St Bride's Day / Imbolc Eve

Yes, you're right. That was a right strange mixture of music at today's ceremonies. Not everyone would have chosen to switch alternate songs between the Pogues, Enya and Westlife. But it's St Brigid/Bridget/Bride's Day. So we've had a little celebration of all things Oirish - if you like a kind of early St Patrick's Day but without the green beer.

Tomorrow is of course Imbolc. The day when we all mooch around wondering what on earth we're going to do without a groundhog to find out how long winter's going to last. But it's also Candlemas! So tonight we're going to light as many tea lights as we can find and see if we can blast the winter out.

Now in the past I've refused to bless the tea lights. What's the point, I always say, blessing something that only burns for one day, and then you have to buy another extortionately priced one in the Beaker Bazaar tomorrow. But I've changed my mind. In the great scheme of things, when you think about it, even the lifespan of a human being is as that of a gnat when compared to the life of the Universe - even if, like Drayton, you think it's only 6,000 years old and it's going to end next Wednesday.  So I've changed my mind. Carpe Diem, and let us gather our rosebuds, Caveat Emptor and all the rest of it. Let us bless short-lived things, for in the eternal Mind a moment will last forever. I'm completely sold.
And so, hopefully, will be a lot more tea lights.

Tea light theology

I realised the other day that I only occasionally refer, as it were with a glancing glance, to the theology of tea lights. Yet they are an important part of the ethos of the Beaker People and worthy of consideration.

I suppose in many ways the tea light is a paradigm of modern spirituality. I often draw the analogy to the Anglican communion wafer, or a Methodist communion glass. The wonders of industrialisation meant these small, identical tokens of spiritual refreshment could be made - and the cult of individualism made them desirable. That's your spiritual moment. No-one else's. They can get their own, just like your own. After all, they come in bags of 50.

A tea light is not morally demanding. It does not ask you to examine yourself. And, let's face it, by the light of a tea light it would be terribly tricky to examine anything. No, rather through using a tea light you provide yourself with the illusion of light, while at the same time actually allowing the dust in the darker corners to be obscured.

But it gives you the sense of something. Just a light shining in the darkness. A brave little tea light. Your own little light of yours, you're gonna let it shine. Giving comfort. Giving hope. Giving a focus. Giving, if you buy the right scented variety, a lovely Christmassy smell around the place.

Sure, it's all about you. But then if religion isn't about making yourself feel better, what's it there for?

There's no progress with a tea light. It can't move you, like poetry. It can't inspire you, like the prophets. It can't challenge you, like John the Baptist. It's just what it is. And you can be just who you are. Not becoming, not growing, not changing, not moving. Just being. Bit of Enya, you could be in a dull little suburban heaven, no threat to anyone.

Go on.  You know you want to.

When Treasurers Ruled the Earth

While everyone else has been down the pub, I've been doing some planning.

The Hnaefs have now gone off for the weekend to Brussels, Archdruid Eileen was last seen building a Wicker Person to get more light, and Drayton Parslow is refusing to come back unless somebody repents. And so, Dear Readers, it appears that I am still in charge of the Community. And I have been thinking about imposing some proper spiritual rigour. What we need is process. What a certified accountant sees, looking around this community, is a total lack of people filling in forms.

So from now on, every Beaker Person is to write a Spiritual Update each day. It must include the ways in which they progressed today, the ways in which they intend to progress tomorrow, and any spiritual blockers that may prevent them making that progress. I expect to see the Updates at 9pm promptly each night. Starting tomorrow, obviously. I shall be issuing a pad of forms to each Beaker Person in the morning.

It has also become apparent that we are terribly slack about the way we manage spiritual experiences. Currently any Beaker Person wanting to have a spiritual experience can just go and do it. No governance, no management, no control. So I am introducing form SE1 - Spiritual Experience Request. From now on, any Beaker Person wanting to have a spiritual experience, or feeling one coming on. must fill in an SE1. That SE1 will be approved by his or her Spiritual Auditor - a Spiritual Auditor being like a Spiritual Director, but with circular glasses and no share options. Once it is approved by the Spiritual Auditor, and I have counter-signed it (or another approved member of the Druidic Council) and presuming the moment hasn't passed,the Beaker Person can feel free to enjoy their spiritual experience. Afterwards, we will ask them to fill in either an SE2/E (edifying spiritual experience) or SE2/D (disappointing spiritual experience) or, in really extreme circumstances, SE2/F (frightening spiritual experience).

