Origins

Fellowcraft

Masonic Service Association - Short Talk
Bulletin March 1960

This word is a shortening of Fellow of the Craft. A fellow is a comrade, an associate of
equal rank and privilege. In the development of learned societies and universities
following the Renaissance, a Fellow was a distinguished member of an educated group or
college faculty. For example, the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, are a group of
eminent scholars and teachers who enjoy a certain equality of rank and privilege
because of their Fellowship. The Fellows of the Royal Society of London are the modern
successors to the outstanding men of science and letters who founded that organization in
the seventeenth century, at the time when operative Masonry was evolving into the
social, charitable, and philosophic institution we call Freemasonry today. As
Fellows they hold a grade of membership above that of an ordinary Member. A similar
distinction may be found in the membership of the Philalethes Society, an association of
American Freemasons.

A Fellow of the Craft originally was a worker who had completed his term of service as an
apprentice, and after a further period of employment and experience as a journeyman,
had been received into the Fellowship of his guild or "trade union". In the case of
workers in stone, they passed into the Fellowship of the Lodge. They became
associates, or equal comrades, because they were now believed to be "of great skill,
tried and trusty". The term Fellowcraft was used in other trades and guilds besides the
Masons' association; but its survival in modern times is exclusively Masonic.

Today's Fellowcraft is a thin shadow of his operative counterpart. Too many Masons
remember their experience in this degree but vaguely. A shadowy recollection of the
working tools, of two bronze pillars, of an ascent up a flight of winding stairs, of a
long lecture about the seven liberal arts and sciences, something about wages, the Middle
Chamber of King Solomon's Temple, and the letter "G", and the realization that he still
had another degree to "take" before he could really become a member of the Lodge, - these
are the principal remembrances which the average modern Mason can summon when he hears
the word Fellowcraft.

In some Lodges, where the unfortunate tendency to shorten or to omit large parts of
the Middle Chamber Lecture is habitual, the members are even poorer in the memories that
they have stored up about a significant initiatory experience. Yet to those who view
the history of operative Masonry only through a golden aura of legend and idealism, it may
prove disappointing to learn that such modern Freemasons are reflecting an attitude or
practice of operative Masons concerning the experience of "passing". Many operative
craftsmen never bothered to become Fellows of the Craft; but they acted from very practical
and economic reasons. Furthermore, they had already received the ritualistic instruction
which is reserved for the modern Fellowcraft.

It must be remembered that mediaeval guild Masonry, and its extension through the period
of the Renaissance up to the eighteenth century when Speculative Freemasonry was
formally organized, was never a fixed and changeless thing. Like all human institutions
it grew and adapted itself to changing conditions. Therefore, all statements about
the practices and principles of operative craftsmen must be prefixed by the phrase,
"Generally speaking...... or "In such and such a century . . .". No descriptive
statement about Fellows of the Craft can ever apply to all workers in stone at all times
and in all places. Conditions varied widely from one locality to another; regulations
were stricter in the cities, where Councils could control the workers more easily.

The Short Talk Bulletin of September, 1959, presented picture of the operative
apprentice. He was a worker indentured to a master for a specific period of training,
usually seven years. At the time of his indenture he was "booked", i.e., his contract
was registered with the municipal authorities. When he had acquired sufficient
skill and dependability in his work, and when his master was ready to guarantee his fees as
well as his character, the apprentice could be "entered" in the lodge. The average period
of time it took apprentices to be "entered" was four years after they had begun to serve
their masters. Yet there are some cases on record in which the apprentice was "entered"
at the same time he was "booked", i.e., at the very beginning of his apprenticeship to a
master. Kinship to the master or the affluence of the apprentice's parents or
guarantors probably helped to speed up the process in some cases.

When an apprentice had completed his indenture, he was a journeyman, free to
travel from employer to employer, seeking work at regular wages, which were usually
fixed by law at a daily or weekly rate. He could stay on with the master of his
apprenticeship, or he could seek employment with another. He could "free lance" his
skills. He could take on an apprentice himself; this was a useful source of extra
income. He could even hire out his apprentice to others, when his own affairs were slack.
He could contract for small jobs, the cost of which had an upper limit prescribed by the
municipal authorities. He was sufficiently trained and skillful to "start life on his
own". A journeyman could earn a comfortable living.

The ultimate goal of all apprentices was to become a burgess, a free citizen of the town.
To practice his trade with the widest latitude and freedom, a craftsman had to
become a burgess, a full-fledged citizen with certain property rights and the franchise. He
had to have "the freedom of the city". It was the highest station in life to which the
ordinary man could aspire.

