EARTH FESTVALS

Now that nobody agrees about anything much, especially about God, it's high time we resurrected the old festivals which may or may not have been observed by the Celts. (Unfortunately, we can only see in any detail through Roman eyes...) They would work equally well, or better, as post-modern feast days. Oh, and they should all, ALL, be bank holidays!

Ever since I first saw The Wicker Man when I was 15, I've been fascinated by them because they're so evocative and, being almost equally spaced round the "wheel of the year", give some sense of order to recurring time. They provide a real reason to celebrate because each is in tune with our northern islands.

BELTAINE (May Day): The triumph of Spring, the garlanded fanfare to what is surely the giddiest season: high, high Summer!
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE: Midsummer's Day, when you feel as if anything is possible. They even let hippies get to Stonehenge now, don't they?
LUGHNASADH (around August 1st): beginning of the harvest (not any more). I always feel a bit sad that this marks the last of the summer true, although some hot days are left.
SAMHAIN (Hallowe'en/All Saints): end of the harvest. Anything you harvest after this is - West Country accents - accurrrsed! The veil between the worlds is thin. This was a day for remembering the Ancestors - hence its ghostly associations now.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE: (Yule) (Sonnenwende) Rebirth of the divine sun amid the darkness.
IMBOLC: (around February 1st) (Candlemas) First stirrings of Spring. This is supposed to be when the ewes first produce milk.

Add the Autumn and Spring equinoxes and you have a perfect suite of highly charged symbols - capable of endless interpretation and reworking - to remind people that, despite everything, there's still an earth and a sun and we're still dependent on them. Only problem is that the card industry would have a field day. Despite this,

Hail to the God of the Corn! (and sorry to policemen everywhere.)

the Celtic year