Likewise with the issuing of tea lights. From now on, anyone wanting to light one tea light for a minor spiritual lift will only have to fill in the SE3/TL form. On the other hand, someone planning a major tea light-related event, such as a tea light labyrinth or a cross, Celtic Knot or other spiritual tea light shape on the floor or focus table of the Moot House will have to fill in an ISE/1 (Illuminated spiritual event) form and have it approved by the Druidic Council.

From now on, there will also be no slackness over the counting of attendants at acts of worship. Two tellers will be assigned at every worship event, with the job of enumerating the congregation. In the event of any difference of opinion, we will lock the doors of the Moot House until we know the answer. We don't know what we will do with the numbers, but we will make sure they are right. In the same way that offerings in the future will be double-counted and safely put in the community bank account, instead of being thrown in an old yellow bucket labelled "Eileen's Slush Fund".

So that is my future for the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley. Tidy, methodical, and above all - measured. I can't wait.

On the theological aspects of the Return to Work

Now many in this fair realm have been to work already since Christmas Day.  Indeed, some noble, unselfish and/or compelled souls were forced even to work on Christmas Day itself - I refer, of course, to ministers of the Christian religion, and Father Christmas.  And those who labour in the emporia of Messrs Waite and Rose, or of Messrs TE Stockwell and Cohen, have no doubt been at work on and off ever since the Great Day.

But tomorrow is the day for the great mass of the proletariat to return to their regular labours.  Barring snow, icy roads, or last-minute hangovers, tomorrow the Invoice Passing Clerks, PC Support desk operatives, and even teachers - incredible as it may sound - return to work.
And most will be grumpy.  But a few will be glad.  They will see in their roles, whether it be the instilling of wisdom into young minds, the emptying of wheelie bins into rubbish vans, the tilling of the soil or the time-honoured craft of the Passing of the Invoice, an echo of the creative work of the Creator in... well, in creating.  What JRR Tolkien referred to as sub-creation.  And for some, debugging a tricky line of code or rejecting a consignment of Norwegian Pine because it is insufficiently traceable will be a blessing and entering into the Divine Plan.  They are the blessed ones - the ones that can see that all days are indeed truly special, that the sun rises every day, and that there is a glimpse of the sublime even in the toasting of a burger bun.

But for others - the day rises as a day of drudgery.  They will cling on until 5 o'clock, or whenever their time of indenture ends, and then go home figuring that at least there are only four days left till the weekend, or - according to their philosophy - only 8 months until the Summer Holiday, or 11 and a half until next Christmas.  Or - if you are a sitting New Labour MP - only five months till you can have a nice long rest, for at least 10 years or until someone considers that they have other uses, unlikely as that seems.  These are the ones for whom we should feel something - not the MPs, the others. The ones who know all about the curse of the Fall, as they wrestle with the nettles of pushy salesmen and the thorns of dim-witted suppliers.  The ones for whom the night gives no rest and the day gives no fulfilment.  The ones that - whether in their quick tyre replacement garage, or their forecourt, or their grimy mezzanine office in a warehouse in Corby - just want to get home to Eastenders, so they can share in the misery of others.

I'd like at this point to point the way forward for these people, for whom only the promise of Celebrity Big Brother gives any kind of meaning and hope for the future.  I'd like to, but I can't.  That's the problem with the Beaker Faith.  It's all about feeling and emoting and rather depends on you being in a good state of mind in the first place.  We're dead good at accepting, and listening, and sharing your pain.  Actually, sharing it is maybe a bit strong.  Hearing about it - for a reasonable but not excessive period of time - that's what we're really good at.  Frankly, suggesting you light a tea light is about as helpful as we get.

So - the good news is, with Hnaef out at his archery school, Young Keith back at the office and Burton doing an audit on a tractor company in Leighton Buzzard, it's all going to be pretty quiet around the Great House for the next week or so.  I hereby announce that the Sunrise Service will be held at lunchtime. No point in pushing it.

And if you're really worried about work tomorrow, can't stand the thought of it, and are just hoping that the earth will open up, or 10 feet of snow fall in the night - can I suggest lighting a tea light?  It works wonders.

Any religion you like as long as it's not Beaker

Sometimes I swear that we are being persecuted for our Beaker faith.

As is widely known, Hnaef runs an archery school for people with no thumbs.  It's a worthwhile career, albeit he sometimes comes home with arrow marks.


This afternoon, he had a not-uncommon occurrence, when one of his customers was accidentally shot.  A mixture of the frosty conditions and a lack of thumbs took its inevitable course.  Thankfully just a flesh wound.  But as the time was coming on towards 4pm, it was starting to get quite dark.  Being out on the range, there was no electric light to hand.  But as fortune would have it, Hnaef had some tea light supplies he had picked up from Morrison's "Stone and tea light" section on Westcroft this morning.


