Pagan Moon
by Geoff Maxted
As the time for the eclipse approached I cycled up to Pentire Point to witness the promised spectacle. It seemed right to me to view this once in a lifetime experience from rampart cliffs overlooking the limitless ocean. The almost total cloud cover didn't put people off and hundreds of excited watchers had gathered at my chosen site.
The laughing and merriment continued until the sky began to grow dark. At the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the eleventh of August, unseen behind cloud, the moon overwhelmed the light of the sun. The sky watchers became hushed and subdued, bathed in a weird ethereal non-light as they watched the moonshadow rush towards them like a beast across the open sea. An east wind came from nowhere and the temperature dropped like a stone as the sun's warming rays were extinguished by blackness. This was not the dark of night but something else. This was the dark of Armageddon; the twilight end of the world when screaming harpies will rise from the deep as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse reveal themselves to us at last.
Above us startled seagulls unknowingly screeched their dusk chorus as bewildered, circling birds flocked in the sky. At Paignton Zoo, baboons became disorientated and ran in frightened rings around their sleeping rock. Strange spherical lights hovered in the eerie gloom over Bodmin during totality, puzzling watchers on the ground. Perhaps the eclipse had attracted other visitors?
It certainly had a profound effect on me. I found myself staring at my bike in a strange frame of mind, remembering its once upon a time showroom condition. Now it leaned against the bench, a gnarled old trailhand. If it were human it wouldn't say much, just look at you through squinted eyes and spit out a brown gob of chewin' tobacco. Under a supernatural sky my thoughts turned to the dark side of mountain biking. I wanted a light and aggressive, hand crafted Spooky Darkside moving under me, the ideal weapon against evil twisting singletrack. I saw myself swooping through the gloomy woods, riding on the back of a jet black Cannondale Raven -- darkness there, and nothing more.
The atmosphere of these mystical moments was like the gathering dusk that greets you as you enter the forest to test yourself against the night, flicking your VistaLites onto high and carving a new shadow look to your favourite lines. Night riding is like that. The stabbing beam of your lights seemingly moulds once smooth singletrack into a Plutonian landscape where even the smallest rock casts a long shadow. On the edge of your vision nameless things hide from the light as you struggle to hold your line, knowing one distraction means disaster and a sticky end. Night biking is an intricate and complicated activity. Around you the woods lean in oppressively. Tyres hum and crackle and squish through God knows what. Your mind blanks out the noises of the night -- that way lies madness -- and hears only the snicker of clicking and shifting gears and the sound of heavy breathing. Your breathing?
Then the eclipse was over and I had to come back from that occult place in my mind. Two minutes had passed, it seemed, in two seconds. Light levels rose quickly over a rising murmur of awed conversation, but the atmosphere had changed. The carnival spirit had gone, to be replaced by something more emotional. Even the previously disinterested knew they had seen something special. A moment of magic never to be repeated in our small, insignificant lifetimes on our small, insignificant island.
As if you didn't already know, a solar eclipse takes place when the sun appears to become dark as the moon passes between it and the Earth. Eclipses are relatively common around the planet but, obviously, rare in totality at specific locations, like the West Country. The last one in Britain was in 1927. The next one is in 91 years time and I, for one, fully intend to be there! An eclipse of the sun is a spectacular sight to us. Just imagine the effect it would have had on our ancestors and their superstitions.
In the West, especially in deepest Cornwall, there has long been a following of pagan religions; beliefs as old as time. Mother Earth and the moon and stars above have been worshipped long before the rise of Christianity. A total eclipse over this land is of great significance to pagan worshippers. Witches weave their spells. Palms are read and runes are cast. Necromancers commune with the dead.
The eclipse is seen as a union between the Sun God and Goddess Moon, a profoundly sacred moment. At the mystical location known as Boscawen-un, The Place of The Elder Tree, sermons are given directing love and healing along the line of totality to those in need about the world. At standing stones and other revered places throughout the region Archdruids perform rituals to the sun. Marriages are performed as believers commune with nature.
Pagans interpret their own emotions as outside energies, an essence of Mother Earth, and to them this is a time of great transformation; a shift of energy after weeks of tension and physical tiredness. Astrological charts reveal a powerful and preternatural configuration of the planets in their Zodiac Houses, known as The Grand Cross, in the sky. This arrangement of heavenly bodies signifies to some a period of apprehension and edginess with potentially violent outcomes; to others, a return to old or familiar ways or a move to an age of newer and greater meaning. It's a disruptive time.
In Cornwall, travellers battled police on Trefullock Moor as the huge scheduled festivals foundered through lack of numbers. Gigs were cancelled as the Sunshadow Event went under; fortunately, at the Moonshadow Festival, Van Morrison's set helped to save the day. The much hyped festival on the Lizard closed early with massive losses, another victim to pre-eclipse scaremongering and red tape. Consider this. Is our spirit and free will really subordinate to otherworldly forces? Are our decisions and actions determined by causes that precede them? Phew! Doesn't bear thinking about. After a while all this metaphysical stuff pecks at your head, doesn't it? Perhaps that's why the rest of us seek the freedom to hold 'festivals' as some sort of throwback to a darker age, just in case.
If it's not too deep, earnest and left field for you perhaps we could consider mountain biking to be a sort of pagan worship. All right, all right, I know; but it's a point isn't it? There's something about riding in wild places that brings out the sun worshipper in us all. A mountain bike is both a literal and metaphorical vehicle for seeing the world. Hey, it's a spiritual thing. True mtb believers know that on the last day of the world Gary Fisher will conduct a final judgement and take the bodies and souls of the just and righteous to Marin County and send the bodies and souls of the unjust somewhere else entirely. Birmingham, probably. See you at the eclipse party in 2090. Bring your bike.
© Geoff Maxted
Maximum
Mountain Bike