I don’t engage with a specific ritual calendar but instead work as I see fit with a seasonal engagement of folk practices. These center around the traditional Mummers and folk plays.
These plays are Plays of Fate, often a Heros journey of Death and Rebirth. This is conceivably the most common motif in seasonal magical rituals found in Britain. Stories of Gods and Divine rulers who die or are sacrificed every year, only to rise again and bring the new year and the rebirth of life after winter have been told for millennia.
These have survived to the present day in Britain in various forms; The long sword dance, in which a captain or foolish figure is ceremoniously decapitated with a sword lock and then brought back to life shortly after, the Derby Tup, the wild obby osses and the yearly Jack in the Green celebrations, which culminate in the slaying of the green king who is then stripped of his greenery to release the spirit of summer and bring plenty to everyone. These are just a few of the forms of these that have persisted in Britain to this day.
I blend of these plays and narratives with our personal practice, to create new and contemporary rituals.
A Tree Song
Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs,
(All of a Midsummer morn!)
Surely we sing no little thing,
In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!
Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
Or ever AEneas began.
Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
When Brut was an outlaw man.
Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
(From which was London born);
Witness hereby the ancientry
Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!
Yew that is old in churchyard-mould,
He breedeth a mighty bow.
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
And beech for cups also.
But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
And your shoes are clean outworn,
Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!
Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
Till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him
That anyway trusts her shade:
But whether a lad be sober or sad,
Or mellow with ale from the horn,
He will take no wrong when he lieth along
‘Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!
Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But – we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
And we bring you news by word of mouth-
Good news for cattle and corn-
Now is the Sun come up from the South,
With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs
(All of a Midsummer morn!)
England shall bide till Judgment Tide,
By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!