Vernon Equinox

So once again the sun stands over the equator at lunchtime, and it's spring again.

So there we were at a quarter past five, freezing cold, looking up at a blank equinoctial sky. And out of the dark looms a tall bloke.

He says his name is Vernon Equinox - the bringer of balance. I asked - isn't that Cygnus? And he accused me of being an old hippy Rush fan. Which was rather rude, I thought.

Turns out he's ambidextrous, even-handed in dealing with disputes, naturally level-headed and sanguine to the point of boredom. He's the living embodiment of days and nights being in harmony.

Well, anybody who's used to harmony isn't going to cope with Husborne Crawley. Hnaef has just failed - once again - to do his Equinoctial Tightrope Act. Normally he just falls in the duck pond, but on this occasion he landed plum on Vernon's Head. Hnaef's grateful for the soft landing, of course, but poor old Vernon's now walking around in circles. That's nothing like as evenly-balanced in my opinion.

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.

An Equinoctial Retrospective

And so we near the end of the First Day of Spring. And a little retrospection is, as always on these great days, in order. Although, to be strictly accurate, it's not yet the Equinox. The sun will pass over the equator -somewhere due north of New Zealand, presumably - at 11.21 tonight in the UK. And all will be balanced on the earth.
As usual on an equinox, we were treated to more daylight than darkness. A little bonus that you don't count on. And if you don't believe me, look here. So the height of the sun is well advanced now in our northern climes - but the temperature lags behind. Somewhere in the Great House, as I am writing this, Young Keith is making yet another disastrous attempt to light the log fire. I will have to go and sort him out in a minute, as Hnaef walked past my office door a moment ago, with an intent look and what appeared to be a coil of magnesium ribbon. This can only end badly.
Hnaef had his traditional Vernal Equinox, of course. Plummeting from great height off his tightrope into the duckpond, as he does regularly every equinox. One day his demonstration of the wonders of balance may work, but I'm not counting on it being soon. I'm thinking it's about time we put in yet another Duckhenge, so if he tries it again in the autumn he may well come a cropper. This time, as every spring, he merely scattered frogspawn all over the banks and upset a couple of grebes.
And now, as we idle away the three hours until we light the Great Equinoctial Fire - knowing it's not long till we light the Great Beltane Fire - a thought strikes me. Surely it's not that long since Christmas, is it?

And a little post-script. I note that, what with it being Equinox and Super Moon, the Severn Bore is in the news again. I saw the Severn Bore once. He was a bloke called Archie, in a pub in Gloucester.

Balance in all things

To celebrate the Vernal Equinox, as ever we are going to be celebrating our Festival of Balance.

The see-saw is set up - or, at least, a plank and an oil barrel. They've been having four or five people jump on one end at once, to propel the sucker on the other end high into the sky. Not really balance, but at least they're trying.

Hnaef is, once again, going to try to tightrope walk across the Duck Pond. Which should be bad news for the new tadpoles.

And all Beaker Folk of uncertain balance are being issued with water wings and balancing poles. It makes them inclined to get stuck in doors, but we are hopeful that we'll stop them falling over. Not least because it makes it impossible for them to enter the White Horse and get a pint.

Now if you'll excuse me it's time to get out there and squint at the horizon. I'm sure something is going to happen.

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)