A few minor corrections

An interesting couple of talks over the Full Moon period, but maybe a few lessons to be learned.

The talk from our visiting speaker from the Easter Island Big Face people on "why we should all be nice to each other and learn to listen" was rather spoilt by an outbreak of pebble and brick-throwing from all sides in our recent "pebbles or tealights" debate. Apparently the tealight faction thought he sounded rather anti-tealight, while the pebbles people thought he was insufficiently condemnatory of tealights. I don't think this is the way we should greet our brothers and sisters from other cultures.

Young Keith's talk on Bloke-ist theology was if anything even more disturbing. It's important that we encourage our younger Beaker Folk to share their gifts. And I thought when we had discussed it that Keith's concerns over the "feminisation" of Beaker worship, and the Beaker tradition of strong female leadership, were worth unpacking. Unfortunately, it would appear that having read "Wild at Heart" just after being dumped by his girlfriend, Keith went slightly over the top.

To correct a few things that Keith said during his talk:

• While it shares some religious aspects, football is still not, technically, a religion.
• Gender is no barrier to becoming Archdruid. Not being the person who owns the Great House, on the other hand, is.
• Hnaef's beard is not fake. He's just an empathetic and warm human being.
• Ronnie Wood is a sad case of a man with problems who needs help through a crisis. He is not "an example to us all".
• Even if you could find a bear in this country, it's probably illegal to shoot it.
• The original Beaker Folk were gentle and peaceful. They did not spend their lives fighting endless border disputes. Apart from the sporadic and isolated massacres of other cultures, obviously.
• There is no plan to put oestrogen in the Beaker water supply.
• Painting yourself blue with woad, and climbing the wall of Woburn Safari Park to wrestle with the wolves is not a sensible, or indeed legal, rite of passage to prove you are a "Beaker Warrior".

Just as soon as Keith is out of hospital, I will be explaining the error of his ways to him.

Meanwhile, on the "festival of peace and reconiciliation" that young Dora organised for us at the full moon itself - thank you, Dora, for organising such a comprehensive assortment of items for contemplation - the pebbles, to remind us of the smallness of the earth. The hazelnuts, to remind us of Mother Julian's vision. I know that they were de-shelled and packaged, but hey it's July and that's all Waitrose had. The potter's clay, with which we could envisage our lives being re-modelled. The raffia, with which we could weave the tales of our lives into an autobiographical basket. And the "shredding station", where people could write their failings and troubles on pieces of paper and then shred them away.

Now, I know that the shredding station was noisy. But that was no reason for somebody to shove the potter's clay and pebbles into it. It wasn't big and it wasn't clever.

Mind you, at least the rest of the meditation was quiet. And you'll all be pleased to hear that Elouise is nearly over her anaphylactic shock now.