Open pathways to all beings on this blessed Goose Night!
27 years ago this very night, John Constable (aka John Crow) had a vision of The Goose, the spirit of a medieval sex worker, licensed by a Bishop but allegedly buried in unconsecrated ground. In the vision The Goose revealed her Secret History and esoteric teachings, and led John Crow to the site of south London’s Cross Bones Graveyard. The revelation grew into ‘The Southwark Mysteries’, Constable’s epic cycle of poems, songs and Mystery Plays, performed in Shakespeare’s Globe and Southwark Cathedral in 2000 and 2010. It also inspired John Crow’s 23 year magical work at Cross Bones, which led to the burial ground being reclaimed as sacred ground, with a shrine and a garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts.
JC writes: “27 years since the night of 23rd November 1996, when The Goose revealed to John Crow ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ and the secret Herstory of the Cross Bones Graveyard. That vision changed and still shapes my life. My new spiritual adventures in Glastonbury have been guided by walking and working with The Goose. ”
Tonight! Goose Night. Thursday 23rd November 2023
Becket’s, High Street, Glastonbury. 7.30 pm for 8pm start.
Free. All welcome.
In this talk on the 27th anniversary of the original ‘Goose Night’ John will relate the strange but true story and take us deeper into The Goose’s teachings and practice. He’ll tell how The Goose brought him to Glastonbury, where he’s working with Her to amplify the London-Glastonbury ‘head-heart’ current envisioned by Dion Fortune. John will be exploring aspects of The Goose as an agency and channel of the Divine Feminine and how his reception and transmission of her differs from traditional Western notions of mediumship.
We’ll see how Goose and Crow Magic works to re-pattern the world, making subtle changes in the fabric of reality. The talk will be illustrated by the performance of selected verses from The Southwark Mysteries, which John Crow uses to induce trance-states and to journey between the worlds.
more info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/301507465971940/
JC: “When I completed my works at Cross Bones, I said ‘The Goose Is Loose’, meaning that everyone is free to work with Her for the benefit of all beings. As they have done ever since, many friends of Cross Bones will gather tonight at 6.45 (to begin on the stroke of 7) at the gates in Redcross Way SE1 – to honour the outcast, dead and alive; to renew the shrine with offerings; and to reclaim the secret history as revealed by The Goose. Jennifer Cooper will be doing the honours. So…”
Also tonight (23/11/2023) at the gates of Cross Bones Graveyard in south London and on Zoom:
*in person and virtually*
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85624178240
Meeting ID: 856 2417 8240
Passcode: 377295
Our monthly Vigil to honour the Outcast, dead and alive; to renew the shrine; and to reclaim the Secret History as revealed by The Goose to John Crow.
The online Vigil will be hosted by Bee in the Zoom studio, bringing us in to play our parts, and by persons yet unknown in IRL.
To help us all to fully participate, and commune on The Astral, with or without the livestream, here’s the ‘Order of Service’ for the Vigil:
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1. Opening (on the stroke of 7pm)
Light a candle, incense. Ring seven chimes. Say:
‘Spirits of The Dead, Spirits of the Living, Kindred. Welcome!’
As you say these words, be aware that you are connected with all Spirits, incarnate and disincarnate, and with the transforming agency of The Goose, in an act of mutual healing taking place within a single, undivided consciousness. Breathe deep, relax and connect… Remember the Secret History and Vision…
Crossbones is a pauper’s graveyard and the final resting place for the Winchester Geese, sex workers who worked in brothels owned and licensed by the Bishop of Winchester in Southwark’s ‘Liberty of the Clink’. Many skeletons were dug up here during work on the Jubilee Line Extension (1992-96).
On 23rd November 1996 John Constable had a vision in which The Goose led John Crow to the site of the Crossbones Graveyard. Here she revealed The Southwark Mysteries, which in turn gave rise to The Halloween of Cross Bones and to these Vigils, held on the 23rd of every month since 23rd June 2004.
Thanks to our collective magical and activist works over the past 23 years, this once despised, desolate site has become a holy place for pilgrims from all over the world – a shrine and a garden of remembrance ‘for the Outcast, dead and alive’.
2. Hold the candle for one minute’s silence, as you imagine lighting the open pathways for all beings to make their individual journeys in Time and Eternity.
Remember the Outcast Dead of Crossbones Graveyard, and all who are shut out, along with your own ancestors and loved ones. For this act of remembrance, it helps to cultivate a state of “shining emptiness”, in which all sounds, sights and other sense impressions can arise and vanish, with nothing for anything to attach to.