Naturally, Hnaef lit a few tea lights to try and see the severity of the injury.  However the injured customer, realising he was now laying in a ring of tea lights, thought he had died and woken up in a severely constrained version of heaven.  This caused a certain amount of panic.  He then realised he was in fact alive but decided that Hnaef was trying to coerce him into taking part in a Beaker ceremony.


At this point, he decided to try to fight Hnaef off to stop himself being, as he imagined, brainwashed.  Ironically, since he tried to keep Hnaef away by throwing stones at him, it could be argued that he had in fact joined the Beaker Folk himself at this point.


In any case, Hnaef has now been banned by the Health and Safety Executive from bringing tea lights onto the premises.  And the local council has said he will receive no funding until he can prove there are no essential oils anywhere on the premises.  As I said, it feels awfully like persecution.

Swine Flu, NASA and Bobby Davro

Judging by our online poll, the jury is very much out on the existence or otherwise of the Moon Gibbon.  The new sect that arose last night,  Gibbon Folk against the Shadow Proclamation, are convinced that the Gibbon is at this time fighting a war on behalf of Dr Who against the Cybermen.  Speaking as one who has seen many causes go agley over the years, I'd be less surprised to hear the Gibbon was actually fighting the Ood.
But many people appear convinced that the the Gibbon was killed by NASA. This upsurge seems not entirely unconnected with a sudden influx of Gruaniad readers, which has thankfully since calmed down again.  But the option is very open - "NASA killed him".  We did not specify whether the Gibbon was murdered, whether NASA attempted to "wing" him but sadly took him completely out by mistake, or whether the Moon Gibbon was simply the unfortunate bystander who took a bullet when NASA really was trying to find water on the Moon.  In other words - was it first, second or third degree gibbocide?
In another rather odd side-conspiracy, some Moon Gibbon Folk are claiming that the Gibbon died because NASA were in fact firing Swine Flu virus at the moon, in an attempt to determine whether human - Moon Gibbon transmission was possible. I'm inclined to think that this is a conspiracy theory too far, myself.

Meanwhile we find in a remarkable co-incidence that we appear to have for sale 2,012 pairs of "his and hers" tealights in the shape of Bobby Davro and Anthea Turner.  Perfect as a Christmas present, or to light after going to see aforementioned minor celebs in panto in Bedford this year.

Yule Sale

You know, many people come to me and say "Archdruid, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
And that's a hard question.  So many faiths, so many attitudes to life, death and how to gain salvation, nirvana, or  paradise according to choice.  So many different paths.  It can all become so confusing and worrying.
So why not buy a bag of Beaker tea lights?  In many ways just like any other tea lights, but lighting one of our authentic Beaker lights will give you 2-3 hours of new-age relaxation in the comfort of your very own library, conservatory or yurt.  And if you feel at peace with the universe now, why worry about the life to come?

And speaking of yurts - what better place could there be to light your Beaker tea lights than in your very own authentic Beaker yurt?  Crafted with the expertise of those Mongols whom we can be almost certain moved to Husborne Crawley in the centuries BC.  We have a limited edition of only 2,012 Beaker Yurts.  So buy one and get a bag of tea lights for free.

For those requiring a more word-based spirituality - whoever you are, we have a Beaker Common Worship for you.  The new Bathtime Beaker Common Worship has been made with laminated pages and an inflatable rubber cover, specially for people who like to carry out their daily devotions in the bath, shower or bubble pool in the garden.  The Study Beaker Common Worship comes with hand-tooled calfskin cover, gold leaf lettering and parchment paper - a must for those wanting to get back to a simpler, more authentic lifestyle of poverty and austerity in these Credit Crunchtimes.  While Today's New International Beaker Common Worship has all words with the the dipthong "-our-" spelt "-or-", and all gender-specific language removed and replaced with the word "it".

To accompany your Beaker Common Worship, why not try our new CD - "Sounds of living pebbles".  Many have claimed that pebbles don't actually make any sounds - but they're wrong.  Using new technology, we have shown that if you drop a pebble from the top of California Cliffs in Norfolk, they do indeed make a sound.  Especially when you land them on the sound recordist.

And then there are doilies.  Shaped like a full moon, in a choice of linen, white or unbleached paper - the widest choice of doilies on earth can be obtained from Mrs Whimsey's Online Doily Shop (now only available online as we've closed all the real ones down for tax reasons).

So don't forget - buy early for Yule!  We have only 2,012 of each of these fantastic items.  And when they're gone, we'll just go out and make some more.

