The other side of Vinotok

The new Mountain May Celebration of spring, Saturday, May 24

The spring renewal is felt in every living thing, whether it’s the green buds and leaves emerging, the frolic of newborn calves or the joy of not having to shovel your roof until next winter. 

Spring has been cause to celebrate from early times and is thick with rituals from various cultures. It seems appropriate, in a town lively with a week of uniquely Crested Butte Vinotok festivities during the autumnal equinox, that a celebration of the waning snow and the waking of the gardens is long overdue.
The tradition of May Day, commonly held May 1 and with ancient roots in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, marks the halfway point between spring equinox and summer solstice.
The problem with celebrating spring and its greening on May 1 in our valley is that we are, at almost 9,000 feet, pretty much still in semi-winter mode. Winter hasn’t retreated as it has at lower altitudes. In fact, it’s that rare and wondrous twixt universes where you can still ski in the morning and ride your mountain bike in the afternoon.
In a collaboration between the Mountain Roots Food Project, the Vinotok committee and members of the community, a new festival has been born.
The Mountain May Celebration will be held Saturday, May 24, starting at 4:30 p.m. at 2nd and Elk. The festival will include community- and family-oriented events like street theatre, storytelling, the return of the Green Man, dances by the maidens and lads, a procession of the Root Children, the Crowning of the Green Goddess, and a traditional Maypole dance weaving of the ribbons, all followed by a local food feast at Kochevar’s with live music by the bluegrass band Simpler Times. Afterward, there’ll be community fire gatherings in the street.
Mountain Roots director Holly Conn says many who are excited about the new event always wanted a May Day celebration and adds, “We all want this to be really accessible to everyone.”
Conn feels this celebration is about the greening of the valley, especially for families. “There’s an element to this that’s full of hope. It’s about regrowth,” she says, and explains that the community will also be able to dance around the Maypole being set up on the west end of Elk.
Grand Mistress of storytelling, Marcie Telander, will write the story to go along with the event, where the Green Man returns dressed in his winter white, only to shed his cloak for the greening. He will also crown the Green Goddess, a new honorary title for a Buttian woman to attain, and along with the Vinotok maidens and lads, there’ll be much dancing as part of the street theatre.
For kids, there are the Root Children. All children are encouraged to dress up as spring characters—butterflies, fairies, elves, beetles, flowers, bees. “The Root Children” is an old German fairytale from the 1800s. They live underground throughout the winter hibernation and as the earth begins her spring warming, the Root Children wake and sew their new clothing from sprouts of leaves and flowers that will come with the spring. They paint the all the bugs and butterflies and they polish the beetles, and when it’s time and spring has come, Mother Earth leads them out of the ground to go forth and scatter the bugs, bumblebees and flowers during the greening.
How cool is that?
The participation of the children is one of the key elements in the new event, Conn says. “Our idea is that this event is about flowers and life and so we want to encourage families with children to dress their kids like Root Children. Any child who comes in a costume can be part of the Root Children procession and dance.”
And of course, “adults” (or anyone who must admit to being one) are highly encouraged to costume up in spring-themed outfits, gnomes, elves, head wreaths of flowers, or any sort of green spirit. You probably already have the makings in your costume trunk.
As with most Maypole traditions, men will carry the Maypole to a specially built stand on Elk Avenue, where it will be placed and the ribbons woven around it in dance.
Afterward, the Maypole will be displayed at the Mountain Roots garden on Elk for the remainder of the year.
As at Vinotok, when the community writes their grumps to be burned, the Mountain May Celebration asks the people to make a written commitment to the earth, such as, for example, “I will plant a garden,” “I will stop drinking bottled water,” or “I will recycle.” Those written commitments will then be planted into one of the Mountain Roots gardens and people can imagine their vow growing to fruition.
The community dinner will be prepared with all regional and local farm foods from the North Fork valley whose greenhouses are already bountiful with greens. Desserts will feature cherries and apples from Delicious Orchards (frozen fresh from last year’s harvest). Storage crops (think potatoes, beets, etc.) will also be served. The pork is coming from Jubilee Farms in Olathe. Conn points out the menu will be based on what’s seasonally available at the time.
The emphasis of the feast and entire celebration, Conn says, is to build community spirit and encourage people to get involved in their food systems and closer to nature. “The celebration is a two-fold idea, the greening of the valley on a seasonal level and the celebration of the shift that’s happening, where people are getting more actively involved with the greening of the earth, the movement and the philosophy.”

For more information visit mountainrootsfoodproject.org, and Facebook, of course.