Countdown to the Solstice

From the Archdruid Eileen

As the mornings become ever lighter, our thoughts turn naturally to the Solstice and all things pertaining to it.

Since the solstice is technically at 1 minute to midnight, GMT on Friday 20th (which is 1 minute to 1 am, BST* on Saturday 21st), we will celebrate it on Friday and Saturday morning. You can't have too much of a good thing - especially when it's getting up at 3am and standing, freezing cold and often soaking wet, in a field overlooking the Amazon warehouse. We will gather at the pond in the old stone pit on Mill Road as usual. We believe that Mill Road may well be an ancient ley, as it points straight towards the rising sun on the Solstice. Please can Beaker Folk not stand in the middle of the road this year - being unable to see oncoming vehicles because your eyes are blinded by the rising sun is not a way to celebrate the solstice. The good news is that the nearly-full moon will be low in the sky behind us. Let's just hope it's not cloudy...

The Solstice Light will be lit at 1 minute to 1am on Saturday (BST). All Beakers are expected to attend. This year Hnaef promises that the Solstice Light will be a standard beeswax candle and not, as las year, a pan full of paraffin and iron filings. I don't know what he thought he was playing at, but I really don't want to see burns like that on a Beaker Person again. It took poor Argold weeks to recover.

Also note that due to the full moon this week, we will be witnessing moonrise starting at 8pm tonight, 9pm Tuesday, 10pm Wednesday, 10.30pm Thursday and 11pm Friday.

It's going to be a long week...

*BST is "Beaker Summer Time". Archaeological experiments at Stonehenge have proved conclusively that the Beaker People of the 1st millennium BC had adopted the concept of daylight saving three thousand years before the UK Government came up with the idea. There is no proof that, as has often been claimed, this was brought in so Beaker Folk who had been up late into the night arguing about whether Women Druids were allowed could grab an extra hour in bed.