3. “Binding and loosing”.
Imagine tying a ribbon to Crossbones Gates. Invest the ribbon with all that you would wish for yourself, and as you tie it, release that blessing for others, saying five times:
“Here lay your hearts, your flowers,
Your Book of Hours,
Your fingers, your thumbs,
Your “Miss You Mums”.
Here hang your hopes, your dreams,
Your Might Have Beens,
Your locks, your keys,
Your Mysteries.”
When we’re together in the Vigils, one speaks and all echo the words in our own time. We do this on the livestream, our whispering voices evoking our collective emanation.
4. Bardic offerings.
If you wish, you can perform a poem, song or text from ‘The Southwark Mysteries’, or present your own offering to The Goose and her Outcast Dead.
5. Closing.
Close the ceremony with a libation of gin. Say:
“Life! Health! Happiness! Open Pathways!
Health in the Body.
Peace In the Spirit.
Love In The Heart.
It is this that we wish,
for ourselves,
for our friends and family,
for all our Brothers and Sisters,
for The Goose and The Crow,
and for all Humanity.
May it be so.”
then:
“Goose may you never be hungry!
Goose may you never be thirsty!
Goose may your Spirit fly free!
And so she does…
Open pathways!
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When performing the rituals and channelling The Goose spirit, the trick is to “get out of the way” so as not to obstruct with our own psychological or emotional states. There are various ways to achieve this: e.g. by reminding ourselves that “I am nothing” that it’s The Goose who does the magic, not “I”.
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In shining emptiness and wishing us all a blessed turning of the seasonal wheel.
‘All at Crossbones’
You can order ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ direct from the publisher: https://www.bloomsbury.com/…/southwark-mysteries…/
For ‘Grail’ and John Costable’s other books, and for the new album ‘Ancestor Souls’, please DM via contact page for more details.
Photo by Max Crow Reeves: John Crow conducts the Cross Bones Vigil
A healing ritual drama in theatre, music, poetry and inclusive ceremony performed by John Crow with his special guests William Kraemer, Maxine Dubois, Franck Alba, Mx Stevie and Sandra Tena Cole, Sieben Krüsel – and The Chaired Bard of Ynys Witrin, Johanna van Fessem. Special late guest singer: Jenny Bliss.
For ten years (1998 – 2008) the London Irish poet and musician Niall McDevitt was a key player in the presentation of my epic work, The Southwark Mysteries. He played John Taylor the Water Poet in the premiere of the Mystery Plays in Shakespeare’s Globe and Southwark Cathedral and performed my ‘Goose and Crow’ poems, setting some to music, as part of a small band for the annual ritual drama The Halloween of Crossbones. These works of magical intervention and cultural activism were an integral part of the work to create the Shrine to the Outcast and the Garden of Remembrance for Sex Workers at the Cross Bones Graveyard. Niall immortalised this part of our lives in his poems The Drum and Liberty Caps (I was touched when he dedicated the latter to me) published in his first collection b/w. Back then, he liked to call himself ‘Crow’s Altar Boy’ or ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. 
‘…could be titled The Glastonbury Mysteries, as counterpart to the author’s celebrated The Southwark Mysteries… a deeply affectionate and perceptive look at esoteric Glastonbury at a particular moment in time… a generous exemplar of that meeting of different spiritual traditions, in harmonious juxtaposition and conversation, which is the greatest current achievement of the place… Constable always keeps his feet as dependably on the ground as his head is in the clouds. Like his muse the Goose Woman, he is a being equally of earth and fire.’
New album, recorded live on All Hallow’s Eve. A journey between the worlds. Edgy Astral music by Queen Space Baroque (Jennifer Bliss Bennett and William Kraemer) to spells and incantations from GRAIL and THE SOUTHWARK MYSTERIES by John Constable (John Crow). The title track is a ritual performed on 13 Halloweens at Cross Bones Graveyard in south London, part of a 23-year magical work.
1999. John Constable’s seminal Book of visionary poems, esoteric lore and a Mystery Play performed in Shakespeare’s Globe and Southwark Cathedral.
The first three spells from GRAIL in a hand-printed artefact, hand-set and printed by John and Katy under the guidance of Blakean master printer Peter Fraser on the Feast of St Bride 2022.
Wed 22/03/2023. Doors open at 6.30 for 7pm start
Our Cross Bones Vigil to honour the Outcast, dead and alive; to renew the shrine; and to reclaim the Secret History as revealed by The Goose to John Crow.
11am next Monday 28th November 2022