Please note that tomorrow's raindance, in a desperate attempt to get some relief from this weather, will be in the Orchard. Or, in case of rain, in the Dining Room.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Unwedding Ceremony
Or: the order for the blessing of the relationship of a couple whose marriage cannot yet be blessed on account of the divorce has been unfortunately delayed.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
0
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Monday, 29 June 2009
Wicca Man
So we forgot the Wicker Man, easy to do with all the excitement at Solstice. I mean, it's easy to miss, is a 90 foot man made out of pallets, lurking in the garden. And with a solstice New moon, it was even darker than normal. So it was nice to let it go off this evening. And what a sight. The passing resemblance to Andy Murray was a nice touch as well, although the way the first set went we were starting to think that there was something in sympathetic magic after all.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Monday, June 29, 2009
0
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Labels: wicca man
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Jackson Tributes
Sad news today. The Druidic Council had planned to hold a celebration of Michael Jackson's life, but Archdruid Eileen slipped while trying to moonwalk and twisted her ankle. She says they're not holding the service until the entire Druidic Procession can moonwalk up to the Worship Focus.
Posted by
Burton Dasset
at
Sunday, June 28, 2009
0
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Saturday, 27 June 2009
Husborne Crawley FM
All the news and comment on Radio Husborne Crawley...............
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 27, 2009
1 comments
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
A Midsummer Night's Doom
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
1 comments
Labels: Midsummer Night; Private Sponge
Saturday, 20 June 2009
LIturgy for the Solstice Sunrise, 2009
Archdruid: We stand here freezing in the heart of Summer. We bless the sun for its light-giving rays.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 20, 2009
1 comments
The Beaker Collection
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 20, 2009
3
comments
Friday, 19 June 2009
Solstitial Suspense
It's still two sleeps until the Solstice, so can I request that you all calm down?
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Friday, June 19, 2009
1 comments
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Depressive Poets' Society
I wouldn't like anyone to think I'm distancing myself from Hnaef's new scheme. Goodness knows we're thoroughly in favour of anyone coming up with alternative ways to express spirituality. And poetry enlightens the soul in a way little else does, while offering alternative views of God and Humanity. So poetry, qua poetry, I'm all in favour of.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Thursday, June 18, 2009
0
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Friday, 12 June 2009
Beaker Brother
I'm pleased to announce that after weeks of viewing video auditions, interviews and psychological profiling, we've decided upon the 10 people who will go in the Beaker Brother house. We've chosen the most aggressive, the most self-regarding and biggest wannabes. We're not going to be putting any cameras in the Beaker Brother house, and we're not going to be doing any evictions. We're just gonna leave the doors locked until we're in danger of them being listed as Missing Persons.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Friday, June 12, 2009
0
comments
Labels: big brother, what's the point?
Which Wicker is Wych?
No! No! No!
Some of you have totally misunderstood about the wicker man.
It was lovely to meet Lemonbalm today. He is a gentle and charming man, albeit somewhat bemused. I'm not totally sure whether that's his normal state, or whether it was the result of five of you grabbing him in the Stones and Shells stall in CMK shopping centre and dragging him here in the back of a Transit Van.
Lemonbalm is into Wicca. That's Wicca as in a largely made-up combination of misunderstood folklore, pseudo-feminism, vague spiritual longings and wishful thinking. He's not a Wicker man. I realise that this may have confused the post-literate among you but I hope the large stick with which Hnaef is currently laying about the persons of several community members may help with their understanding.
Lemonbalm tells me he got into Wicca in the hope that he might meet some women. I advised him that if he wants to join a religious movement where he'll be outnumbered 10:1 by women he might be best off joining the Methodists.
Now can somebody please take him back? He keeps offering to make people love potions, and the community is starting to stink of amaretto and fennel.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Friday, June 12, 2009
0
comments
Labels: old puns we've done before
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Wicker Man
The ancient Celts would build a giant wicker man at the solstice, and burn within it sacrifices of prisoners, chickens, Edward Woodward and anyone else they could lay their hands on. Worth considering next time someone suggests a Celtic revival.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Thursday, June 11, 2009
0
comments
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
In the bunker
I'm pleased to announce that I am up and feeling better. The neck strain has released itself now, and I am feeling well enough to use the JCB that you may have noticed aound the grounds.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
0
comments
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
A slight ailment
Beaker Folk have been asking where the Archdruid is today. Please rest assured that she's not suffering from anything too serious.
