It was an honour to be asked to join the London order’s Spring Equinox ceremony scattering seeds in the City, but sadly the chief’s plea to “redistribute wealth” fell on deaf ears among the bankers
Druids mark Spring equinox with gathering in London
Putting on my best goddess voice, I tried to make my voice heard over the roar of the central London traffic as I addressed the white robed chief druid holding a wooden staff in front of me. “It is the Lady who is come, in her representation of Ceridwen – the Earth Mother, she bears the Augury and Offering of Plenty to the High Druids of the Order,” I shouted over the din.
Even before the Roman emperor Julius Caesar named our Celtic lands Britannia and called it an “island of mystery”, druids have been practising their ancient rites and rituals.
However it’s hard to sound ethereal when you’re in the middle of the busiest part of the city at the Tower of London, where crowds of bemused tourists, banks of photographers and a gathering of the sort of folk who would normally be found lying in a herbal haze in the healing fields at festivals, were all jostling for a better view at this strange sight.
They didn’t have this 21st century hubbub to deal with thousands of years ago when the first druids performed these ancient Spring Equinox ceremonies to encourage a fruitful year ahead.
Trying to shut the modern world out, I offered the chief and scribe my basket of pretty yellow and lilac flowers to represent the bounty of spring, before my two maidens, Geraldine and Tyra, who bore my golden silk cloak behind me, then handed me the horn of cornucopia for us all to drink from. I like to think it would have originally been a cup of goats blood or something, but we had to make do with warm white wine.
My final role in the ceremony was offering him a wooden bowl of seeds, which another druid called the Presider sprinkled symbolically around the pigeon-poop splattered pavements inside our circle of white robed druids, before I was ushered back into line.
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Everyone had their roles with very literal titles – there was the Herald, who blew her long trumpet, and the Sword Bearer, who yes, wielded a sword. And also two Portals, who did their very best to look like pillars as we entered and exited the circle through them.
After more prayers, the chief druid then made a speech, which, not unlike a regular priest’s sermon, went on for far too long, but he wasn’t wrong when he spoke about the disconnect between modern life and nature. I especially liked the bit when he encouraged “a redistribution of wealth”, which naturally fell on deaf ears in one of the world’s biggest financial districts.
All the local bankers in gilets mostly ignored the proceedings as they’re used to this annual sight, but it does do the trick of making people aware of the changing of the seasons.
And we are definitely seeing a dawn of the new pagans in the UK as more and more young people are feeling drawn towards something more spiritual in life, but rejecting traditional Christianity.
Shamans, pagans and wiccans all sound a bit too much like the cult British folk horror film The Wicker Man to me – which was so bad, the film script should have been tossed in the burning pile of straw.
However I’ve been into druids ever since I read Asterix and Obelisk as a child and was fascinated by the unmanageable Gaul tribe’s religious leader Getafix, with sickle tucked into his robe and hut filled with pots and potions – one of which turns Obelisk into Roman-thumping machine.
“We have seen the membership of our London druid order double in the last five years,” explains Susan Winter, who is the order’s scribe. “And it’s not just British people – it’s people from all round the world. I’ve just had some South Koreans booking themselves in, pleading to come to our autumn equinox.”
Susan explains the unusual job titles, “We’re a registered charity, so in a conventional system, I’d be the company secretary, and we have the chief and a treasurer, who we call the Pendragon.”
She is also keen to put some distance between pagans and druids before I start asking her questions about hallucinatory drug-fuelled orgies, which is how I like to imagine members of pagan cults spend their weekends.
“No, but we do have a meeting house in South London where we have public meetings and classes,” she laughs. “The only thing we share with pagans is our respect for nature, and trying to live in harmony and in tune with the cycles of the year – spring, summer, autumn and winter.
“We have four different ceremonies – spring is all about planting seeds. We see seeds as both physical, as in the garden and also mental, as in it’s the time to develop new ideas, commit yourself to new ideas and decide what you want to do this year. We always look at everything physically and spiritually – we see that as kind of working with nature’s energy.”
“So not even one weeny gory sacrifice?” I ask, sounding disappointed.
“Well we do have a bonfire and feast for the autumn equinox to celebrate the harvest,” she offered. “But no, we don’t call ourselves a pagan group because we have people from all religions – Buddhists, Christians, Jews – we’re very inclusive.
“There are also Welsh, Cornish and Irish druids, and even Cotswolds druids, but here in London we have a very long heritage and can trace our history back 150 years.”
In fact evidence of druids in these islands date back as far as 3,000BC when priests, teachers and judges ruled tribes long before the Romans and Christians came along and suppressed them. The ceremonies of modern day druids are still based on those early teachings but the order is more about philosophical discussion these days.
While the Christians have Christmas and Easter, the main event for druids is the longest day of the year at Stonehenge, which was built to align with the sun on the solstices.
“It’s always very exciting going to Stonehenge. It’s a time when everything is about being out in the open – maximum light, maximum energy. It’s not always a comfortable time because you can feel quite exposed, but the greatest energy and light is shown onto everything.”
I get hopeful and think this is perhaps the ideal time to ask about sickles.
“I’m sorry, to my knowledge there’s very little sickle involvement,” smiles Susan. “The only time we joke about this is when we use a scythe.” My ears prick up at this.
“Yes we do have a ceremony as part of the summer solstice ceremonies on a mound which has to be trimmed or scythed every year. And we do hold mistletoe as a sacred herb as many of us are natural health practitioners and acupuncturists, herbalists, homeopaths.”
As I was so interested, Susan kindly allowed me to attend their Spring Equinox ceremony. But when I turned up at the old city pub where they meet in an upstairs room to change into their ceremonial robes, Brenda (also known as Druid No.4) was waving a ceremonial pamphlet at me.
“We always ask someone from outside the order to be Ceridwen in order to invite the new into the ceremony and to gather strength from that,” says Brenda. “And I think you would make a very strong Earth Mother.”
I was rather touched to be asked, as I knew among the druids it was considered a great privilege, so I threw myself into the role and channelled my inner Boudicca.
They’re very organised and someone who worked as the wardrobe mistress handed me a bag with a robe for someone who’s a bit shorter than me at 5ft 4inches. “It’s either that or 6ft,” she said firmly.
I was helped into my robes and cloak and had my role explained to me by a nice American lady who was very proud of her vintage copy of the Spring Equinox ceremonial words from 1972. She did look a bit like a hippy who had come over for Glastonbury in the 1970s, and never gone home.
“Nice day for a sacrifice,” I chattered happily to my maidens as we all left the pub and processed solemnly towards Tower Hill Terrace, where once there would have been just a mound of grass, but was now a busy street market stalls selling piri-piri chicken and Thai curry.
“Yes, a metaphorical sacrifice,” Geraldine reminded me. “You’re sacrificing your ego.”
And I really was because while the maidens looked lovely in their flower-woven headdresses, I had a copper-coloured torque around my head, which was supposed to touch my temples in order for the good energies to flow, but mainly made my head hurt.
But I have to admit I enjoyed the entire ceremony much more than I expected and left with a sneaking admiration for these modern-day druids who, frankly, are doing a lot of heavy lifting for the rest of us.
And while non-believers may scoff, this year’s Spring Equinox turned out to be the warmest day of the year so far, no doubt due to my excellent fruitful work as Earth Mother.
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