In the Midst of Death

They've a lot to teach us, the species of the genus Acer.

Take this sycamore. The leaves are dead - yellow and blotched and diseased-looking. They're clinging on to the tree, but the next breath of wind will take them off. A sign of death and despair - the year dies by a Midlands by-pass.

But look closely - in amongst the moulded twigs. Can you see? Next year's leaf is already there, green and packed away, ready. In the midst of winter - through Solstice and snow and gale - the buds will wait. Biding their time. They know. The year may be dead - but it's not all over. New life is already waiting amidst the old.

Third Before Bling

OK, after the Xmas-light-related fiascos of previous years, this year we're going to put some contol into our liturgical calendar. We've had Samhain and All Saints and All Souls and St Bonfire's Night. So now we're going to have a few weeks of quiet, calm, autumnal reflection before the light-festival of Advent kicks in. Or, to put it another way, no bling before December.

Tea lights are, as ever, usable for all services (they make Tenebrae particularly pretty, in my opinion - we really must hold another one sometime). But in the meantime we're going to be looking for moody, dim lighting. Liturgical colours this Autumn will mostly be earthy browns, ecrus and taupes - with maybe just a splash of hi-viz orange or yellow, for contrast and safety.

Setting Fire to Things in the Autumn

As our Hindu and Sikh friends celebrate Diwali today, we at the Beaker Folk are happy to see the start of the Setting Fire to Things in the Autumn season. It's a joy every year as Diwali, Samhain and Bonfire Night go past - followed shortly after by the Lighting of the Bling as we celebrate the 3-month Beaker season of Yule (starting November 6 and then carrying on to Candlemas).

There's something beautifully elemental about setting fire to things in Autumn. Good things, that is - bonfires, fireworks, wood-burners, that kind of stuff. Tea lights, of course. As The Man said, "Black chaos comes and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light." Or - as Graham Kendrick put it - "Like a candle flame, flickering small in our darkness."

It's an act of resistance - and we all need those. A statement of defiance. A clinging to the hope of new things. And, lest we forget, it's a convenient way of keeping warm and seeing where things are. So this year we're introducing our first "100 nights - 100 bonfires" season.  As big as the Great Fire of London, and more risk-assessed than a council-organised conker competition. We'll keep it up till the first snowdrops, or until the pallets give out.

The Year Dies

Our Beaker ancestors worried about the changing seasons. Well you had to. Agriculture depends on the sun. You need to know when the sun's powers are declining - so from June 21 onwards or thereabouts you knew it was time to stop sowing and get ready for reaping. In the despairing depths of midwinter, even as you looked forward to another couple of months of cold, the winter solstice was the promise that things would change. That one day they would get better. Apparently in the Southern Hemisphere, someone was having the same idea.

But tonight is another kind of time. Although driven by the sun, it's not predictable like a solstice. It's not even  got the hazy precision and doubtful utility of knowing the equinoxes. And it's a day of uncertain prediction and unsure definition. Here in the Beaker Community, we call it "the day the year dies". And this year, I'm calling it for today.

The rain's been falling all day. Outside the sky alternates between gray cloud yielding heavy showers, and clear skies revealing the autumn skies - when the Plough hangs in its sinister way over the landscape (albeit round here it's struggling against the glow off the M1).

Down in the Great Hall the Beaker People are engaged in an important debate - if God is good and omnipotent, how can you explain Waterloo Road? And I should be offering spiritual solace and inspired guidance. But here in my study, the curtains are drawn and a fire warms the room. Meanwhile outside wind form the north-east chills the air. The year has died. It may drag itself along for a few months yet, but we know it's died.

And so I throw a broken-up pallet on the fire and revel in the blue, chemically-enhanced flames. I really must check what preservative they've used, next time I collect a job-lot. Still, it's environmentally friendly and on the bright side all the chemicals are going up the chimney. Autumn is a time of dark, of dying, of predictable despondency. Winter, a time of sleep and quiet. It's Spring that I really fear. Because who can control that? New life is a riot - you can't nail that.

