The Samhain Pagan tradition is a time to reflect on human impact on our planet

Samhain - pronounced sáwin - is the Pagan festival that takes place at some point around the end of October and beginning of November, and is often mixed up with Halloween. Although it is pretty certain Samhain spawned Halloween, the difference between the two is on one hand very different, and on the other hand strikingly similar. The Samhain tradition is a celebratory rite where we reflect on those who went before us, and where the curtain between the afterlife and this life is very thin, meaning there may be some overlapping of the two worlds. We also spend time contemplating our own lives. The deep autumn is an important time to understand who we are and where we are going; to remember why we are here and try to reach out to our ancestors for guidance. Understanding the past helps enormously in identifying our current paths. Halloween, as we shall read, is very far from this.

Paganism is, for want of a better metaphor, a very broad church. There are lots of weird Pagans as well as a lot of serious ones, which means we are often targets of derision by those from what we might call the established faiths. There are no real Pagan denominations as such, like in the Christian or Muslim traditions; they are more like independent franchises without the fiscal aspect, although everyone has the same goal: to see the divine in our surroundings, and to revere and protect it.

The divine is very easy to come across in our eyes: the similarly pentacular features of many flowers; the soughing of the trees in the wind; the tides of the sea; the passing of the moon overhead and the shadows it casts; the smallest insect and the largest mammal and everything in-between; the shooting stars and the spinning planets; the incredible detail on the wing of a butterfly; the majesty of bees going about their daily work. The list goes on.

Samhain is the time of year when we witness the dying of the summer flora and fauna, and the retreat of vernal fecundity to its winter sleep, ready for the spring awakening. How do Pagans celebrate Samhain? Any way they choose, but some things remain fixed: a meal to celebrate the harvest; a fire to summon the spirits; a walk in nature (clothes are optional, depending on the time of day/night and the location); an altar with some of the features of this time of year (e.g. the skull of a wild beast, pumpkins, brown leaves or nuts) and the remembrance of those who went before us.

Why are standing stones so important to us? Because they are the permanent legacy of our forebears. One thing we have in common with our pre-Christian ancestors is the marking of the seasons and celebration of the life-cycle of the Earth. Many standing stone circles are calendars, marking the time of year. In spring, the Earth is like a youthful girl, evident in the retreat of the snow and the arrival of hatchlings, calves, lambs, cubs, seedlings and all other forms of life. She blooms into full fertility by June, where the abundance of food and fecundity is all around us. By mid-August, the Lady gives us our harvest before her fertility ends. In autumn she recedes into her grand old age, and in winter she becomes the old crone before once again dying in midwinter, allowing a new life-cycle to begin.

We are reminded of our own mission on Earth: to live, die, and live again - we can never reappear, but we can make sure life continues to do so once we have long gone. This is why I have planted a great number of trees in my garden: they, or their saplings, will live on after me, but they will also allow the birds, insects and other flora to thrive.

Our mission to maximise our efforts to spread the positive effects of nature is misinterpreted by climate deniers or sceptics as needless do-goodery. In fact, what we are doing has absolutely no bearing on the climate change debate at all: we do it anyway, because it is the right thing to do. The recent extremification of weather phenomena is worrying for us all, especially with the recent UN report that gives us a little over a decade to sort it all out before it's too late.

What is disappointing, though, is the attitude of various politicians following an agenda either dictated by their voter base or their party's biggest sponsors. I find it abhorrent that, despite the overwhelming evidence, nay proof, there are people who choose to ignore the situation for their own financial or ideological gain.

If you want to know what is driving current politics, just follow the money. If you want to know our future, take a look at the past. And let us be honest here: it does not look very good. Samhain is a time to put our flora to sleep and help them survive the winter.

As I touched on at the beginning, Samhain often gets bundled together with Halloween. The former is a commemoration of the past, the latter is a commercialised corruption of it, which has, like all other Pagan festivals, been subsumed by Christianity and/or popular culture. Halloween is a shadow of Samhain. It has in fact become the total opposite. Samhain is about remembering those who went before us, lighting fires and sitting in quiet contemplation as befitting this time of year.

Halloween, conversely, is making loud noises, disturbing the peace, and dressing up in scary costumes. Although the spiritual aspect of Samhain spawned Halloween, it was far easier to turn it into a money-making racket as a prelude to Christmas. This is, of course, a total fabrication of the original. Many Pagan festivals have turned into corruptions of the originals, mainly by the Catholic Church - Easter, Christmas and Midsummer's (St John's) Day being just three. The Catholic Church always had an ulterior motive in wanting to do away with Paganism, so it came up with ways to distract the people.

