Events – Page 2 – Crossbones

CrossBones Day of Dance

Sunday 22nd March 1-5pm in Cross Bones Graveyard (entrance in Union street)

A taste of what to expect at The CrossBones Day of Dance.
Filmed at last year’s Day of Dance by Ben Edge, who also recorded this Crossbones Lament.

Come join us at the Outcasts’ Graveyard on Sunday 22nd March 1-5pm

above photo: The Belles of London City hold hands as they make their connection with The Goose at the gates, Crossbones shrine to the Outcast, Dead and Alive. Last year’s CrossBones Day of Dance, March 2025

The Crossbones Day of Dance returns 22nd March 2026 1-5pm – featuring The Belles of LOndon City, Brixton Tatterjacks, Black Path Border Morris, Black Horse and Standard North West Women’s Morris, and Goose Feather Morris. Performance/poetry from John Constable (John Crow) and Stephen Micalef.

Healing spell and vindication for the Outcast Dead by Enid Lareg and Byuka Makodru. Featuring a folk parade with Beasties and shenanigans from the Gut Girls

photo of The Belles by Max Reeves (who also organises the Day of Dance) from his book ‘Crossbones Graveyard’

https://www.entropypress.co.uk/books/p/crossbones-graveyard

Crossbones Vigil for the Outcast, Dead and Alive

To remember. To renew the shrine. And to reclaim the Secret History as revealed by The Goose to John Crow

At 7pm on the 23rd of every single month since 23rd June 2004, we’ve gathered at the gates of Cross Bones Graveyard. Since John Crow conducted his last “official” Vigil, Jennifer has mostly done the honours – with occasional guest hosting by Mark, Shreya and John on his visits to London. This next Vigil, Goose willing, it’ll be Jennifer.

Since March 2020, we’ve held the Vigils “on the Astral” with friends joining in f rom around the world. The online Vigil is hosted by Jacqueline aka Mistress Bee in the Zoom studio, bringing us in to play our parts.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85624178240 Meeting ID: 856 2417 8240 Passcode: 377295

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, and how 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 or song 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 Baixnha’s ‘Message of the Caboclos’ (the indigenous spirits). If in group do as call and response, so repeating each line – and then each stanza:

“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, the unconditional Goose blessing:

“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” – that each “I” am only a small though important part of the whole “We”

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In shining emptiness

Image: Flower and tin skeleton on the shrine at the gates in Redcross Way, 2nd February 2009

Photo by Katy Kaos- from the foreword to ‘CrossBones Graveyard – Photographs by Max Reeves’ https://www.entropypress.co.uk/books/p/crossbones-graveyard

Crossbones Day of Dance – Sunday 22nd March 2026

For all Friends and Lovers of Crossbones (and Morris) here’s an advance date for your diaires
The event is organised by photographer Max Reeves in association with the Morris sides and thanks to the support of Bankside Open Spaces Trust. Watch this space for more details neareer the time

Cross Bones Vigil for the Outcast

Friday 23rd January 2026 – gather 6.45 to commence on the stroke of 7pm
Redcross Way, The Borough, Southwark, London SE1

The 260th 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. At 7pm on the 23rd of every single month since 23rd June 2004, friends have gathered at the gates of Cross Bones Graveyard. On Thursday 23rd January, Mistress Jin Jen will be doing the honours.

The Vigils are also held “on the Astral” with friends joining in from around the world. The online Vigil is hosted by Mistress Bee in the Zoom studio, bringing us in to play our parts. If you can’t be there in the flesh at the gates in Redcross Way, you can join the Zoom Meeting here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85624178240
Meeting ID: 856 2417 8240 Passcode: 377295

To help us all to fully participate, and commune on The Astral, at the gates or on Zoom, here’s the ‘Order of Service’ for the Vigil

>><<

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!’

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’.

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.
The January Vigil marks the Portal to Imbolc, when we collectively perform the triadic poem for Bridie (or Brigid) from ‘Spark In The Dark’ (John Constable) – each line repeated (call and response):

“… Bridie I am here
with my goose-feather quill
To trace the lucent songs of the Ancients.