Tip of the pointy hat to Pagans for Archaeology Facebook Group for the link to the article.

Season of Nuts and Yellow Fitfulness

Liturgical dress: Red hi-viz and hard hats. 


A fire of sticks burns in the Moot House grate. A pot of acorn coffee is suspended over it. Beaker Folk trying this seasonal fare are unsurprised to discover that it tastes horrible.


Archdruid: As Mr Kipling once said - "Autumn! Season of fogs and mellow fruitfulness."

The Hot Beaker is poured out upon the Dry Ice. "Fog" seeps across the Moot House floor. 


All: Autumn don't half make your ankles cold.


The Beaker People process out to the Grove, over which a tethered hot air balloon is floating.
In the distance, a stray Martian tripod destroys the Spade Shed. Justin Hayward's "Forever Autumn" plays. The Watcher of the Skies keeps a look out for descending satellites.

Archdruid: Autumn - symbol of mortality.

Red Maple leaves are poured out of the balloon. Each Beaker Person picks up a leaf and contemplates their own mortality. We achieve a moment of rare genuine contemplation in a mad world.


Archdruid: Autumn - a symbol of fruitfulness.

Cooking apples are poured out of the balloon. We scatter as the symbols of ripe fruitfulness - some of them weighing 4 or 5 pounds - hurtle out of the sky and squidge on the grass around us. A few nasty bruises are sustained.



Archdruid: You're all OK. You can come back.

All: Not while that maniac's throwing apples at us.

Archdruid: All the apples have been cast.

Beaker People drag themselves back into the Grove.

Archdruid: Autumn - bringer of darkness

Baskets of blackberries are poured out of the balloon. Beaker people run screaming as their clothes are stained.

Marston: My best muslin!

All: You what?

Marston: Look, there's something I've been wanting to share with you all...

Marston's revelations are suspended as hazelnuts start pouring out of the balloon. The Grove resounds to the shouts of pain, as they must have done at so many Beaker festivals when  the Neolithic Folk gathered in the growing cold of the dying year to pray for the sun.

Archdruid: Within the valley of shadowless death they pray for thunder clouds and rain.

All: But to the multitude who stand in the rain, heaven is where the sun shines.

Archdruid: Come on, let's go to Costa in MK and get a cup of coffee that's got no acorns in it.

The Beaker Folk proceed to the Car Park.

Burton [from the balloon]: Hi, er - people. Can you get me down now? I don't know how this thing works. Hello - guys?

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn picks a fight with Herne the Hunter, alleging breach of copyright. A fair elf-maiden dances across the lawn. But nobody notices.

Liturgy for the Last Day of Summer

Defiant Beaker Folk may wear bathing costumes and sun hats. The rest of us will wrap up warm.

Archdruid: It's a bit parky innit?

All:             I blame that global warming.

Archdruid: Did you see the loss of sea-ice in the Arctic?

All:              It's the penguins I feel sorry for...

We pause for a moment - partly for the fate of the penguins, but mostly for the Archdruid to lament the state of Geography teaching.

Archdruid: Oh the days were hot and the nights were long. I must have sung a million songs

All: But all the words just came out wrong on the last day of Summer.

We process in 4-2-3-1 formation to the conker trees. Those of a Julian nature may contemplate a conker and reflect that it is about the bignesse of a hazelnut. The rest may kick the leaves around in a moody kind of a way.

Archdruid: Do not go gentle into that good night.

All:             Fight the good fight with all your might.

We do the "Hedgehog Dance" to the Great Trilithon. It takes ages as the "Hedgehog Dance" mostly goes round in circles.

All:              We can't see the sunrise through the arch, Archdruid.

Archdruid:  That's partly because it's cloudy, partly because we're a bit late and this isn't a sunrise service - and mostly because you're facing the wrong way again.

We process three abreast to the Autumn corner of the Moot House. Ironically so-named as the Moot House is circular.

Archdruid: And then the rain came down And sparkled the signs of the Underground.

All:             And the darkness fell all over town On the last day of Summer.

All may exit, shivering.