In order to vilify Pagans, and bring people into their "flock", they used the same fake-news-style tactic that is used today - take their symbols and turn them into socially unacceptable things. For example, why does the devil have a red face? Why are horns and pitchforks associated with Satan? Could it be that people from the country, farmers who obviously used agricultural implements, were more likely to be Pagan and have ruddy-red faces from the cold wind, and place horned animal skulls outside their doors to ward off evil spirits? Why did St Patrick kill all the snakes in Ireland? Could it be that the snake, the symbol of Paganism in his day, was a way to use a euphemism to say that he killed all the Pagans?

Anyone, whether from a Christian denomination or not, who dares say we are satanic should do a little more reading, as equating us with evil is like saying apples must be alien because they're green. It says more about the naïvety of their flock to believe everything fed to them by their elders than it does about us.

Finally, I will not be celebrating Halloween this year, not because of any irrational fear of some so-called Satan fellow, but because it is not who we are.

Don't bring your religion into politics and count on my respect

I have been utterly astounded by the number of people whom I have come across, on Facebook, in the media, or in person, who vote for political leaders based on one point only, no matter how relevant their other beliefs are for them. This is a very blinkered and self-defeating point of view, and the biggest share of this went to Christian fundamentalists, the vast majority of whom turn out time and time again for one party in many countries that best represents their chance to implement their ideologies, no matter what else the party believes in. We saw this in Poland, which swept the conservatives to power, and now we have seen it in the US, where the Republicans have steamrollered their way to all three houses.

In 2015, the Polish elected the Law and Justice (PiS) party to power, thanks to a growing dissatisfaction in rural areas with the speed of reforms implemented by the previous incumbents, Civic Platform. Although it is understandable for people to vote out a party that has ignored them, there were many who voted for PiS based purely on their sympathies with the Roman Catholic Church in the country. Since PiS was elected, it has taken a sledgehammer to the democratic institutions that were set up to assure constitutional equilibrium in the country, has tried to totally ban in-vitro fertilisation and pregnancy terminations (unsuccessfully) and tried to gag the independent media outlets.

Many fundamentalist Catholics in Poland would never consider voting for another party, and most certainly not for Civic Platform, the party that upheld the right to abortion in a vote not long before the last election. On 3 October 2016, the proposal to ban abortion outright brought Polish women of all kinds out on strike in a huge act of peaceful civil disobedience. Two days later, many politicians had begun to distance themselves from the proposal and an amendment was being considered at the time of writing this.

The irony is, the PiS (standing for Law and Justice) party claims they helped overthrow the Communist regime along with the Catholic Church, so they feel a little like they are owed a debt of gratitude for bringing about democracy, and yet they themselves have the most undemocratic agenda since the fall of Communism in 1989. So much so, a group of intellectuals and moderates established the KOD (Committee for the Safeguarding of Democracy) as a counterweight to the encroaching reduction in freedoms taking place in the country. What they want is closer to a theocracy than a democracy, and the people are finally beginning to realise the consequences of their actions.

The moral (pardon the pun) of the story here is, do not force your ideology on others. If you don't want to be involved in, or even inadvertently condone, something that you fundamentally deplore, that is your right. But it does not mean you should force your view on others by voting for a party based on one point of obsession. This is not how democracy works. Democracy is inclusive, and one size most certainly does not fit all.

Now we turn to the other side of the Atlantic, where the Republican party has won the right to govern the United States for the next four years. There is a great paradox between people with Christian values and the parties they vote for, the vast majority siding with the Republicans.

Let us take a look at Republicans' policies and compare them to Christian values:

So, to start with, they want to keep God in the public sphere. All's well and good if you're a Christian then. But dig a little deeper and the truth is very muddy.

Christian values stipulate that one should do unto others as you would do unto yourself, including:

• giving shelter to those in need; 
• providing help to the sick and the poor; 
• not killing your fellow human. 

And yet the Republicans strongly oppose giving asylum to those who have come to the US for a better life, they wish to foist medical expenses back on the individual and advocate the reversal of the weapons restrictions introduced under Barack Obama. Upon further consultation of policy one can see the Democrats favoured these points. Who is more closely aligned to Christian doctrine in these areas? I know who I would say...

Then there are thorny issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, both favoured by the Democrats and opposed by Republicans. These issues are relevant to far fewer people than those in the preceding paragraph, and yet they are the Republicans' most fertile hunting grounds for opposition supporters. So what this suggests is that, despite the fact that Jesus himself is recorded as hanging around with socially stigmatised groups like prostitutes and ex-criminals, this is irrelevant when it comes to Christians' political behaviour in modern times.

We can ignore the hundreds of thousands of people on the poverty line who are about to have healthcare added to their list of debts; rough up and throw out any under-the-radar immigrants who are doing all the jobs Americans don't want to do rather than give them an amnesty; and risk our lives by going out onto the street hoping not to meet a testosterone-fuelled sicko with a gun licence who can kill at a second's notice. Forget that, because hold your horses, folks... love between two people is only right and proper if they're male and female, and we shouldn't allow anyone to make sexual "mistakes". This is really rather creepy, but yes, fundamentalist (emphasis on the mental, and most definitely not on the fun) Christians would rather vote based on such kneejerk matters such as that rather than on the bigger issues.