A meditation for All Souls' Day

And so what do we make of All Souls' Day, in our post-Christendom paradigm?  In an environment where the most popular funeral songs, as previously discussed, are such songs as Robbie Williams's "Angels" and Celine Dion's "My Love Must Go on"*

The Roman Catholics use the day to remember the souls that are still in Purgatory, fighting their way to the surface, as it were.  But for most of us, in these days we have lost a sense of Purgatory.

And souls.

Now the aim of the Beaker People is to meet people where they are, and allow them to give a name to that place.  To help them find their spiritual voice.  So if we meet them where they are - where are they?

Firstly, they seem to be rejecting the sharp certainties of atheism.  Just as well for us, being a religious community and all that - it would make us totally redundant and even more pointless than we often seem to be already.  But whatever else they believe, they don't think Auntie Vera has actually ceased to exist.  They seem to have an implicit belief that Auntie Vera is somewhere, even if she is not physically around.

Naturally we'd have to rule out any mention of a resurrection.  How are we going to explain that?  Especially to a generation that finds the best way to deal with the dead is to convert them to more manageable ashes.  And while many people seem to believe in reincarnation in theory, we find they don't really want to go into the details.  After all, that would mean considering the possibility that, Uncle Ernest having come back as a chicken, they ate him for tea. 

We also find it best not to dwell in any detail on the concept of heaven.  It has a nasty habit of reminding people of hell.  And we don't want to go there, if you see what I mean.  Just allow that a few people - Hitler, Stalin and Mao, for example - are in hell and where would you draw the line?  You start drawing lines and suddenly you're talking about judgement and sin and salvation and all kinds of other things we really wouldn't want to get into.

No, the best place to assign the spirits of the dead, on the whole, would appear to be to a kind of insubstantial, almost-heavenly place, where the dearly beloved ones are held in a kind of - if you will forgive the misuse of the word - limbo.  A kind of commuter suburb of heaven, really.  Based on the vague recollections of other people attending seances or medium shows, most people see this as where the dead live.  Our former friends and much-missed family members are probably best imagined sitting in someone's ectoplasmic front room, on a rainy day in the 1970s, just after "The Big Match" has finished, for all eternity.   Without even a set of dominoes to relieve the boredom.  No wonder the Dead spend all their time, if the mediums are to be believed, worrying about how their budgies are doing, if their niece's bad back is bearing up and whether they switched the gas off before they died.

And so we nod sagely, and encourage people with the assurance that their loved ones are "in God's hands".  But we make sure we aren't too specific about what exactly God is doing with those hands.

So on All Souls' Day, the Beaker Folk will light a tea light for all the dead people we want to remember.  And we will desperately hope that when we light one for Uncle Ernest, Auntie Gladys won't be too upset, because we didn't light one for her - because if we did that then Cousin Wilf would want one as well.  And before you knew it we'd be lighting one for every dead person we'd ever met (before they died, obviously).  Because where would you draw the line?  Honestly, it would be like writing Christmas cards.

Have a contemplative All Souls' Day.  Wherever you are.

*with special thanks to Albatross for his remembrance of "Please Release me", and to David Keen for his (hopefully satirical) suggestion of "Living in a Box".  Oh - and to Anonymous and  Sally for "Smoke gets in your eyes".

The Night of 10,000 Tea Lights

Accustomed as I am to recounting the serial disasters that we suffer whenever we attempt some kind of alternative worship, we seem to have had a wonderful success with our "Night of 10,000 Tea Lights".

The "Night of a 1,000 Tea Lights" last year was a terrible disaster, as you may remember.  One of those occasions when we managed to burn the Moot House down.  Too many tea lights in too small a space.  It was no wonder we kicked up so much heat.

But the "Night of 10,000 Tea Lights" was a complete triumph.  To reduce the chances of synergistic meltdown we strung the tea lights 4 inches apart, connected with fuse wire.  Linked together in a labyrinthine spiral around the meadow and all the way out to School Lane, the lights sparked into life in a beautiful sequence, flickering in a mystical chain of light stretching away to the distance.  We stood and gazed in awe.

To be honest, having lit the spiral we were slightly confused.  Yes it was all lovely.  But what had we achieved?  The lighting of a vast number of tea lights in a short period, sure.  Maybe a world record, for what that's worth.  But was anyone fed, anyone saved, anyone changed?  Or had we just made ourselves all go "aah" for a short period of time?
You can over-analyse these things.  One thing's for certain.  When Boldrid stepped over the chain of tea lights and his flares caught fire, it was hilarious.  Do you really need a spiritual experience to have a point when that happens?