A Masquerade Ball featuring the Rite of the Green Man of Spring

Characters at play:

Green Man
Bacchus
Venus
Aphrodite
The Bacchantes
Jugglers
Servants
Musicians

Masks are worn by the Bacchantes who have adorned themselves in their most creative party outfits to join in a light-hearted pageant. Mead and spring delights are prepared ahead of time.

Opening lecture

The Set up; somebody starts off with a [boring] knowledge lecture.

The Green Man is the embodiment of the Spring Tides; that mysteriously chaotic storm that sweeps over the surface of the Earth during the Spring. He is the Great Fool of antiquity who comes to us as Oedipus and Merlin, Obi Wan Kenobe and the Medieval Court Jester…from whom we get the modern day Clown.

At the center of the temple will be placed Zeus' birth stone, the Omphallos (Egg) — the "original metaphor" — as the navel-marker of the world. From this metaphor, all other metaphors were born, beginning with the metaphor of the gods.

The Omphallos received sacramental worship by the priests of Apollo, the Prophets, in the center Adyton where the Sybil or Pythia — witnessed by the timeless stone — would utter forth the timeless words (prophesy). In religious ceremony, the Omphallos was ritually adorned with woolen yarn, for it was said that when the goddess Harmonia wove the web of the world she started with the Omphallos at the center.

Green Man does invocation of Pan

Bacchus emerges to smash Omphallos (from which comes all sorts of treats, confetti and chaos) and say: “This is not how you worship me.” And then utters a series of commands that bring on jugglers, food and libations. [Our staff is lined up to respond to these demands.]

Venus, Aphrodite, carrying Thrysus Wands lead a pageant of women that inflicts silliness on the men. This can possibly start with a rehearsed dialogue, perhaps from some Greek play (possibly the ‘Bachae’) or from Shakespeare (possibly ‘A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream’). During this, the musicians cast a sound of enchantment.