Saint George and his Many Enemies
During September and into the first week of October this year, 7 pilgrims have been walking along the Michael Line towards Caern Les Boel in Cornwall on a hike they're calling 'Strolling Mummers, Pilgrimage for Unity'. They started with an opening performance at Dragon Hill in Uffington, where last year almost on the same day, they held a ceremony with local wisdom keepers as they walked from London to COP26 in Glasgow, along the Spine of Albion ley line which runs from the Isle of Wight to the top of Scotland. These two pilgrimages have seen them draw a St George's Cross over the land, following powerful energy lines, massaging the land with their intentions and ceremonies.
For the walk last year they called it 'Listening to the Land, Pilgrimage for Nature' and their intention was to hear what the people they met along the way had to say about climate change and asked if they had any messages they wanted them to relay to the delegates at the UN Climate Conference. They also began to learn how to listen to the land, observing the ways in which it looked and how it was being treated, but also beginning to participate in a two way dialogue with the land, as they realised it was asking them what it could do to help them, rather than the other way around. As humans we are making the land inhospitable for ourselves, but once we are gone the land will have millions of years to be able to heal itself.
As the pilgrims are walking this time they will be performing a mummers play called 'Saint George and his Many Enemies'. Written using several historical sources the play is an amalgamation of several recorded mummers plays that were penned down in the Victorian times but displayed regional differences, alluding to an older aural tradition.
One of the things that came to their attention on their last walk was the idea of re-indigenisation. Joanna Macy writes in her landmark enquiry 'Active Hope', which explores how we find hope in these difficult times, that there are three threads to the 'Great Turning' as she's coined it. The first is activism - scientists and journalists putting pressure on the 'business as usual' narrative to slow things down and attempt to reverse the effects of what's happening. Secondly there's systemic change - which is happening incrementally, through businesses creating sustainability policies and increases in organic farming, etc. Then there's the need for consciousness shifting - the stories we tell ourselves and that weave our reality together. This is where the idea of re-indigenisation comes in. Part of the process that disconnected us from the land was the loss of our folk traditions and customs. These traditions were deeply connected to the land's cycles. As we became dispossessed of our common land, less controlled by the seasons and harvests, more urbanised, our traditions became irrelevant and fell by the wayside. By reclaiming, remembering and reinventing our folk culture we are re-building positive relationships with the natural world and our right to live, and thrive, in harmony with the land we are a part of.
Mummers plays are traditionally performed at May Day and Christmas. Often they contain a skit where the land gets resurrected, suggesting a connection to a deeper mystery, that the plays were rights performed to and for the land as fertility rituals. It's been interesting that since this pilgrimage began we've seen three prime ministers, two monarchs and two Chelsea owners! Whether this is due to the pilgrimage or not is irrelevant to this work, as the intention is to create mystery and wonder. Myth starts somewhere and as the cord to our indigenous culture has been cut, we must start again.
In 'The Science of Storytelling' by Will Stor he looks at the science of storytelling and what it tells us about ourselves and how stories can change our very behaviour. Rather than the guilty 'rod' narrative of beating ourselves up about recycling or driving, then this approach is the 'carrot' narrative of being deeply and hopelessly in love with the earth, which changes our behaviour through love rather than guilt. Performance, festival, celebration, ritual, all help us to connect deeper to the earth in this loving way.
In the version of the play the Strolling Mummers are performing we see Saint George fight with the Dragon. Saint Michael, the archangel whose ley line they are walking, is also a dragon slayer, so on their pilgrimage many of the churches they pass by have stain glass windows to both Saint Michael and Saint George. George is normally seen slaying the Dragon but Michael is often pointing at the dragon with a long spear, as if he's pointing at him. This could be interpreted as him pointing to the savage, animal, instinctive part of ourselves, the part of us that is infinite, is one with the land and everyone/everything else in the world/universe. This is the part of us that is the fool, that makes love, gives birth, makes music, performs theatre. It is without judgement, without thinking. In ancient Chinese culture ley lines were called 'Dragon Lines' and only Emperors were allowed to build upon them, so no one else could utilise their power. In this simple and silly mummers play of Saint George, who represents the land, we see that by not dealing with his shadow part, his inner dragon, he then begins to imagine evil out in the world in the form of Belzebub, once he's banished him he sees evil in the form of the feminine, seen through Mary Tinker. Then once she's been banished he sees evil in the 'other', specifically the Muslim Saracen Knight, who kills Saint George, bringing about his downfall. Then a hippie, lefty, herbalist comes along and brings Saint George, or the land, back to life again using the healing herb elacampane and a magical incantation, thus harmony is restored until the cycle begins once more. This is the folk tale of our land that's been told for hundreds of years, and it's hard to not feel a bit like it's history repeating itself. How do we break this cycle? How can we learn to see our enemies as ourselves? How can we stop creating enemies?
These are the questions the pilgrims are exploring with the people they meet as they walk, as well as inspiring those they encounter with tales of all the generosity and kindness they've been shown from people along their journey. Folks from different demographics and echo chambers to themselves. People who seem like the enemy across social media algorithms and mainstream media news reports, but who in the actual flesh have been kind, emotional, every day human beings who've helped them out, saw their vulnerability and shared their own, who are just doing their best to get by.
Also to share that people are mobilising. Community gardens, shops, libraries, organic farming, protest movements and economic/transport/fashion alternatives are springing up all over the place. Most people are not acting like it's 'business as usual' at all and most people aren't waiting for West Minster to sort things out for them. They're getting on and doing it themselves.
'The Great Turning' as Jonna Macy describes it is well and truly underway, which means that there is hope, active hope, and it just needs enough of us to fan the flames and push for the scales to tip in the other direction. Mumming alone won't save the world, but in it's own small way, it is playing it's part.
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