("Last day of Summer" - Kirsty.
"Do not go gentle" - Dylan Thomas)

Times and Seasons

Can I just address all those Beaker People who are planning, it being the 21st September tomorrow,  for the Solsticial Festival of Autumnal Balance.

It's all rather lovely. The giant pile of leaves for kicking through, the Cosy Corner with the chiminea, the Hedgehog Nutrition Centre where the Wodewose enables us to feed up the hedgehogs before their big sleep (and charges us for the privilege - they learn quick, these mythical wildmen). And the giant orrery with which Burton is planning to bore us silly as he explains - yet again - how the equinoxes and solstices work.

Now there are many that object to us marking these times of the year. Times and seasons, they say - falling back into pagan or ancient Jewish ways. To which I say "phooey". Christmas at Winter Solstice, St John's at Summer Solstice, Easter (based on Passover) set to the Sunday after the Full Moon on or after the Spring Equinox - how Beaker is that? And Michaelmas - that other annual celebration of defeating the powers of evil - at Autumn Equinox. So we're going to enjoy our Autumnal Equinox and look forward to the dying of the light.

But not tomorrow. You've all jumped the gun. Can you put everything back - it's not Equinox till Friday. We've got two days of summer left. Honest. So break out the bathing costumes and try to catch those rays.

The Great Ritual of Conkers

On this Morning After the Transfer Deadline I'm pleased to report that only two Beaker People have become Arsenal players overnight. I tell you, if Arsene Wenger wants to make friends he shouldn't phone people up at 5 minutes to 11 asking what you're like at protecting the back four.

And so today we are celebrating September with the Great Ritual of Conkers. The Celts, contrary to their modern image as wistful bodhran-playing mystics, first played conkers in the 2nd century BC. And in in keeping with their pagan beliefs they used the heads of their enemies on lengths of rope. It took the invention of the horse chestnut tree before conkers became a suitable game for young gentlemen and ladies, suitably protected with face visors, fireproof gloves and shin pads, to play.

We will be holding our usual pre-competition inspection to root out all the cheating conkers - those that are years old, those pickled in vinegar, those varnished and those that have been buried in a silicaceous sub-stratum for four million years to fossilise. By tonight only one conker will be left standing.

And in keeping with tradition, it will not receive the title William. Because that's too obvious. Instead, standing in the Moot House and surrounded by its fallen colleagues, we will ask the conker what it thinks violence ever achieves.

And then sing "Where have all the conkers gone?"

An early frost

"April is the cruellest month", wrote Eliot. And in many respects he had a point. April is a spring month, when the strengthening sun taunts the hungry with the knowledge that abundance is just three months away. But then December is a cruel month. It's a more obviously cruel month, of course. But it's still cruel. The bitterness of the frost, the knowledge that, even as it's getting light, it will soon be dark. The 4-hour queues for the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, whatever that is.

The trouble with wild rabbits is their memories are so short. The younger ones don't even remember last winter. They have only ever known green grass, green leaves, green shoots. They look at a grey sky and the weird white crystals that cover grass and don't know what it means. They panic. They think maybe their eyesight has stopped working with colour. The older ones remember that sometimes there is crispy, white stuff on the ground but they don't remember why. So they panic as well.

There's a kind of rabbit folk memory. It says that, from time to time, the days get short and the nights get long and the place generally gets dark and cold. And in these days, says the Rabbit Unconscious, rabbits can die if they're not careful. The  memory is passed down through generations. And at times the bunnies find it unlikely. The ones born in autumn can't even imagine what "hot" feels like, how the sun looks when it's nearly overhead, what young shoots taste like on a dewy May morning. They can get snarky and say that "spring" is just a fantasy that the old ones tell to keep them digging the burrows, to give them some kind of purpose.  Some say it's just going to get colder forever.

But the old ones just nod wisely and tell them, as sure as the sun comes back each day - even when you can't see it - one day it will be warm again, and there will be carrots to eat in the Archdruid's vegetable plot. And that whatever else they do, they mustn't go losing hope and wandering off and getting eaten by the foxes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

The tealight is passed on... again...