Bridie I am here
with the chalice and snake
To receive and transmit your healing benediction.

Bridie I am here
with the bellows and tongs
To tend your sacred fire of transformation.”

If you wish, you can perform a poem or song from ‘The Southwark Mysteries’, or present your own Imbolc offering to The Goose and her Outcast Dead.

Since 2016, at this Vigil we elevate David Bowie as our Angel of the Outcast. One of the attendees may like to sing a Bowie song in tribute, or even to lead a rousing rendition of ‘Starman’!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9tPn70Hq8Y

5. Closing.
Close the ceremony with a libation of gin. Say (call and response, each line repeated, each stanza then repeated):

“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.”

then:

“Goose may you never be hungry!
Goose may you never be thirsty!
Goose may your Spirit fly free!’

>><<

Crossbones Vigil for the Outcast – Winter Solstice / Christmas / Yule / ‘all faiths and none’

Gather from 6.45 for 7pm opening of the 259th consecutive Vigil, held at the gates in Redcross Way at 7pm on the 23rd of every single month since June 2004.

We come here to remember the outcast, dead and alive, to renew the shrine and to reclaim the secret history of Crossbones, as revealed by The Goose to John Crow and reimagined by every Friend of Crossbones who comes to open the pathways.

These magical works underpin our creation of the Crossbones shrine and the Garden of Remembrance, which we’re still campaigning to protect and enhance.

For this month’s Vigil, Jennifer will be doing the honours. Please come support her, bringing a ribbon, memento or magical totem to tie to the gates, and, if the Spirit moves you, a poem, song or short personal testimony to share when we offer our creativity to The Goose and the spirits of Crossbones.

The Vigils are also held ‘on the Astral’, with some of us tuning in from all over the world, creating our own altars and conducting the rituals in our homes. Jacqui ‘Bee’ Durban hosts a Zoom Vigil: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85624178240 Meeting ID: 856 2417 8240 Passcode: 377295

Winter Solstice, Christmas, Yule (and the seasonal traditions of other faiths) will be celebrated. There may be carols (especially if one of you is inspired to lead and/or bring some ‘hymn sheets’ to share). Goose, may your Spirit fly free.

Photo: Jennifer at a Vigil Past.

Wyrd: A trip through time with writer and magical practitioner John Constable aka John Crow

When? Tuesday 9th December 2025 – gather around 7.30pm for an 8pm start
Where? The Beckets, High Street, Glastonbury
Entry: Free. Please buy a drink to support Beckets and make a donation to the speaker

A strange but true life! transformed by hitch-hiking, music, LSD, the 1971 Glastonbury Festival and the spiritual quest. He escaped a cult, lived in the Far East and India, and toured Europe with a street-theatre group in the ‘80s, before returning to England as a playwright. He took his stage version of Gormenghast from the Lyric Theatre to South America, and his acclaimed autobiographical show I Was An Alien Sex God from Edinburgh to South Africa. In 1996 his lifelong involvement in poetry, theatre, psychedelics and magic came together in The Southwark Mysteries. As the urban shaman and ritualist John Crow he conducted a 23-year work to reclaim south London’s Crossbones Graveyard as a shrine and garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts. He wrote the Glastonbury St George and The Dragon Mummers Play performed in The Abbey, and regularly performs his work and conducts rituals here in Glastonbury, where he and his wife Katy have lived for the past five years.

JC writes: ‘I aim to make it a fun, informal trip through the ways magic has shaped my life over the last seventy-plus years, how the world has changed in those seven decades – and how, even in a world that can seem to be shutting down under the bombardment of information intended to turn it (and us) into “things” we can still find ways to transform our lives, and to the benefit of others.’

https://www.facebook.com/events/1349777226853464

William Blake’s 268th Birthday Bash!