Posted by
Burton Dasset
at
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
0
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Monday, 8 June 2009
Druidic Reshuffle
I'm pleased to announce the reshuffle of the Druidic team. As you know, we have a fantastic and talented team of lesser druids, who unfortunately have a habit of resigning and blaming me for it. But in this planned and carefully calculated reshuffle, without a hint of panic or short-termism, I am pleased to announce the following:
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Monday, June 08, 2009
2
comments
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Big old yellow moon
A beautiful full moon, like a nice round yellow cheese, peeking in and out of the clouds - reflecting off the dozens of broken Enya CDs that lie around where Young Keith's Mini Metro ground them into pieces. The multiple reflections of the moon, shattered and splintered into a thousand shards, are maybe reflections of our personalities - split into pieces, and yet between them revealing a deep and mysterious whole.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Sunday, June 07, 2009
0
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Saturday, 6 June 2009
"I twitter like a sparrow" (Isa 38:14, JB)
Thanks to our friends from the University of Unlikely Research we have found what appears to be a trace of Tweets from the 10th to 6th centuries BC carved into a Judean rock. Further proof that the ancient world had technology of which we know little.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 06, 2009
2
comments
Enya Meets the East Riding Yeomanry
A sad and surprising end to the Enyathon. I had naturally assumed that the playing of Enya's music at loud volume would continue until everyone had lost interest or was so thoroughly chilled that they forgot to change the CD.
Instead, there was an awful mix-up with the D-Day re-enactment. This year Young Keith chose to recreate the landing of the East Riding Yeomanry on Sword Beach. You may be aware that the East Riding Yeomanry, part of the Armoured Division, had a penchant for the more unconventional forms of armoured transport. Which may explain why Young Keith went for waterproofing an old Mini Metro to serve as a tank. Unfortunately, what with it being about the only Metro still in existence, and given that model's propensity to rust, he only got halfway across the duckpond before it started to fill with water. Shoving it into First, he got enough purchase to rev up and out of the pond, at the side where the Enyathon was entering its 112th glorious hour. The Metro went through the PA and crashed into the Enya-ettes, who fled screaming. There is no mention in the annals of D-Day of a group of fifty-year-old women dressed in tie-dyed kaftans running around in a panic, so in this respect I fell that Young Keith may have lacked authenticity. The Community's collection of Enya CDs has been totally trashed, but since it turns out that just about everyone seems to have their own, this is not necessarily a disaster.
Next year Keith is threatening to re-enact the fall of Caen. He tells me for this he will need "a medium-sized town with plentiful surface water". I just hope Bedford knows what's going to hit it.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 06, 2009
1 comments
The Principle of Entitlement
I've never been a great one for New Labour, which consists entirely, it seems, of Celts. We Beaker People have memories that go back a long way.
However one cannot help but admire Gordon Brown's new technique of ennobling people he wants to appoint as ministers. Now there appear to be more ministers in the Lords than in the Commons. Not one of them we have voted for. All he has to do now is appoint himself Lord Gordon of Kirkcaldy, and he will himself be immune to election (even more so than he is now), and presumably will be able to rule indefinitely. Much like my own position in the Beaker Folk...
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, June 06, 2009
1 comments
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Election Fever
So I realise that many of you were quite surprised this morning, to find out when you queued up at the Husborne Crawley polling booth that you were unable to vote. The explanation is quite simple. I filled in postal votes for you all.
I felt it was my democratic duty to ensure that you all voted for the right candidate. There were two options to achieve this aim - one to give you all an in-depth training in who I consider the right candidate is, together with an exhaustive breakdown of the aims, strengths and weaknesses of the different parties. The other was simply to go through all your postal ballots, putting ticks against those candidates to whom I am related.