The same goes with the environment:
It is entirely feasible that the next energy secretary will be a climate change denier. Despite all the warnings, the evidence and the fact that nearly two hundred countries have signed treaties to deal with it, the US is probably about to assign this job to a sceptic. Christians are split on this issue, although time and time again the Bible tells humans to respect the Earth:
Leviticus 25:1-7 and 23; Psalm 24; Ezekiel 34:18; Matthew 6:26; 1 Timothy 4:4; the list is endless, and they all point to the need to look after our planet. So one would think, that even as a sceptic, one would at least be respectful of our Earth and Her resources. But most Republicans favour withdrawing from environmental treaties and reigniting the fossil fuel industry.

Again, this is considered a side-issue by many fundamentalist Christians, because moral behaviour is a far greater threat to them than this. And to be honest, I find it at best very distasteful, at worst profoundly hypocritical. But most of all it highlights the easily-led, knuckle-headed narrow-mindedness of people (or sheeple, considering they are a flock) that:

• they would elect a party that condoned the widespread carrying of guns yet called themselves "pro-life"; 
• would listen to their priest telling them the story of the Good Samaritan and then immediately join a demonstration against Mexicans or Muslims; 
• would read from 1 Corinthians 13, which even for a non-believer like me is the best definition of love in existence, and then go and heckle an LGBTQ event. 

I remember I once knew a Baptist minister's daughter who, despite the deep unpopularity of John Major's government in 1997 due to the in-fighting, the scandals, the remoteness of the ministers and the institutionalised corruption, declared she would vote for him because he went to church. Did she even pay attention to the news...? I doubt it.

And this is my problem with religion interfering in politics. You cannot blindly let yourself be guided by priests, bishops and cardinals on the very narrow moral issue of sex and love which, by the way, they don't even take part in (if you don't play the game, you can't expect to make up the rules), and at the same time have a clear conscience on other issues of a more urgent nature, like the rising oceans, civilian gun crime, free healthcare, proper education, housing the homeless and welcoming refugees. The Statue of Liberty itself has these words:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land."

If this is what you believe, then you are most definitely not a Republican, but you have probably been made to believe that you are by more eloquent people, or cajoled into voting for them by peer pressure, pressure from your elders or by your sheer blindness to the real issues.

I think it's only right to see that Bible verse in full. Learn from it, because it sums up not only what one might call "conventional" love, but also that for the Earth, for our neighbours, for our fellow humans, and our country:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

So on that note, if you vote based on one narrow issue of religious doctrine, don't expect me to regard you as an example of moral fortitude, for you have done nothing more than condoned a sort of "Christian Sharia" - the imposition of your religious doctrine in our law and politics, where people of other religions need to coexist. The content of Sharia law is totally different to Christian teaching in many aspects, but I don't think anyone would agree that Christianity should be applied to our laws. This is why, even in France and ultra-Catholic Italy, religious symbols are banned from state workplaces. Religion has a place inside people as individuals - it is a very personal thing. It has no place in a one-size-fits-all public sphere.

So please, keep your own beliefs to yourself, and don't impose them on others.

The Christmas message is maybe no longer lost

Along with many people, I have been gripped by the BBC's freshly-made telling of the Nativity story, quite originally titled Nativity, on at 19.00 GMT for four days this week. It was actually quite refreshing to see the whole story through Joseph's eyes, and walk a mile in his shoes. Well, 85 miles in fact, from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

I thought Andrew Buchan, who plays the upstanding William Garrow in Garrow's Law was an outstanding piece of casting. His mild-mannered attitude and gentle demeanour made him the perfect Joseph. Tatiana Maslany, one of the most innocently beautiful women ever to grace the screen made it all the more worthwhile. They together were two inspirational main subjects who brought the whole story to its sweetest conclusion and quite frankly I would have liked it to go on and on and on in that manner, telling the whole story. I might be a Pagan, but I too find the Christmas story humbling, yet empowering. An odd juxtaposition of emotions which culminate in just a day from now.

The reason it was so gripping was because there was no exaggeration, no Ben Hur-style über-glory, no fanfare, no great announcement by archangels, just the bare bones of the story, the poorest of poor shepherds, the Magi following the astronomical signals and two caring parents worried about their daughter and future son-in-law. The other interesting aspect of this particular version was the inclusion of planetary movement, making this astronomical event seem much more relevant, as it should do.

As a Pagan, we respect and tolerate all reasonable religions, and find comfort in and gain knowledge from many of their teachings. I would never shy away from hiding the story of the Nativity from any child of mine, as it is a story of hope, as well as a lesson in the equality of all people at birth. If Jesus could be born in a stall, and become the great man he was, and for many still is, so the dustman's son could one day grow up to be a footballer, the daughter of a party pack salesman could grow up to marry the heir to the throne of the UK, but at the same time, Nicholas II, the Tsar of Russia could be pulled from his haughty position to be executed, and the greatest leader of all time, Winston Churchill, could lose a general election and be a mere commoner the day after.

