OUR open public ritual to celebrate Alban Elfed, the Autumn Equinox, in the Grove of Ynys Weith will again be held this year at The Longstone, Mottistone, Isle of Wight, weather permitting!
We will be there from around noon on Sunday, September 23, to welcome all who come with an open heart and a simple reciprocal respect for the path, the ceremony and the ancestral land.
Bendithion Llawer/|\Bright Blessings
Scribe
WIGHT Grove finally made it to network TV last weekend (Friday, September 14) with a small segment during Channel 4’s coverage of the Bestival, the “last festival of the summer”.
Grove members and friends appeared in circle with healers working at the Bestival’s Retreat, conducting a joint Druid/Native American opening ceremony to raise energy for the healing work to be done over the three-day festival weekend.
Radio One DJ Rob Da Bank, who organises the Bestival, joined the ceremony with his wife, Josie, who is creative director of this major event, which this year attracted 30,000 people.
Island therapist Eva Wolfram spent two days creating a labyrinth with a prayer tree at its heart as part of the ceremony and Native American pipe bearer Jan Harper – another Islander and something of a rarity as a woman in this role – echoed our more familiar quarter calls with the calls to the powers in Dakota before creating pipe ceremony as we conducted a simple meditation in the central part of the rite.
Brief interviews with both Jan and Eva appeared in the C4 programme, along with footage of the labyrinth and some scenes from the ceremony, before the cameras moved on to the eclectic mix of music during the three days of this fantastic ’boutique’ event, a late-summer carnival as much as a music event, though still featuring more than 300 musicians around its many stages.
As the event neared the hour of recall on the Sunday, Wight Grove and Jan Harper again gathered circle together to give thanks to the quarters in a simple closing rite, then some joined Eva, with the sun setting, to light for the final time the 300 candles that would bring the labyrinth to life for the last of the hundreds of people who chose to walk its path and take the journey into themselves.
This week, ‘Early Bird’ tickets for the 2008 Bestival went on sale – and sold out within two hours.
Wight Grove have already been invited to return next year to again create an opening ceremony for The Retreat. With the Blessings of the Gods and the Ancestors, we will be happy to do so. If you are going to be there, come and join us. Croeso – you will be very welcome!
Bendithion Llawen/|\Many Blessings
Scribe/|\