Dear readers, such a day as I've had. I haven't seen such strife in Husborne Crawley since last time there was strife in Husborne Crawley.

In her desperate attempt to chase away the dark, the Archdruid has spent half the day in the stones 'n' tealights section of Morrison's. When they ran out she moved on to Dunelm and then Tesco. She's now in serious danger of burning down the doily shed with the thousands of candles she's purchased, and there's an overpowering smell of vanilla and clouds of lemonbalm and incense hovering over the place.

And then Drayton Parslow's attempt to instil some Baptist rectitude into us all was not a great success. This morning's three-hour sermon "Stop doing that and do what God says instead" mostly consisted of Drayton giving us the sordid details of all sorts of sins, which got some of the Beaker People quite excited. But Drayton then told them that was just the sort of thing they were all going to have to sign an agreement not to do. And interest evaporated at that point.

In the afternoon, Elbert spent the whole time at Drayton's "Science and Religion - why Scientists are Evil" workshop pointing out that Drayton's Creationism was rubbish, and why. In Elbert's words, "scientific evidence and rationality beat wishful thinking every time". Which, by the time they'd unpacked it, actually annoyed everyone even more than Drayton's claim that Stonehenge was washed from the Marlborough Downs and South Wales to Salisbury Plain by the onrushing waters of the Flood.

And then at 5pm the next of Drayton's services started. But the promise that, at the end, he would make us all sing "Just as I am" forever or until we all repented and converted, was the straw that broke the camel's back. Dear Readers, Drayton was locked in St Bogwulf's chapel and will be let out at supper time. Since he thinks he's being persecuted, he's quite happy. But that left us without an evening ritual - Eileen having taken the large Beakers we use for filling up and pouring out. She's filled them with petrol and is using them as rather dangerous-looking torches.

The Hnaefs had to nip off for their evening archery class of people with no thumbs. So they asked me to lead the  Folk in their evening spiritual devotions. Give them your testimony, they said. So I did.

And I explained how Accountancy is the Buddhism  of the Business world - how the Yin of Credit matches the Yang of Debit, and at the end all is equal. And I showed them how, through a depreciation here and an amortisation there, we can reach the perfect Finance Nirvana where all is written off, the sheet is balanced, the assets are registered and there are neither profit nor loss, but only bonuses.

Unfortunately, Dear Readers, such is my rapture when I expound on my calling and faith that, when I opened my eyes after discussing the capital treatment of software development (always a thorny subject), I found they'd all headed off for an early-evening Friday Night at the White Horse. So I'm going to get on with a little light auditing while I wait for them to come back. I hope Eileen cheers up soon.

Darkness Day - Revised Timetable

Ahem.

Before she rushed out into the night to light hundreds of tea lights and start building that giant Wicker Man we can see already making its presence known in Bottom Field, Eileen declared today Darkness Day - the day of fear and trembling when the world dissolves in ashes. The programme she'd planned for today was a little... strange. Therefore I've revised it in a more godly direction.

9 - 9.10 - Pouring out of Beakers
9-1 - Morning Service with extended sermon

2-3pm - Thinking dark thoughts
1 - 4pm - "Evolution as myth" - thoughts on the dinosaurs as victims of The Great Flood

5pm - Raging against the dying of the Light
5-9pm - Evening Service with extended sermon

6pm - Fenris Wolf eats the Sun
9.05 - Nice early night

11pm - Howling at the Moon 
11pm - We will all unfortunately be woken by Eileen, howling at the moon.

Cuts in a Cold Climate

Now is the winter of our discontent, made even colder by a bunch of Old Etonians.
The darkness of a Boreal autumn settles over Husborne Crawley, and even the Fertility Folk have come back in from the cold as their summer activities lose their appeal - or, at least, the outdoors aspect of them does.
And in the double-dip darkness of our frozen condition, I am aware that my switching on the heating only on alternate Tuesdays is not helping. And I thought I'd done such a good job in negotiating a cheap deal for French electricity. How was I to know that the French might go out on strike if someone tried to make them do some work? So I'm glad to provide some guidance on keeping warm.