The Nativity story also tells us that life is a gift. The planet we live on is a beautiful spheroid perfectly climatised to allow us to evolve and gain intelligence to improve our existences. The story also teaches us that death is but a condition for our existence and comes to us all in the end, like a final bill at the end of a prodigious meal. Some of us will be lucky and drop dead without any symptoms. The most shocking for those left behind, but the way most of us would like to depart. Many of us will die of illnesses which we hope we will never get. The long, protracted suffering of my mother is one of the things which made me understand the tenuousness of our lives. Some of us, a very tiny minority in fact, will be killed by another person. This is the greatest crime in any society, and in all right-minded religions. The more brutal the death, the more horrified we are. But there is also war. That is for another day.

The benefits we receive from the Nativity story far outweigh the man-made rules and regulations taken down by human hand afterwards. Christianity today is a shadow of itself - it is losing the battle of hearts and minds, suffering from neglect, threatened with becoming irrelevant, even obsolete. This tragedy is due to the one and only fact: human desire for power. How can those in the Vatican claim to be Jesus's and St Peter's successors when it takes residence in great halls, monasteries, castles and cathedrals worldwide? How can a commercial enterprise fill the space where charity and compassion should be? And how can self-appointed representatives of such a humble man claim to be owners of countless masterpieces of a priceless nature whilst at the same time sanctioning the donation of money at church level to pay for their upkeep?

The fact that the BBC invests money, time and effort into telling the story properly and putting it on TV during prime time tells us a lot about the world we now live in. We are finally going back to basics. The simple things in life are coming back to us. The hubris years of credit cards, big spending and partying may finally be over. This is no time for decadence and carefree living. For the greatest thing taught to us by the Nativity is, we only have the one life. Why have so many people been raised to want more? Why are so many children in the North and West not happy with their situations? If they do not have any brand labels in their pile under the tree, if they do not have the latest downloads for their iPods, if they do not have junk food awaiting them instead of proper meat and vegetables for Christmas dinner, then that is another soul lost to the great demon of consumerism, the religion of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Then there are those that would destroy everything around them for their own beliefs: the fundamentalists, the crackpot element of this world. Why would anyone sane even think that the God of Abraham would consider a hero a person who believes his miserable existence should be ended by exploding himself in a busy street, killing tens or hundreds of innocent members of the public? And why would any sane individual even consider building a nuclear bomb, let alone using it? The story of the Nativity teaches us that very point: life is worth more than any ideological hangup, and certainly more than not having the latest toy/gadget/song to hand.

So maybe, if trends continue this way, the ungratefulness shown by spoiled kids may soon be a thing of the past, and we can get back to reality once again. When you wake up on Christmas morning to open your presents, remember two things: first, the fact that countless numbers of children worldwide will have been sleeping without a roof over their heads and will have no presents this day, and secondly that you are very, very lucky to even be here on this Earth in the first place. Bombs, wars, ideology and established religion are all just rabble-rousing hype. A life lived to the full and enjoyed as often as possible is worth so much more. So make the most of it!

Coming out of the (broom) closet

I think it's about time I let you into a secret. I am a practising Pagan. I have been for nearly three years now, and I don't think I will ever go back to the mysogynistic, male-centric, patriarchal religion I was duped into believing as a child (duped not by my parents, I hasten to add).

Paganism comes in many forms: it is a free-thinking religion. There are many core beliefs which most Pagans adhere to, but on the whole, it is a pretty diverse crowd of people that are involved in it.

Ages Old:
Paganism is older than many people care to think - it stems from pre-historic times and has taken on various forms throughout history, some as insults by members of new religions, some as code names in times of the rise of Christianity's pious leaders who tried to do away with the old ways. Witch. Wise Woman. Druid. Pagan.

The Insult That Became Fashionable:
The word "Pagan" itself is supposed to come from the French word "paysan", or "peasant" in English. The gentrified city folk in the Middle Ages were often God-fearing, French-speaking
Christians and wanted to label the country-dwellers, who often adhered to the old religion, with something insulting and demeaning. So labelling them peasants was one way. They often had red faces due to their winter-scarred skin and many had long implements they used for their occupation, maybe brooms or pitchforks or scythes. And here lies the myth about the devil. The urban Christian priests used to condition their students that the devil was in those people and this was evident in these analogies.

The sure way to tell a Pagan is by the horned animal (the male symbol) they would place in a visible location and use in ceremonies. This is where the idea of the devil with horns comes about. So as you see, with the full might of the Roman Catholic Church attacking them, our predecessors had it tough.

The strange thing is that although the word "Pagan" has dubious origins, it is now one of the main names we call ourselves with.

