{"id":18713,"date":"2026-03-20T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18713"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:16:33","slug":"druids-celebrate-the-spring-equinox-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18713","title":{"rendered":"Druids Celebrate the Spring Equinox – 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tower Hill, London.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Druids
Druids enter the circle through a gateway between two standing druids<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Druids Celebrate the Spring Equinox: On Friday 20th March 2009 I went to Tower Hill to photograph the annual ceremony there by the Druid Order.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s an interesting event to see and their web site this year states
“Our Ceremony will be held at our traditional venue of Tower Hill.
12 noon, Friday, 20th March<\/em>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Druids<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I probably won’t be there today. It’s an event I’ve photographed on various occasions and stopped going when I felt I was simply repeating myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Druids
‘The Lady’ with a basket of flowers represents the Earth Mother, Ceridwen and her maids carry seeds and a vessel with a libation<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’ve also described the ceremony – and that at Primrose Hill on the Autumn Equinox – as well as some of the history of druidism and in particular of the Druid Order in various posts on My London Diary. So here I’ll just post some images of key points with brief captions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
A horn is blown to the four points of the compass<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
Then with a raised sword, the question is asked, “Is it peace?”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Wikipedia post The Druid Order<\/a> gives some brief details and links to a couple of my posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Druids
The Lady and her companions request permission to enter the circle and bring their gifts<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Wikipedia link to ‘Autumn Equinox ceremony pictures<\/em>‘ no longer works but you can view these from various years on My London Diary, most recently from 2014 in Druids on Primrose Hill.<\/a> Search on My London Diary for ‘Druid Order<\/em>‘ to find more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Druids
The vessel containing the libation is passed to the Chief Druid who tastes it,<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
then goes around the circle pouring it at intervals on the ground as a libation.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In my 2009 post I linked to the Spring Equinox ceremnonies in 2007 <\/a>and 2008<\/a> and quoted a brief description from 2008 – so here it is again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The horn was sounded to the four corners, and then the sword was raised, and it was peace from the North, South, West and East. The Earth Mother, Ceridwen and her attendants brought a horn for a libation, seeds to scatter and flowers into the circle, and those departed were remembered.\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\"Druids<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can also find a selection of my images of the Druid Order on Alamy<\/a> available for personal or editorial use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
The Chief Druid gives a short address and then Druids join hands around the circle,<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
and after a inal blessing process back to their starting place to unrobe.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
All of the pictures in this post are from Friday 20th march 2009 where with more images they show the event in detail., You can see more of them at Druids Celebrate the Spring Equinox<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall. 
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tower Hill, London. Druids Celebrate the Spring Equinox: On Friday 20th March 2009 I went to Tower Hill to photograph the annual ceremony there by the Druid Order. It’s an interesting event to see and their web site this year states“Our Ceremony will be held at our traditional venue of Tower Hill.12 noon, Friday, 20th … Continue reading Druids Celebrate the Spring Equinox – 2009<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[1909,3852,19917,5496,23771,3854,23770,23769,8311,5504,17,1343,83,23768,8237,3855,3850,3851,2937],"class_list":["post-18713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-1909","tag-ceremony","tag-druid-circle","tag-druid-order","tag-eath-mopther","tag-flowers","tag-horn","tag-is-it-peace","tag-joined-hands","tag-libation","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-peter-marshall","tag-raised-sword","tag-robes","tag-seeds","tag-spring-equinox","tag-the-druid-order","tag-tower-hill"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18714,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18713\/revisions\/18714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}