EPISODE 53: BELTANE AND BALDERDASH

Welcome.

On May 1^st, last Tuesday, Glastonbury had one of its stranger days. At 11.30am a performance of sorts took place at the Market Cross. I say ‘of sorts’ not to decry it but because I couldn’t really see what was happening. If I had been feeling less unwell and self-preoccupied, I would have asked someone to explain what was going on in the midst of an encircling crowd but from my observation I could at least detect a battle between two dragons and then the enactment of a story about the Ice King having kidnapped someone. (I’ve just googled this but found nothing to relate to what I saw.)

In fact I should know a lot more than I’ve told you because my friend (when he is) was the Ice King and he has been prattling on about this Beltane celebration for a couple of months. Beltane, a Celtic festival, marks the beginning of summer and sure enough half-way through the day the rain stopped and the sun came out. By that time the ritual had moved from the centre of town to Bushy Coombe on the side of Chalice Hill where about 300 people joined hands to form a circle. Then for the rest of the afternoon they danced around a May Pole, had a picnic and sunbathed, a few nakedly, though I was still wearing two jumpers and a coat.

Quite possibly this was the best attended Beltane celebration in Glastonbury since the Middle Ages. The costumes worn were eclectic, some Druids, green men, witches, cowboys; whatever people had or felt like wearing. Covens had come from Spain and their Latin panache and good humour added a necessary vibrancy to the English greyness.

I watched all this in a number of minds. In six months’ time I hope to produce an even bigger procession because in theory I understand the need for communities to celebrate together. (While in practise I never join in.) Why these people want to don these garbs and express themselves neo-paganistically, I have no idea, but I am grateful that they do. Because of the success of the day, there is renewed enthusiasm for establishing a regular calendar of Celtish events, most particularly, Samhain. For this there appears to be even less of a known tradition to follow, so it will be entertaining to see what they come up with. Both Beltane and Samhain are ‘supposed’ to feature bonfires; Beltane didn’t and at this point I’ve no idea where I would put one either. 

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I decided earlier this week to concentrate entirely upon the Day of the Dead creation and forget about everything else. This came about as a response to being very down on myself and finding the whole thing too much to think about. My despondency at not performing well in Totnes – as confirmed by no correspondence from anyone there in the past week – increased as the days went by. If I can’t impress fluffies, my thinking goes, I’m not going to be much use with a more challenging audience. What is wrong with me? Why can I sometimes be managing quite well only to hear my voice begin to waver and my kidneys begin to ache?

The day after Beltane I went for a meeting about the website. As a supplicant to the designer whom I know to be intolerant of feedback, I felt what had been fixed become more difficult and I went away with a bunch of instructions which I don’t know how to follow. The following two days I spent staring at this screen, not actually doing anything.

One of those days was my partner’s birthday. I have discovered that while for me birthdays have (nearly) always been easy times, for many others this is not the case and even in adulthood trepidation comes with the date. It so happened that an indulgently late start to the day meant that phone calls and the post arrived during breakfast. By the end of the meal, she had discovered yet another job had eluded her and I had found both my overdraft to be considerably more than expected and the Tax Credit’s I’m supposed to receive had been halted for reasons that no-one could tell me because the system was down.

In the afternoon spirits were lifted when her friends came round for tea. Four hours later one of her guests had been taken to hospital thirty miles away because a blood-test had revealed a potentially fatal condition. All in all, not a great day.

As I write this, I am thinking two things. First, that maybe I haven’t been too well this week. Today I feel quite bright and looking back it seems as if I’ve been in a rather strange world with paranoid feelings arising frequently during the day. This isn’t really like me. Either I’ve been off-colour or I’ve fucked myself up inwardly worrying about something that really doesn’t matter, i.e. the Day of the Dead creation. Or rather, it is something that doesn’t need to matter and is only mattering because I’ve blindly marched into it thinking that the money side of it will work itself out and that if it doesn’t somehow I’ll find the pennies. 

This is contrary to my experience of me in life. I always think the money will work out and it never does.

The second thing I’m thinking is that I could abandon the whole idea. After all, it is only an idea. My unwillingness to give up bothers me. Is this more blithe optimism? Or is it a foolish pride? One would like to think that it is because this thing is important to me, but it isn’t. I’d like to think it was something I believed in, or was passionate about, but it ain’t; it really is just an idea.

And it is an idea I no longer feel excited about. So why not give up? I don’t know. But I better have a good think about it.

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'Discouragment arises as a result of attention becomming fixed on the obstacles and opponents to a goal (interference) rather than oon actions in alignment with the goal. Discouragement left unhandled will lead to quitting and failure. No matter how ratiponal and logical an excuse for failure appears, the real reason for failure is always discouragement.'  Harry Palmer.