Mistaken Identity:
We have many annoying stereotypes which follow us around: we're supposed to be long-haired, long-bearded bards with a love of lurid naked dancing and wild sex in the forest. The truth is, I wear a shirt and tie to work and prefer a ceremonial cloak to cover my nakedness. Wild sex is an optional extra (joke). Truth is, most of us do have an area we are interested in. For some it is natural medicine, for some it is philosophy, for some art and crafts, for some music, for others it is advice. I specialise in advice and art.

Beliefs - Look Down
Another myth about the place "Hell" occupies is that it is under the Earth. Another cunning spin from the Catholic propaganda machine. We Pagans don't look up to a god for our inspiration; we look down. Not to Hell, whose existence we don't even acknowledge. We look down to the Earth, the great life-giving planet bumbling through the Solar System. We look at Her abilities to regenerate, to give us the resources needed to survive on Her surface. We wonder at the small things all around. A cat as a whole is a lovely creature. But look closely at the fur, at the nose, at the shape of the ears, and you see why every aspect of Mother Earth's contents should make us want more and more to nurture and sustain what is left in this age of mass de-forestation, urbanisation and economisation.

Beliefs - Global Warming?
Many Pagans believe global warming to be a reality. Many believe the Earth is an intelligent organism capable of giving coded messages to those on Her surface. I fall into the second category, and although I believe in the fact that the planet is in peril, I prefer not to call the process global warming, but meteorological extremification.

There are now on Earth more people alive than people who have lived and died since the Phoenicians started to write. When we move, in transport or just walking, we create heat. Our office blocks generate heat through air conditioning, server use, computer use, heating and anything else in there plugged into the mains. Our homes generate heat when we cook, when we switch on the boiler, when we turn on the radiators, when we play games on the Wii, when we run a bath. A thousand years ago, one house here and there would have had no effect. In fact, right up until the Industrial Revolution reached the USA and even beyond, we were probably doing OK. But now, with us almost unable to go anywhere on the planet without encountering another human being, the Earth is getting a bit fed up.

On top of this, the trend towards a warmer planet is evident whether we were there or now, but we are accelerating this by being so numerous. The Earth is intelligent. She has a thermostat. In the summer of 2003, Europe was barbecued by three months of unbroken sunshine. I was lucky enough to be between jobs and took full advantage of it. But for the summers since then, we have been mostly subjected to temperate, cloudy, rainy affairs in the bulk of the normally hot summers. She is not stupid, our Earth!

We can point towards many phenomena which have occurred probably as a warning to us: earthquakes (see previous post), melting glaciers and ice caps, species suddenly dying out and others thriving, often in unusual places (insects making it much further north, for example). We need to cut certain things out of our lives to slow the process down.

Beliefs - Matriarchal Society:
Our rejection of the man as only rightful head of the family/clan is well-documented, and for good reason: look at the world around you. It is a man-made world, and I use the words wisely. Politics, war, sport, architecture, science, religion, to name a few - these are male-dominated areas. They are not all bad, that is not what I am saying: I merely wish to point out that these areas are male-specific. They could have had many more females in them if the Judaeo-Roman ideology of "strength = power" were not so inherent in our society, even in our enlightened times. Some religions promote male-only heads, stating that the female is too wishy-washy, too capricious to lead or to conduct serious research. Tell that to Margaret Thatcher or Marie Curie. It is a nonsense. Women have just not been given a proper chance.

Beliefs - Not Feminist But Feministic
And here is the main theme here: feminism was the worst thing to happen to the re-establishment of women in all areas of modern society. It made men, and traditionalist women, look down on feminism with such distain that it could have set the agenda back 20 years. Things could have happened much faster had feminists not made a point of making themselves look ridiculous by their often unrealistic demands and bra-burning rants, broadcast to millions, which instantly put most people off the idea.

Fortunately, in this new age, equality means a lot for our society, and most women know in a more dignified, confident manner who they are without the help of the feminists. In this new era of prudence and re-establishment of traditional ideals and family life, this period of coming down off the post-war cloud of decadence and hubris, the family is once again taking centre stage, the childhood stability offered by loving parents is a meaningful and honourable reason for bringing our world full-circle, back to its origins: the mother in her vital central role.

The seasons and their connection to woman:
The seasons of our temperate northern climate also share an important bond with the symbolism of womanhood.

Winter: Our year begins on the night of 31 October-1 November, when we experience the advent of winter, a time of reflection and inner contemplation. At the darkest point of the winter we celebrate, lighting fires and erecting a tree with decoration and light to drive off the negative feelings and bad spirits, welcoming in the period of the Sun, symbol of light, heat and masculinity, the fertiliser. The symbolic woman is still very young.

Spring: The arrival of spring is a joyous occasion, a period when the female is still a girl child, blooming into an adolescent and then a fully adult young woman. The flowers, animals and surroundings all suit the idea of fertility and growth. That is, until the arrival of summer.

