In the summer of 2014, my sister had a dream about me and my house. In her dream, there was nothing wrong with my house, despite all of the paranormal occurrences that had been taking place in it since February 2009. The problem, she said, was that there was something bad in the hedgerow—a word she remembered from the dream, which she said she “borrowed” from a Led Zeppelin song. She also dreamed that the house wasn’t really mine.
The Led Zeppelin song she referred to, “Stairway to Heaven,” is the same song that always creeped me out back in high school because I was told that it was full of demonic messages and that backmasking had been involved. Whether or not any of that is true, I don’t know, but I always turned the radio off whenever the song came on.
After my sister told me about her dream, I looked up the lyrics of the song, which I never paid any attention to when I was a teenager. But now as I read them all these years later, I think I notice a double meaning, though I suppose that isn’t surprising, given the era the song was written in and the influence the Rock music had in those days. There was a lot of weird stuff going on with Rock music back then, and supposedly the satanic element was infused into many of the songs, whether intentionally or unintentionally, which is a whole other discussion in itself.
Anyway, I looked up the lyrics with the word “hedgerow” in them, and this is what I found:
“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.”
I was raised not to put too much stock in dreams or dream meanings or anything of the sort. And I’m not going to start now, especially with the song that freaked me out so much when I was a kid. That really isn’t even my intention, anyway. But what made me start thinking after my sister had that dream is the hopefulness that maybe better days are ahead.
I think we can all agree that the world today seems upside down. What is right is wrong, what’s wrong is right, good seems to be overshadowed by evil, and nothing really feels comfortable or familiar anymore. That’s my perspective, but I know I’m not the only one who feels something is terribly off on this planet. However, could it be possible that this bizarre era we are living through is just a kind of pathway to something remarkable on the horizon? I say this as I reflect back on what I experienced in and around my house many years ago. Back then, I was so focused on my own personal struggles with the dark side that I failed to see the bigger picture: The world was changing, not just my little corner of it, and yet in my naiveté and self-focused perspective, all that mattered was that my house was infested with a demonic presence.
You’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with the title of this post and the Led Zeppelin song I mentioned earlier. Keep reading!
Looking Back and Looking Ahead
The fall of 2008 could have a double meaning. It was fall, the season, and it felt as if everything about me and around me had fallen that year. For starters, in the fall of 2008 came the fall of the stock market. But the market wasn’t the only thing that fell. My world felt as if it was collapsing all around me. Not only had I lost the person I had been planning to marry, but also around the same time most of my friends dropped out of my life, leaving this big blank void in place of what used to be people and music and laughter. One day I found myself standing in my kitchen and feeling terrified of the unknown. Suddenly, the vivacious person I’d always been was now broken and alone, and my life was an empty shell of what it had once been. The social me was suddenly a me I didn’t recognize, and the emotional pain was worse than any physical pain I had ever experienced.
I can’t get into the whys or hows of what was taking place back then because that would be a whole other story in itself. At another time I’ll expand on it, but for now I only mention it because I want to share something one of my sisters said when she was trying to console me. I had called to tell her about all that had gone so terribly wrong, and about the loss of my friends at a time when I needed them most. For a few moments she was quiet, but when she spoke, instead of telling me how sorry she was or blasting the people who had caused me such pain or awkwardly trying to fill phone silence with phony pep talk, she responded by telling me that it was life’s way of cleaning out the old and making way for the new. She said better days were coming. Better people would fill my life, new opportunities would present themselves. She was sure of it. I wasn’t so sure, but I clung to the hope that she was right. She gave me that bit of hope that I desperately needed. And sometimes, as was the case back then, hope is all we have. Sometimes it’s everything.
After my sister’s 2014 summer dream, I thought of what my other sister had said back in 2008. Both sisters, each in her own way and under different circumstances, were kind of saying the same thing. I convinced myself that the hedgerow was the problem, and that something malicious may be lurking around outside, but that inside my four walls I was safe. I told myself that there had been something stirring in my life—a disturbance that refused to go away, but that I needn’t be worried or afraid because it had to happen—a spring cleaning of sorts, in order to make way for, not the May Queen, as in “Stairway to Heaven,” but rather the Queen of May, who is the Blessed Mother. We must be careful with words here because the May Queen and the Queen of May have nothing to do with one another.