1) Keep a hat on at all times. But not a baseball cap - it can make you look like the Foreign Secretary.

2) If you sew double duvets up into sleeping bags, they are remarkably cosy. But if you sew up all four sides from the inside, you're in real trouble. And if you try to hop down to breakfast still in your duvet/sleeping bag like some kind of surreal chintzy caterpillar, you're likely to break something. Although, on the bright side, the hospital may be slightly warmer than the Great House. Unless George Osborne has got to their fuel supplies first.

3) The other downside of sewing a double duvet up into a sleeping bag is likely to be a very irate partner. But don't worry, they'll go really quiet after a while, once they stop shivering.

4) Burning Community furniture in your room is against Community rules. You can chop up and burn your own furniture if you like, but not if it's varnished. It's bad enough all these people getting hypothermia without making them breathe in all those fumes.And burning cardboard boxes in your room is really quite stupid.

5) If you all sit round a 100W incandescent bulb to keep warm, the EU will come round and confiscate your light socket.

6) You can really get quite warm chopping up wood for my book-burning stove. Some people have complained that the Hnaefs, Drayton and myself are the only people allowed to have working

7) Helping Bernie in the kitchen will ensure you stay nice and warm. Although preparing all that roadkill may make you feel quite nauseous.

8) When the temperature in your room falls below 4°C / 40°F / 277K the Ice Alert will start flashing. There's no need panic, but you should just ensure you brake and steer more carefully.

9) If you're feeling really cold, think about the job cuts / family allowance / tax credits / person trying to prove you're not really ill. You should soon feel much warmer.

10) Warm radiators cause asthma, or ME or something. It's real science. Just read the research.

11) Stop wearing those hippy clothes and wear some tweeds and Barbour jackets. You'll feel a bit warmer and if you're lucky someone might mistake you for a member of the ruling classes.

The Great Pumpkin Fight

Now that the fall-out from last night's events has diminished let us consider the things that have come to pass among us.

The Harvest Moon Celebration was to have been a moment of great spiritual significance - the entrance of the White Pumpkins, representing the full moon,  causing the carrying-out of the large Yellow Pumpkins, representing the sun.

Trouble broke out as Morbit walked into the ceremony carrying one of the white pumpkins.  Morbit is a keen gardener, and was very gracious in supplying us with the whites, and a selection of the yellows.  But it was as Morbit moved forwards towards the Focus Table, he saw that the central pumpkin was the  200lb "Prizewinner" he's been growing for the Horticultural Society Competition.  Hollowed out, and with a tealight glowing through the traditional runic shapes cut in the side.

Forgetting that his role as cucurbitafer required grace and solemnity, Morbit ran towards Young Keith, whose role should have been to carry the large pumpkin out through the North-East door, throwing white pumpkins.  One missed Keith by a large margin and plugged Burton Dasset, while the second ricocheted off Keith's left ear and hit Burdwit in the stomach.  At this point, the joint erupted.  Pumpkins, butternut and other related squashes and  - for reasons we have yet to get to the bottom of - onions started flying around the place.

In the confusion, and with the air becoming thicker with squash flesh by the moment, somebody dumped the "Prizewinner" over Morbit's head.  He could not take the pumpkin off his head because he had his hands round Keith's throat.  Confused by the sudden lack of visibility and the sounds of battle, he blundered out through the Summer Sunrise door and into School Lane.

Now, it's little known that there is still an ancient by-law in Husborne Crawley that means that anyone trick-or-treating out of season is to be regarded as an outlaw, the punishment for which is to be rounded up by men with pointy sticks.  The locals were happy to revive a tradition that has not been enacted in several decades, and the next thing Mobit knew he was having to use Keith as a human shield to try to fend off some of the fiercer pokes.  Eventually Young Keith's uncle the police constable turned up and settled the situation down.

Not so in the Moot House, where by this time somebody had decided to avail themselves of the fire extinguishers.  We can't tell who the miscreants were, because they were already so covered in pumpkin, but unleashing the foam at short-range on the acolytes only added to the mess in which we were by now knee-deep.