Summer: This is when the female is a fully fertaile woman, a child-bearer, a giver of life. All around, life seems to be thriving, all around creatures reap the benefits of a plentiful supply of food, as if the mother has provided it for us. Midsummer is the time the sun starts to take longer to come up, but the preparation made by the introduction of spring and summer nurturing means life can go on much longer.

Autumn: The woman is becoming old, the days are getting shorter. She is a lot wiser, having experienced it all. The leaves are falling from the trees, the nuts are being gathered by the forest creatures. People harvest the fields and orchards to stock up for winter, and slowly the woman goes red, orange, then grey, then white. This is the moon time. Although the moon time started in mid-June, it is in September than it comes in earnest.

This is a shortened form of the cycle, but I hope it explained a few things. This is why places like Stonehenge and Avebury have lunar and solar calculations written into them. This is what they were for: deciding when the seasons changed and when certain agricultural tasks were necessary.

The Gods:
We do not believe in one god or one goddess, but in a series of gods and goddesses building up to a whole. This does not mean we see them in the same way as the Abrahamic God(s), or in the same way as the Greeks and Romans, with their myths and fables. We see the divine in small things, which form a huge entirety. We give thanks for the small things and salute them. We look after the small things in nature so they look after us. The large things in nature will then gain strength. This is why wine can gain in quality, through this process. This is why meat is much tastier if the animal is happy and well-fed in life. In total though, there are two main goddesses: the Earth and the Moon, and one main god, the Sun. Other planets and stars naturally form links to the seasons here on Earth.

Being a Pagan:
You don't need formal training to be a Pagan. You should not be weighed down by inhibitions, conventions and ideologies to be a Pagan. You don't need to have a supernatural talent to be a Pagan. You must not be self-righteous or opinionated. You just need:

• an open mind and heart
• not to be afraid of your body and that of others
• a willingness to observe the Earth and the nature on Her
• to follow your sensitivities and let your emotions and instincts guide you
• a goal to find more of your inner strengths and accept your weaknesses
• a willingness to follow the seasons and the cycle of the sun and the moon
• an openness to a possible supernatural world beyond ours
• a firm understanding of right from wrong

Being a Pagan means there is no overall book as such. Most Pagan beliefs and philosophies have been handed down through the centuries to us from those who went before. We are free to interpret them, and nobody will tell you. Only you yourself can judge, using your innermost instincts and judgements. This is letting the animal in us rise nearer the surface, and all the while being a civilised human being. We need to acknowledge the instinctual part in us. With this, we are able to interpret the future better. Sensitivity and an ability to deduce from a set of circumstances is the secret to successful divination and prediction, not the "conventional" biblical prophecy that certain people try to claim is a God-given gift. It most certainly is not. It is something that requires learning and study, maybe even a lifetime of knowledge-gaining.

Natural/Supernatural?

Many people talk about fairies and pixies, ghosts and spirits. This is another thing which needs answering. I want to concentrate on the fact that we believe very strongly in an afterlife, and some believe in a beforelife too. Many Eastern philosophies and wisdoms transfer themselves into Paganism with ease. The beliefs of reincarnation, is one, and karma is pretty much an integral part of our philosophies. The belief of doing to and having a positive attitude towards not only other people but many things and even concepts (which is where we diversify from Christianity) as we would want for ourselves makes us a very peaceful and contemplative group of people.

Finally...

I would like to finish by making categorically clear that our beliefs are not set in stone, that our conventions do not always fit the average person's ideas on life and personal conduct, and every one of us will have a different belief to another.

Being associated to Paganism is something I take pride in, and something I will not give up so easily. Having made it this far, I realise just how far-sighted I have become, how much easier it is to know if someone is telling the truth or not, and how walking alone in the forest in the still of the night is a frequent pleasure of mine, something others find very difficult to do.

But if you intend no harm, nothing will harm you.

Should Rome have a monopoly on beatification?

Yesterday Princess Diana would have become 46 years of age but for the tragic events of 31st August 1997, which brought speechlessness to usually stoic BBC newsreaders, a lump to the throat of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, a silent response from the Royal Family and a mass outpouring of grief from the general public. Ordinary people flew around the world to be at her funeral, world leaders sat among charity workers and hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets in an unprecedented (and unrepeatable) act of togetherness which made London the temporary epicentre of the world.

I was there too. All night. How could I miss such an event if I was only half an hour away by train?

I remember it well, and I don't regret one sleepless second of it. I met two friends of mine, Marketa from the Czech Republic and Anne from France and together we had a hot drink at one of the plethora of cafés which stayed open to feed the world the night before. It was one of the only times in history where London was crimeless, apart from the odd pickpocket and shameless flower peddlar. By midnight the streets looked like Disney had recreated a life-size sellout car-free London themepark - in London itself. We walked around bewondering the immensity of it all, the sheer numbers camping out along the streets, in the parks, in doorways of offices.

