A Spring Clean for the May Queen

We welcome the summer here in the northern hemisphere in many ways, from public folk dances to intimate coven or solitary rituals. (For me this includes a ceremonial screening of The Wicker Man, a lineage tradition I received from Peter Grey.)

On the run up to May Day this year, across the world, we’ve seen some remarkable actions by Extinction Rebellion and other groups. This in the context of British politics, where we seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic of climate change, while wittering on about Brexit.

With the intention that our community can find ways to transcend current divisions and to unite in the face of the collapsing biosphere I’ve created this audio track. Feel free to deploy it in ritual that seeks to build common ground among all those demanding change and those who don’t get it yet. The core ritual technology in this tune is a recording of a wonderful naked protest action in the House of Commons. Why not sing along to the Padstow May Day carol and using the ‘Extinction Rebellion!’ chant, focus some positive vibes in the direction of these timely transformations. By all means go skyclad if you like 😀

“I trust the sight of the young people refreshes you.”

Beltane is the celebration of sexuality and so, from the archives, here’s another folky offering:

You may fancy a bit of dancing to celebrate summer coming in, so here are some tunes used during our Purple Magic rituals in the Chaos Craft Coven the Western Watchtower.

And last by not least, Beltane is the season to worship Pan; the god called from an imagined Arcadia into the heart of the late 19th and early 20th century literature as The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, ‘The Great God’ by Golden Dawn magician Arthur Machen and in many other guises.

In ancient times Pan was a dependable minor deity (once charmingly referred to, by Professor Ronald Hutton, as ‘the Citroën 2CV of Gods)’. By the dark dawn of the industrial revolution, when the ‘peasants’ got re-branded as the ‘working class’ of Britain this all changed. People flooded into the cities, driven off the newly enclosed land as the long haul of climate change began its exponential curve. The subsequent sense of loss for the countryside and rural life conjured Pan into the pens of poets, the brushes of painters and the temples and groves of occultists and witches. Let us reclaim and replant the wild wood from which we were untimely ripped by oppression and industrialization!