, hopes, wishes and dreams. You cannot keep yourself isolated. It is not healthy to do so. Who, beyond family, are your friends? They provide you with challenges, yes. However, they are your true family. You must take authentic steps toward them. Also, garden as if your life depended upon it.

LEO: You have a deep strength assisting you when everything seems strange, difficult, tedious or restricted. This strength holds you in safety and assurance that needs will be provided. Your accomplishments in the world are important, valuable and purposeful. But there’s one question. If you are unhappy, what do you wish you were doing instead? Where and why?

VIRGO: It’s possible you feel restrictions in your physical body coming from how you value and see yourself and perhaps in thinking of yourself as not free or creative. A new sense of internal structure is forming, providing you with a new perspective to overview who you would like to be. It’s possible previous philosophical beliefs will change. This leads to liberation of values.

LIBRA: Take time to assess friends, intimates, partnerships and environments. By participating with others and sharing resources, you’re creating deep and lasting connections (which releases Love) that provide comfort, care and regeneration. There are relationships of separation, however, that also must be assessed. What are they? You have ignored them too long. What we reject stays intimately with us. Sadness is the result.

SCORPIO: Very interesting times. It’s possible you’ve become (or want to) attracted to something deep and mysterious. Simultaneously you seek new experiences leading to safety and security, joint resources, and intimacy. You desire to experience the Art of Living. These are good. Do be aware though that if you attract what’s sad and moody, you too become this way. Be awake and aware of various levels of energy floating around. They are subtle.

SAGITTARIUS: You need freedom, a new level of harmony, a release from struggle and duality following you around. You’re waiting for a life change, resolution of conflict, and refinement of things financial. At work, tend carefully to those around you. Here is a little mantram that the New Group of World Servers recites at noon. Perhaps you will join us. “I know O Lord of life and love about the need. Touch my heart anew with love, so I may love and give.”

CAPRICORN: As everything of value centers around your domestic life, it’s important to realize that your goodness is about who and what you embrace, how you care, whom you include and nourish and what you create. Your goodness is not about what you do, deny, resist or exclude. Life is a great discipline. We live on multiple levels simultaneously and within paradox. This is a seed thought to meditate, rely upon and hum like a mantram.

AQUARIUS: As you feel grateful (and missing) for home and family, you create closer contact (releasing love) with everyone else. Looking into your past, you realize what choices and actions determine the quality of your present and future life. This is a mathematical equation. You are the foundation of your life. You will build from this position. Walk around your neighborhood. Take architectural and gardening notes.

PISCES: Tend to money carefully. Tell everyone they are of great value and worth. Know many will not understand. Speak anyway. It maybe you have one good day and several confused and disoriented days. Rest within the confusion. A new harmony will come forth. Create a journal of the perfect village, community with gardens. Resources begin to be structured differently. A new rhythm of values emerges. You are valuable.