A little after, we found ourselves outside the HQ itself: Buckingham Palace. It was here that we chose to spend the remainder of the night. When we arrived there were relatively few people, and we chose to sit beside a musician strumming ballads on his guitar. Let us not forget, that week had been a week where most people in the city had not really gone to work. They mostly couldn't face it. But there were more people in the capital that night than at any time of the working week. But here we were quite alone at the Victoria Memorial. As the playing went on, more and more people came to join, sing along, sway, hold hands or simply listen. By about 2, we must have numbered sixty or more. The pagans celebrate the circle as a symbol of protection, a forcefield against the outside evil forces. And there we were on the greatest circle of them all, emotionally vulnerable but as a group indestructable. We all shared our food and drink together like some new form of communion. I brought a bottle of Becherovka to keep the chill away, Marketa had some sandwiches with her and Anne had a neat little picnic. I had some tortilla española, Polish vodka, North African unleavened bread and Hungarian salami from the assorted members of the human race who, just for that night, were together as they would never be again.

We sang "Candle In The Wind" and other soulful songs when the music stopped for a second. Someone (it might even have been me) recommended singing the National Anthem. If I remember rightly, there was no hesitation. Someone started us off and then the lot of us rose to our feet and belted it out twice. I was impressed how many foreigners knew the words. As we were nearing the end of the Anthem, a light came on in the Palace. I will never forget that moment. It felt as if Her Majesty the Queen herself were saying, "Don't worry, I'm here." Of course, it might have just been a security guard checking the rooms or the Queen Mother getting up to adjust her colostomy bag, or the Duke of Edinburgh looking for his shotgun, but at the time it felt like She was giving us her blessing.

The time passed quickly and the sun soon started to make its arrival imminent. It was going to be a glorious high summer morning. The puddles from recent rain had vanished and the constant sound of all of London's humanity murmuring had reduced to a dawn lull. It was then that we headed off to Hyde Park, where we wanted to watch the funeral on the large screens the BBC had, in her time-honoured fashion, selflessly placed in various open spaces around the city. I have so much to thank the BBC for over the years, but that is for a future article. The three of us, who had been unusually quiet overnight, headed off hurriedly to acquire a good position somewhere near the biggest screen in London.

I thought we would be too late, but we alloted ourselves a prime place a hundred metres back from the screen, and BBC News had already started broadcasting there to keep us occupied while we awaited what I would quite rationally and realistically call the world's greatest funeral since Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi. And maybe including his too. People from the sixties talk about the Kennedy Moment (that everyone knows what they were doing when they heard JFK was assassinated), well I'm sure the Diana Moment surpassed even that. This was a woman who was even known by some remote tribes of the rain forests, who even got airtime on North Korean television (North Korean TV is well known for providing news rather belatedly, and showed a thirty-minute highlights programme of the Football World Cup in 1998 two months after the event - if the BBC did that there would be a lot of letters!).

We sat there around the other people sharing more food out watching coverage of the early morning events, pundits and correspondents telling us what others were doing around the world, famous people reminiscing about their moments with Diana, or charity workers talking about her visits, presenters informing us of the schedule. We watched as the gentry filed into Westminster Abbey and the world's leaders arrived with their escorts and bodyguards. At exactly the right time, the soldiers opened the gates and out came the gun carriage, normally associated with great war leaders, like Churchill, Nelson or Wellington, this time paradoxically for a princess of peace.

Behind her came the royal accompaniment. Brave boys William and Harry looking like men far before their time, bemused, bewildered, betrayed; her brother Earl Spencer hardly able to walk, dignified with his head held high; Prince Charles looking like a startled fish out of water; the Duke of Edinburgh completing the lineup. It was like an identification parade at a police station. Which one of these three men was the perpetrator? Apparently Prince Charles had spent the week roaming around the hills of Scotland feeling full of guilt and self-recrimination. The two boys had been obviously protected from the press because they had not been seen all week. Earl Spencer had occupied himself with the banalities of the administration.

As they entered into the London streets, a small group of hysterical individuals started wailing and throwing rose petals at the coffin. We started to wonder if that was going to be the precedent, but fortunately the rest passed off with dignity. As they progressed along towards Hyde Park, the thousands of people in the vicinity of the southern side of the space rushed towards the roadside to catch a glimpse of her passing. We three followed the wave towards the road barriers, the only empty area of streetside barricades until we arrived en masse. This was the only, rarest and strangest moment of excitement we had had in the fifteen hours we had been in London. We were all, without exception, there to see her. The only time I saw the Princess of Wales was in a coffin. I barely looked at the others, transfixed by her alone, even after death. The feeling of seeing her was enough fulfillment and we all processed back to our abandoned picnic places, rucksacks and foldable chairs, which were, of course, all still there, untouched. That was a day when even the thieves took a day off.