Generally speaking, an operative mason had to be a Fellow of the Craft if he hoped to
achieve the status of burgess. This was especially true in the smaller towns and in
the country, where the Lodge was the highest authority in regulating workmen. In the
cities, the Council had overriding authority; and it usually insisted that workmen could
not be ranked (or make contracts) as Masters, until they had "taken the freedom of the
city". This freedom entailed certain duties and responsibilities; but it also gave the
freeman some educational advantages for his children, some "social security" benefits for
his family, priority in housing, and the right to practice his trade as a Master
Workman.

Lodges apparently considered a workman "free" only after he had had approximately three
years' experience as a journeyman, and after he had "passed to Fellow of the Craft" in a
simple ceremony, of which the payment of prescribed fees seems to have been the most
important element.

"Passing F.C." was not a ritualistic experience; it was the attainment of a
certain grade or status in the classification of workmen in a trade organization. While
there undoubtedly was some ceremony connected with the event, it should be remembered that "entered apprentices" were full members of a lodge, that they had received all the
instructions pertaining to the noble craft, as well as most of its operative secrets, at
the time of their initiation. A simpler, shorter version of the lecture on the seven
liberal arts and sciences, which was part of the old charges and regulations, was read to
apprentices at the time they were "entered".

The Schaw Statutes of 1598 attempted to enforce a seven years' period of
journeymanship before an apprentice could be "passed a Fellow of the Craft"; but old lodge
records indicate that the idea was largely a hope or a dream, since practically no
apprentices had to wait that long to become Fellows of the Craft. The "accommodation" of
the law to suit men's practical needs and ambitions has been arranged in every
generation.

An apprentice, for practical purposes, was free to work wherever he chose as soon as he
had completed his apprenticeship, and he was technically "free" the day he completed the
required period of his journeymanship. Since "the freedom of the city" could be granted to
a "free" apprentice as well as to a Fellow of the Craft, it depended on the degree of
understanding and agreement between the Council and the guilds (or Lodges) whether
only Fellows of the Craft received the freedom. Where such Fellowship was not
insisted on, a worker could bypass the rank of Fellowcraft on his way to becoming a
burgess.

In Edinburgh around 1600 "Freemen Masters" were the actual full members and managers of the Lodges. Fellows of the Craft were fully trained masons, potential Masters. They could
take on apprentices, do limited "jobbing" on their own account, but they could not work as
Masters until they had been made burgesses. They needed no additional qualifications to
become Masters, except to pay the required fees and to execute "an essay", a master's
piece.

No record of any ceremony for making a Fellow of the Craft a Master has ever come to light.
When a workman was "passed F.C."., nothing more seems to have been recorded of him until he was made a burgess. Then, without any announcement, minute, or ceremony of any
kind, he is to be found signing the Lodge minutes as a "Freeman Master".

Apprentices could speed up the process of becoming "free" by another, a modern sounding
technique, - by marrying the boss' daughter. An "un-freeman" could acquire his "freedom"
at the cheapest rate and in the shortest period of time by marrying a burgess'
daughter. If his master was a burgess and the apprentice did this at the end of his
indenture, he was excused from the extra three years of service as a journeyman. From
the evidence revealed by old lodge records, it appears that many of them did. It was a
practical arrangement to insure the future security of the females in a Master's family.

Many other journeymen, however, failed to "pass the Fellow of the Craft". We can only
guess at their reasons. Some lacked ambition and were content to continue a journeyman's
existence as a hired hand or as a small employer of one or two apprentices. Some may
have multiplied their family needs and obligations so rapidly that they were never
able to lay aside the sums required for membership as Fellows of the Lodge. Lacking
relatives of means to help them pay the necessary fees for Fellowship and Freedom,
they remained in the ranks of the unsung common man, who may not always "lead a life
of quiet desperation", but who learns to adapt his life to calm frustration.

Every system of society tends to harden into a mold of custom and tradition which changes
far too slowly in some of its minor practices to suit the changing conditions of the life
of which it is composed. When it became more and more difficult for operative craftsmen to
"get to the top" in the exercise of the builders' arts, there was less and less urgency for journeymen masons to undertake the responsibilities and the financial obligations of "passing Fellowcraft".

Toward the close of the era of operative Masonry, we discover a problem created by
this phenomenon, the solution of which helped to hasten the transformation. of Craft
Masonry into Speculative Freemasonry.