Blakeans! Children of Albion! Come celebrate the 268th anniversary of the birth of William Blake
Friday 28th November. Gather 10.45 for 11am in Glastonbury Abbey

WHERE Glastonbury Abbey, the Edgar Chapel at the top end of the ruined church.
WHEN? Friday 28th November. Gather 10.45, to hail Albion Rising on the stroke of 11am
WHAT TO BRING? Yourselves and a short poem or short fragment of a longer poem by William Blake.
WHAT IF… DRIZZLE? Bring a ‘brella! It’ll soon clear.

There may be space for our own (short) poetic tributes but let’s give priority to Blake’s own works. Acoustic intruments? Maybe? Solo voices? Certainly. Blake poems learned by heart or read from books much preferred to mobile aids.

The event is free and open to all, though non-members still have to pay the Abbey entrance fee. NB this is not an official event. The Abbey staff can be sensitive about ‘ceremonies’, but this is just a few friends spontaneously celebrating a great poet. If asked to move from the Edgar Chapel we can decamp to somewhere near. We trust that, as on the last five years, we will hold this sacred space in peace and love at liberty.

‘For Every Thing that Lives is Holy.’

‘And Jerusalem is called Liberty among the Children of Albion.’

‘Crossbones Graveyard’ book launch

This Saturday 22nd November 2-4pm

The launch of Max Reeves photo-book charting 20 years of magical works which reclaimed the once derelict post-industrial site and transformed it into a garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts. A book of portals!

Soon after 2.30pm – John Constable aka John Crow guves a talk on Crossbone Graveyard and performance from ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ followed by the book-launch – limited edition of 100 copies, signed by the authors.

The event (2-4pm) also features Belles of London Town Morris, Pearly Kings and Queens, and poetry by Steve Micalef.

The exhibition itself is open until 6pm (from now until the 26th) and is well worth a visit in its own rite! Crossbones features in the film and Ben Edge’s portrait of ‘Crow with Goose’ is part of it all.

Free Event All Welcome

The Book is also available to buy here:

https://www.entropypress.co.uk/books/p/crossbones-graveyard

Crossbones Vigil & Goose Night

On 23rd November 1996, in visions and verses, The Goose revealed to John Crow the Secret History of Cross Bones…

23rd November 2025 is the 29th anniversary of this ‘Goose Night’, which inspired John Constable’s epic work ‘The Southwark Mysteries’, The Halloween of Cross Bones and the Vigils held on the 23rd of every month since June 2004. John conducted most of the Vigils up to 23rd November 2019. Having completed his 23 years of active service for The Goose, he handed over to Jannifer, Mark and others in the Magical Collective.

For this, the 258th consecutive monthly Vigil, Jennifer invited John Constable / John Crow to conduct the Vigil. Along with our time-honoured ritual observances, John Crow will perform ‘The Book of The Goose’, the first of the ‘Vision Books’ of ‘The Southwark Mysteries’ as received on 23rd November 1996.

Free! Donations welcome.

Please note that the day before (Saturday 22nd November at 2.30 or 3pm, John will speak about the work at Crossbones and perform for the launch of the book Crossbones Graveyard – photographs by Max Reeves charting 20 years of magical works to reclaim and transform Cross Bones from a “derelict industrial site” (valued at £25 million for redevelopment) into a garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts.

ALBION AWAKENS

FREE EVENT 2PM – 4PM ON SATURDAY 22ND NOVEMBER
Fitzrovia Chapel, Fitzroy Place, 2 Pearson Square, London W1T 3BF

Belles of London City Morris Dancing
Performance by John Constable/Crow of Crossbones Graveyard
Pearly Kings And Queens
Book launch Of ‘Crossbones Graveyard’ by Max Crow Reeves, John Constable/Crow and Katy Nicholls/Kaos (with book signing)

FREE EVENT JUST TURN UP TO THE FITZROVIA CHAPEL

EXHIBITION PROGRAMME HERE: https://www.benedge.co.uk/

FITZROVIA CHAPEL INFO HERE: https://www.fitzroviachapel.org

Photo by Max Reeves: Black Swan Morris dance at John Crow’s last “official” Vigil. 23rd November 2019, the night Crow completed his 23-year magical working at Cross Bones Graveyard

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