As she approached the final part of her journey to the Abbey, the bell of the tower was rung a pre-calculated number of times. Precisely upon the final stroke of the bell, the military stopped at the entrance. It was one of a string of impressive events of that day. Not least what was to happen next. The music which accompanied her up the aisle of the Abbey was so impressive, repressive, oppressive, that it was the moment even the stoniest of hearts let their tears flow. I was losing litres through my eyes and was not ashamed. Most of the funeral was a blur of hypocritical religious mumbo-jumbo which the princess would have had to accept simply because it was her funeral.

Then Sir Elton John stepped up to the piano and sang "Candle In The Wind", a song originally dedicated to Marilyn Monroe but rather controversially re-worded for Diana. Most people thought "Your Song" to be more appropriate, including the proxy-assassins at the tabloid newspapers, as that was genuinely one of her favourite songs and the reason why Sir Elton was there at all.

Earl Spencer climbed the stairs of the pulpit and began his eulogy, perhaps in time seen as the defining moment of the day and which made the shortlist of the Guardian's Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, where he joins a line-up of great men and women like Sir Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Jawaharlal Nehru.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/greatspeeches/story/0,,2060134,00.html

As his pained words flowed out, rising above his shaken voice, the world sat transfixed at the eloquence, simplicity and raw power of his speech. He did not hold in his grief. He spoke for everyone and did not revert to hidden messages. And then people were no longer sitting. They were standing all over London, applauding. The growing applause dopplered its way towards the doors of the Abbey and then inside that formal, stuffy sanctum where it brought dignitaries out of protocol, also clapping probably embarrassed to be seen not to, just how Diana would have liked it. Although the rest of the funeral was a typical royal ceremony, those moments were unforgettable. As the service finished, people drifted back to normality, back to the pubs, cafés and railway stations. Reality set in, paradoxically bringing the solidarity shown before crashing to the ground as cars, buses, even white vans, reclaimed their positions as the city's chief noisemakers.

By early afternoon, reality had hit hardest on my own energy levels, artificially pumped up for that most surreal night and saddest of mornings. We three went our separate ways and I took one of the extra trains provided to carry British citizens out of London, dawdled aimlessly in a homeward direction and collapsed in my bed, despite the raging sunshine outside. I slept in a way I had not been able to all week - finally in the most peaceful of circumstances.

You are now wondering why I chose that title. It was playing on my mind yesterday while watching the concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium, the home of modern folklore. Despite the film "The Queen", which did no favours to Diana and virtually turned her into a manic depressive, manipulative little maid, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. She surely became depressed and fairly unpopular in The House due to how she was treated, although I don't think she did herself many favours. I am sure she was tricked into marrying Charles, whom she loved dearly despite his lack of amorous advances. Once she had produced an heir, a handsome successor, she was surplus to requirements, although she could have been a much more admired figure in the royal household if she had Played The Game. But that wasn't her style. She hated all the formalities and protocols. When she went on holiday to Klosters with Sarah Ferguson and the four children once, the tabloid press lambasted her and especially "Fergie" for "giggling like schoolgirls" and behaving like ordinary people, not super-royals. What did they expect? That they would ski in golden boots and go to bed at nine?

And for this reason I believe we have seen exactly how a Messiah could have been manufactured for us 2000 years ago. When you see the photos of Diana shaking hands with leprosy sufferers, AIDS patients, terminally ill children; when she walks in landmine clearance zones, visits youth theatres, takes her boys to a theme park and makes them queue up with the rest, this rings a very familiar bell. It is now, in her death, that she is the humble member of the royalty who was one of the people. All the television documentary witnesses, like the parents of terminally ill patients, right up to ex-presidents, queued up to tell of how she touched their lives so readily, how she was the true divinity which saved their hospital from closing, or which got crucial publicity for their plight in the media, or which lit up the face of a dying boy. Didn't some Jewish man do similar things two thousand years before?

For People's Princess read King of the Jews, for Queen of Hearts, read Lamb of God. We are getting ourselves a secular saint. Would this be the example of how the story of Jesus Christ was purveyed, embellished with a few miracles and urban myths? Don't forget, in those days, in order to Big Someone Up, they had to have performed some mighty things. That meant even if they were bending reality, like being able to walk on water, knowing where a huge shoal of fish was and performing life-saving surgery on your friend's daughter, this meant the person was great.

I see nothing wrong in making legends out of mere mortals, but I see a great moral corruption in turning the tabloid press (who never gave her a moment's peace) into the pharisees, the royal biographers as the Gospel writers, Britain into Judea, and the individuals she met into the Lazaruses, lepers and disciples. But this seems to be what is happening. A new phase in the rehabilitation, a beatification from the masses. I truly believe there are individuals who deserve special status in our respect, who we should try to emulate, but we are also in danger of allowing ourselves to be thrust back into a new religion just as we are finally rejecting them.