Prepare for the Queen of May
For those who may not know, which would be me before I researched the topic, the May Queen has its roots in paganism. You can read about it here. That’s why I said that the Blessed Mother, also called the Queen of May, and the May Queen are not one and the same.
Back in May, I attended a Mass where our priest, with the help of several young children, crowned a statue of Mary, and that of course is known as the May Crowning. We think of the Blessed Mother when we think of the month of May. It’s a season of spring—of new beginnings and starting over. But in a broader sense, I think of Mary, the Queen of May, as God’s gift to us, allowing us to see her in all her splendor as she takes her place in our hearts and in the entire world before the Second Coming of Christ. St. Louis De Montfort refers to the reign of Mary in several ways, one of them being the Age of Mary. I believe we are in the beginning of that period right now. As we reflect on the Blessed Mary’s motherly influence in our lives, honoring her for all that she is and all that she does for us on the road to salvation, we can think of her as our new beginning.
I believe now is the time to prepare for that new beginning, that Age of Mary, which will touch every heart and pour unimaginable graces into every soul that is disposed to receive those graces. We should think of our failures, hardships, personal challenges and setbacks, and even our darkest sins and deepest regrets as stepping stones to a new age. It’s time to clean house, so to speak, and sweep out the cobwebs and the dust to make way for the Age of Mary that is upon us! The devil cowers in fear when the Blessed Mother is near. He may still wreak havoc in our lives in various ways, but by no means is that a sign of his victory. In fact, it’s the exact opposite—true to his nature, the devil will flail about like a cornered animal when he knows he’s been captured and his time is running out. So take heart, and use those adversities to bring glory to God!
This is part of an old blog post I wrote back in 2014. I thought you may find it interesting:
Over the last four years since I started blogging, I have received numerous emails and comments from people all over the world experiencing stress and unhappiness, many of whom are convinced they are being plagued by evil spirits. These people have spoken of broken marriages, cheating spouses, drug-addicted children, husbands addicted to pornography, job losses, debt, despair, depression, and countless other physical and mental ailments that have ruined lives and caused unthinkable pain and suffering. Many of these people have shared stories similar to mine, where they feel as if they are being followed by a dark cloud and even stalked by things unseen, as their homes and lives in general are turned upside down by paranormal occurrences, demonic entities, evil spirits—whatever you choose to call them. I write this article with all of those people in mind, in the hopes that they will read it and know that better days are coming.
Whether we realize it or not, we all have a chance at a new beginning. None of us are really as *stuck* as we may think. We weren’t put on this earth to live our lives on a hamster wheel—spinning round and round but going nowhere, with nothing but death and finality at the end of the journey. We are all so much greater than that! But so many people are bogged down in such a state of misery that they have no idea how to pick themselves up and move forward into better and brighter days. They have nothing guiding them, no one encouraging them, nothing directing them one way or the other. They feel lost. And why wouldn’t they?
Some say we are in the end times. There is so much destruction and despair everywhere we turn. These are times of stress. There are wars and rumors of wars. People have become obsessed with self-promotion, and the culture has taken self-infatuation and narcissism to an unprecedented level. There are natural disasters of all kinds, and there are unnatural disasters as well—manufactured crises and diabolic trickery that causes masses of people to fall for a great delusion. Senior folks say they have never seen the world in as miserable a condition as it is today. For sure, the darkness seems to abound.
We have a choice between Good and Evil, and it’s all about which side we choose to align ourselves with because there is no gray area in-between. We need to stay close to the Blessed Mother in these trying times, and we need to take heart that she will protect and provide for us, as long as we do our very best to imitate her virtues and model ourselves after her.
Some day I’ll tell you how it all began in my life. It was 1969, and there was something very bad in the hedgerow.
2 thoughts on “The Queen of May”
Sirach 34:6. Unless it be a vision specially sent by the Most High, fix not your heart on it;
Worth checking out the book of Sirach 34:1-7; Trust in the Lord and Not in Dreams.
Thank you for sharing. Be blessed.
The blog brought me comfort to realize that my thoughts were not so bizarre and depressing about the world we are experiencing today. My prayers daily are to the Blessed Mother for peace and comfort in this world of today.