I think you can see that this was carried out with the best intentions of saving you the effort of thinking, always important in a community of this kind. Now get out there and enjoy the Enyathon - in its second day and still soothing.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Thursday, June 04, 2009
0
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Tuesday, 2 June 2009
"You was a good man, and did good things" (the Woodlanders) - The Nativity of Thomas Hardy (OM)
What kind of day was today for Hardy's birthday? Brilliant sunshine, blue skies, birds singing, warmth and delight and even the odd bluebell left over. The only sense of the kind of doom and foreboding was in the Top Field, where we could see Moonbeam and her mates setting up the PA for tomorrow's Enyathon. Goodness knows that that's going to be like, but we reckon loud but ethereal may well just about describe it.
The festive Wandering Around in Smocks went as well as ever, and the Beaker Fertility Folk enjoyed the re-enactment of the St John's Eve scene from The Woodlanders, consisting as it did of legging it off into the woods at the first opportunity. Not really that different than any other day for the Fertility Folk when you think of it.
While needless to say the Beaker Quire, complete with fiddle, banjo and authentic bass flugelhorn, were quite happy to spend the day getting hammered on cider in the traditional way. Unfortunately it did cause a few of them to speak their minds when the Mummers came round, and after a frank exchange of words a few teeth were lost. On the bright side they stopped singing for a while as they received treatment, but the singing of "The Foggy Foggy Dew" doesn't half suffer from that lisp the singers seem to have developed since the fracas."
As the light now slips away in these days nigh unto the solstice, we see the shadowy shape of the Ooser, as he heads off down School Lane to frighten any passing yokels. It almost makes you wish you lived in Dorset. Till you remember the house prices.
God Bless, Tommy H. And we hope you were wrong about the whole God thing. For your own sake if nothing else...
NB - speaking of the Solstice, the "Build Your Own Stonehenge" kit was delivered this morning. Can all Beaker Folk please assemble in the car park tomorrow morning to help us put it up. Even as we speak Hnaef is out in the Orchard checking the location of True North, but using a map of Abyssynia isn't going to be much help to him in my opinion.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
0
comments
Festival of Pebbles
To celebrate our day trip to Hunstanton we thought it would be nice to conclude the day with a celebration of pebbles.
If you have collected a piece of Carr Stone, a brand new, shiny, vanilla-scented tea light for you to use to illuminate our gathering.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
0
comments
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Beaker Jobs for Beaker People
We are most concerned by the leaflet put out by a political party campaigning in the European elections.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, May 30, 2009
0
comments
Friday, 29 May 2009
Friday's Programme
We put it to the vote which event to celebrate today - the options being Norgay and Hillary climbing Everest (we prefer not to say "conquering" - has imperialist, militaristic overtones) and Charles II's return from exile as king of England, Scotland, Ireland and (he claimed) France. Needles to say the Fertility Folk voted for Charley Boy, while the rest went for Everest. So in the interests of community harmony, we went for both.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Friday, May 29, 2009
0
comments
Thursday, 28 May 2009
Save The MPs
After the success of BUGFAW we weren't expecting to start a new charity so soon, but in the circumstances we felt we had no choice. So we are starting our new movement, STaMP (Save The MPs).
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Thursday, May 28, 2009
0
comments
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Holy Well
Now I know I said that the Moot House had to be precisely where it was because it was on the intersection of two ley lines - one the "Woburn Ley" from the lion enclosure to Cranfield Airport, the other the "Icknieldley" from Ivinghoe Beacon to Walsingham. I know we resolved precisely where it should be using a plumb line, dowsing rods and a 1974 Ordnance Survey map of Bedford.
But. This week's events have caused me to revisit those decisions. The sudden transformation of the Moot House into a forty-foot wide circular pond has massively increased donations and visits from pilgrims coming to see the miraculous "holy well". Well-dressing looks like being one of the most popular and cost-effective forms of fund raising (and spiritual activity, with deep traditional roots, needless to say) that we have ever initiated. Good grief, the faithful are already throwing money in. Feldred swears blind she saw a Naiad yesterday, and it's these little details that count. If the Moot House was already on a ley intersection, then surely the Holy Well of Husborne Crawley is the crowning glory of the ley.
