Pagans ‘are the original greens’
Parade by religion that worships Earth
Published: 26th May, 2011
by DAN CARRIER
DRESSED in flowing robes and painted green from head to toe, hundreds of Pagans are expected to descend on Holborn over the weekend to parade through the streets in celebration of the month of May.
The walk has been organised by Geraldine Beskin, who runs London’s oldest Pagan and occult bookshop, the Atlantis in Museum Street, Bloomsbury.
She said the walk, which starts in Red Lion Square at 10am and takes in Russell Square’s fountains before heading back to the starting point, marked a crucial date in the Pagan calendar – celebrating the month of May and the spring season.
Ms Beskin said that the religion she followed was about expression and having fun.
“It is a celebration of the rebirth of spring,” she said. “This is a very frivolous festival. There will be lots of people in wonderful flowing robes, many will be decked out in green body paint, with extravagant head-dresses, and essentially being in a party mood.”
While Pagans worship the Earth as a goddess, this festival is also about a male deity.
Ms Beskin said: “We are a very egalitarian religion – we celebrate both females and males. But this celebration is about the male energy. It is about procreation – sex is necessary for new life.”
She dismissed popular myths of Paganism, fostered by the success of films such as The Wicker Man, that suggested much of the religion was about moonlit orgies.
“We are not promiscuous, but we are also not prudish,” said Ms Beskin. “Sex and birth is essential and we mark that.”
She said that more than 60,000 people registered their religion as Pagans on the recent census – and that it was a religion that had grown after 1945.
“There was a real revival,” Ms Beskin. “There was a movement after the war when people were not able or willing to fit into boxes like before. Society did not hold people in the same way. There was then a further revival with hippies during the 1960s.
And she revealed that the growing awareness of ecological issues had also boosted interest in Paganism.
Ms Beskin added: “Pagans inspired the green movement, because at the heart of our beliefs is a respect for Mother Earth. We are the original greens.”