Hi there, I am Rob (Mostly ’They’/a little ’He’). I have been chosen for the joyful duty of embodying the Green Man as they join our new May Queen, Màiri, and hopefully you, for this year’s Beltane ritual.

My Green Man and my May Queen are out of alignment – My sleep is haunted by the dance of artificial lights and my breath cut short by lungs filled full with artificial rage. My thoughts race over and over each other, going nowhere, the friction wearing me thin. I am lost, I am sad, I need help.

I have asked my Green Man what this friction will lead to and they show me a fire. Fire consumes and, if left untended and uncared for, this one will consume me and then, in turn, everything else. Having heeded our May Queen’s words, I have sought my own internal May Queen and she reminds me of what I have already learned, that shadow can be faced and change made possible when one leans on true connection. She tells me: Look past yourself. Seek help.

And so, with this truth lighting my way, I tread towards the sabbat to seek out those who deal in wildness, in wisdom and in harm. People who were powerful in the wrong way and who I was told were a danger to me when perhaps it was those doing the telling that I should have feared. As the wheel turns on snapping spokes, Her voice thrums behind my eyes and tells me: Take this fire; burn clear a path for the Witches to return.

Their cunning can quell the voices of division; their laughter can guide us to joy; their power, when circled within stones of a community who bear smiles and teeth in equal measure, can incinerate all the lies and designs of those who would truly harm us all.

So please, my companions past and my companions to be, join me, bring your fire, help me to honour the call of body and spirit. For when my May Queen and Green Man are aligned again, my capacity to burn away despair will be infinite.