Digging for the new Moot House, aligned between the Holy Well and the Great Trilithon in the car park, will commence at 8am Thursday. I hope the cries of "oh no not again" will be drowned out by the spontaneous enthusiasm of people keen to create another spot of holiness and reflection in this sacred landscape.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
3
comments
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Rain stopped play
Thanks to ongoing sunburn problems I'm pleased to say that I missed out on last night's culminating New Moon ceremonies. The people at the Watching Post got absolutely drenched last night. Turns out that it had also been re-thatched with Twiglets. There seems no chance of them seeing the first glint of the New Moon for weeks at this rate. Still, what would a religion be without rules? They're just going to have to stay out there.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
2
comments
Sunday, 24 May 2009
New Moon
In the current state of the New Moon it is a delight to observe the stars, especially on a night such as tonight when the sky is utterly clear.
Personally I'll be staying in this evening. In honour of Wesley Day we had a three-hour singing and preaching session at lunchtime in the orchard (it was only one song, but the original of "And can it be" is pretty well three hours long on its own). At the end I felt strangely warmed, but it turned out that this was due to sunburn and now I can barely move without losing layers of skin. I tried various herbal remedies - camomile, lavendar, tea tree, lemon balm - but frankly they're all rubbish. Looks like it's back to the calomine lotion.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Sunday, May 24, 2009
1 comments
Saturday, 23 May 2009
The World's Biggest Tealight
Full marks to Young Keith this time.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, May 23, 2009
1 comments
Friday, 22 May 2009
Happy Birthday, Morrissey
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Friday, May 22, 2009
0
comments
Labels: Morrissey's Birthday
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Wind Chimes
"Can we have some wind chimes, Archdruid?" they asked me. Why of course, I replied. What could be more chiming than a little aeolian auditory alliteration, I thought. The gentle tinkle of wind chimes as the spirit moves them, the silent movement of the breeze which blows where it will turned into a music to soothe the wounded spirit and feed the hunger of love. Play on, said I.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
0
comments
Labels: wind chimes
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Melting Moot
It was rather a shock this morning at the Sunrise Awakening. Gathering in the Moot House to huddle for warmth around a tea light before we started, we were surprised to feel the rain falling on our heads.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
1 comments
Monday, 18 May 2009
Anniversary of Helen Sharman going into space
Since we couldn't think of anything else to celebrate today, but were feeling in deadly need of cheering up after the Eurovision Song Contest, we thought we'd celebrate the 18th anniversary of Helen Sharman being the first English person (we shun "British", as it has echoes of the hated Celts) into space.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Monday, May 18, 2009
0
comments
Labels: Space Launches
Saturday, 16 May 2009
More on expenses
Thanks to Drayton Parslow, yet more information has been dragged into the public domain that can only disturb those of uncertain faith and ready cheque books.
Drayton has been asking how I can have claimed expenses for the payment of the mortgage on the Great House, pointing out that my family has lived here since the seventeenth century. I would like to point out that the mortgage was not to pay for the house itself, but rather it has been paying for the building of the Moot House. All that wattle and daub didn't cut itself down and dig itself out of the bed of the brook. We had to pay the finest traditional Beaker craftspeople in the country to carry out this important and sacred act. Likewise, the planting of the new Avenue. Those cedars aren't cheap to import , but without them our ritual pathways would not be complete.
Rumours that I'm planning to completely re-landscape the grounds of the Great House, then liquidate the Beaker Folk and retire in comfort, are completely untrue. As is the suggestion that the Sensory Deprivation Tank I claimed for on expenses was in any way a selfish indulgence. Rather it is where I dream dreams and see visions for the future of our Community.
As is apparently necessary in these hysterical times, I would like to point out that I am in no way guilty of any wrongdoing. Everything I paid for and claimed from Community funds was within the rules. It is the System that has failed. I am sorry.
I hope this is all now at an end.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Saturday, May 16, 2009
2
comments
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Expenses update
There has been a certain amount of disquiet over the expense claims which Drayton Parslow has discovered, photocopied and posted on telegraph poles all over Husborne Crawley. My claims for a helicopter flight to the Druidic Gorsedd on Environmental Sustainability at Glastonbury, and Hnaef's elocution lessons, have all been subject to scrutiny.
We had every right to claim these expenses, which are all in the rules that Hnaef and I drew up when we first realised there were people gullible enough to give their trust and money to this community. However we are aware that it may look like we have our snouts down and are troughing till it hurts. Therefore we are happy to repay the sum of £576.56, which is the full amount that Drayton has managed to pin on us. I hope this matter is now at an end.
Posted by
Archdruid Eileen
at
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
2
comments
