All: What time is it....?
Archdruid: I've been up for hours. You know the sun - is it on the horizon? Have you captured the fragile moment - that tender first limb of the sun climbing above the Amazon Warehouse? Have you gasped at the moment when the sun makes his most northerly appearance of the year? Have you my right elbow...
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| Not an accurate representation of Husborne Crawley this morning |
All: Doesn't matter. It's raining.
Archdruid: But it's the first tender rain of the Solstice morning! A time when heaven has poured out its benison on the grateful, thirsty earth.
All: Doesn't need to. Ground's saturated. Drought's over. We're going back to bed.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn approaches, accompanied by Morris Dancers. Stones may be thrown and curses spoken.
We who are about to see the light die on the winter solstice salute thee.
ReplyDeleteAnd not even a Festival of Light to cheer you up? Perhaps you could make a big thing of St John's Day?
DeleteMeanwhile I can assure you, we're not exactly overflowing with light here.
Nah, it's Christmas in July soon!
ReplyDeleteYou have to be either anywhere in Quebec or in St. John's, Newfoundland to make much of St. John's Day.
ReplyDeleteAs a child, I associated St. John with a problem that recurred when I was old enough to study history in school - too many people have had the same name. I had been told about St. John the Baptist, and showed I had really learned my lesson by pointing out that the church we attended was named for him. No, I was told. That's another St. John, St. John the Divine.
Meanwhile, the more pious and non-Puritanical early European explorers seemed to arrive in North America at approximately the same time every year, and name the most obvious place to build a camp after St. John the Baptist. I don't think the Puritans down south named things after saints very often; they went for Naming System 2 (name it after someplace Back Home) or Naming System 3 (use the locals' name for it, but probably mis-spell or mis-pronounce it due to language difficulties).
I can't even work out if John the Elder or John son of Zebedee wrote the fourth Gospel. Or perhaps they are the same person.
ReplyDeleteIt was probably pointless to visit Stonehenge for the sunrise as I live a few miles from it and our dawn was as mist swathed as an Amazonian rain-forest in the rainy season. Very atmospheric but the sun had wisely pulled the blanket over its head and given up for the day.
I knew that there was something special about today. The Summer Solstice! But, pity we didn't get the summer to go along with it.
ReplyDeleteI love Pagan festivals, as there is no commitment to actually believe anything and you can get really zonked out and indulge in all sorts of stuff, without being arrested.
I reminded our Vicar last week that his Vestments were a bit colourful and that the simplicity of druid's robes would better serve our church (and would cost a lot less to clean and to maintain). He was quite put out at being compared to a Druid, he much prefers Judge Dredd - a legacy of his super hero worshipping boyhood.