Some people have complained that I may have been heavy-handed in bringing the ceremony to an end at  this point.  But surrounded by fifty people all throwing autumn vegetables at each other, what was I supposed to do?  Pronounce a blessing?  I'm just glad that I still had a couple of canisters of Mace, a present from a curate in East Anglia, in my handbag.  Suprising how quickly things came to an end after that.

All ceremonies are cancelled unil Thursday.  First we're all going to have to clean out the Moot House, and after that we're going to have to wait until the smell of pumpkins dies down.

In other news, we are contacting the Guinness Book of Records to see if "largest squash-related fight in a neo-spiritual coenobitic community" is a valid category.

More on balance

More on preparations for the Equinox.  Please for this special occasion can you all ensure you bring your beakers along on Tuesday.  As is appropriate for this time of year, beakers should be half full.  Or, if you're of a less optimistic disposition, half empty.

We'll leave it up to you what to half-fill your Beakers with (or what to half-empty them of), but acceptable possibilities are water from the Beaker Spring (which I can bless for a reasonable fee); mead; beer; milk; cider; Yoplait; olive oil.  Last year Orloff brought along a half-empty beaker of vodka, and didn't really play much of an active part in the ceremony at all.  So I'd suggest a maximum ABV should be in place.

Bobbing for Apples will form a large part in the festivities of welcoming the Autumn (or Fall, for our American Gibbon Moon contingent); but we're going to hold the pumpkin fight over until Samhain.

In search of perfect balance

And so we drift towards the Equinox.  The time when dark and light are equally matched.  The time when we start the long, inexorable plunge into darkness.  As the heat evaporates from the land and the light is withheld, we will be taking up our positions in the Orchard at 10pm on Tuesday Night for our six-monthly Celebration of Balance.

After Hnaef's plunge into the duck pond caused all those feathery fatalities in March, there will be no funambulism this year.  We will instead be lighting alternate tea lights, as a symbol of halfway-ness.  Everyone is to wear brown hi-viz - halfway between green and orange.  I know that the mere sight of it is enough to bring on feelings of nausea, but they are suitable for this time of year, and it's the only way I could flog them.  Meanwhile on the subject of suggestibility - does anyone have Darren Brown's number?  There are still four people stuck on their chairs.  We carried them out onto the lawn because it was getting so smelly inside, but we are concerned that even rain may not persuade them to move.

Equinox Eve

Preparations for the Equinox are now well under way for the Beaker Folk. The traditional Blackberry and Apple pie, over fourteen feet in diameter and six deep, is baking in the interior of the giant Pie Mound just beyond the orchard. (Please can people not jump up and down on the top of the Pie Mound? People got awfully scalded after they fell through last year). However Hnaef could do with some help with the baking - he's been stoking for the last three days and now is now both shattered and short of firewood.

Note that the Solstice is 13.04 tomorrow afternoon British Summer Time. So you all get a lay-in. However starting at 11 am, the proceedings will be as follows:

Donning of the hi-viz (pink, from the Solstice to Samhain, with steel toe-capped books for Oblates and Assistant Archdruids)

Lighting of the Autumn fire

Ceremonial processing of the druids (clockwise around the bonfire - mind the sparks, those hi-viz vests were a job lot, and aren't guaranteed fireproof)

Scattering of the maple leaves (Hnaef to organise finding some maple trees)

Racing around the orchard trying to get away from the burning maple leaves

Collective cry of "nights are definitely drawing in. Starting to feel a bit nippy in the evenings...

Buglers and Tabla Drum players perform the ritual hymn ("March of the Druids")

To celebrate the sheer equinoctialness of it all, Burton will then perform a liturgical tightrope walk along a rope strung across the duck pond. He's feeling a bit nervous at the minute, so please can you all stop sneaking up behind him and shouting "splash"!

The service will conclude in utter chaos, as is traditional, and the handing out of portions of apple and blackberry pie that, if last year's is anything to go by, will either be freezing cold or burnt to a crisp.


Tonight's anthem at Howling at the Moon will be "Last Day of Summer" (K MacColl)