In 1681 Mary's Chapel Lodge in Edinburgh issued an edict against "entered Apprentices"
who neglected to be passed to Fellowcraft. It ordered that no master was to employ any
apprentices who remained "unpassed" for more than, two years after their discharge from
their indentures. A fine of twenty shillings a day was to be imposed on any master who
employed them.

In this event we see the transformation of a "closed shop" association of highly skilled
craftsmen into a broader trade association, in which the number of members in the Lodge
and the income to be derived from their fees were more important than the proven skills
and needs of specialized craftsmen. A year later, 1682, the same Lodge legislated
directly against "unpassed" apprentices, by levying a fine of twelve shillings a year
upon every such member. To make the legislation more palatable, it was announced
that the fines would be used to relieve the poor and the needy. It was not long before
the claims upon such funds for relief became excessive, with the result that quarrels and
contentions broke out in the Lodge.

By the time the eighteenth century was well under way, the Lodge was solving this
difficulty by enrolling in its membership "nonoperatives", who paid 1 pound, 1 s
(Sterling), "for the use of the poor". The Lodge had practically abandoned its original
function of trade control; it was now virtually a social and benevolent society.
And it was just about this time that Speculative Freemasonry began its history
with the founding of the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717.

In spite of the differences between the operative masons' grade of Fellow of the
Craft and the present Fellowcraft degree, there is a thread that runs from the ancient
to the modern. It is the great theme of enlightened manhood. The symbolic ritual
stresses the necessity of the cultivation of the intellect and the acquisition of habits
of industry, both essential to the man who in the prime of life would be a Master in the
building of a spiritual Temple of Brotherhood.

The operative Fellow of the Craft was in the full vigor of physical manhood. Because of
the nature of the work involved in cutting and handling stone, the masons' guilds
generally required beginning apprentices to be somewhat older than was the case in other
trades. Some Lodges tried to enforce a minimum age of eighteen, although records
indicate that some apprentices were younger.

Nevertheless, an operative mason, after completing his seven years' apprenticeship
and the usual period of service as a journeyman, was a man in his late twenties.
In an era when the average life expectancy was somewhere in the early forties, such a
man was well into the period of middle life, when his skills should be mature and his
objectives well defined. Whatever executive ability he needed to become a "freeman
Master" must have been demonstrated by the time he became a Fellow of the Craft. Habits
of industry and the acquisition of knowledge were among the important qualities in the
development of that ability.

In the modern Fellowcraft degree the underlying idea of the Middle Chamber Lecture
is the development of manhood through useful knowledge and constructive work. The
scientific facts and the theories of art contained in the various sections of that
discourse are not its vital elements. They are too elementary and too generalized to be
of practical use in any trade or profession today. It is reverence for knowledge and its
moral usefulness which is illustrated for the speculative Fellowcraft.

The ritual stresses the need for studying and for learning throughout the period of
manhood. It illuminates the idea that a Fellowcraft must search for knowledge about
the liberalizing ideas of morality and brotherly love. If he would truly become a
Master engaged in building "a house not made with hands", he must know the means of
achieving universal tolerance and understanding.

The ritual of the Fellowcraft degree admittedly difficult to learn and to present
with the same dramatic appeal that is inherent in the other two degrees. But,
because the ennobling fascination of the beautiful ceremonies of Freemasonry can
capture the hearts and minds of men in every generation (and in every degree), it is
important that symbolic Craftsmen learn and interpret as meaningfully as possible the
ritual of this degree.

A Fellow of the Craft should feel that he has achieved a distinguished rank and privilege
when he has completed his journey through King Solomon's Temple. A Fellow of the Craft
should understand that he has fulfilled symbolically a journeyman's years of learning
and of labor in the arts of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth.

Subject: Circumambulation

A NOTE FROM THE MIDDLE CHAMBER.

Although not restricted to the F.C. degree, circumambulation is
certainly a major part of it, one of the first things experienced in all
three of the Craft degrees, and to a certain extent in the appendant
orders. As with most of the symbolic content we encounter in Masonry,
this simple procedure has deep roots, so deep that the clockwise
direction we use once had a special name, "deosil," which is now
considered archaic.

This name alluded to, among other things, the harmony of clockwise
motion with the daily motion of all heavenly bodies, including the Sun,
as viewed in the Northern Hemisphere, rising in the East, crossing the
South, and setting in the West. The Northern segment of the journey
occurs below the horizon, a place of darkness and other allusions. In
ancient pagan applications, the harmony with the motion of the planets
was also taken to evoke the sympathy of the gods associated with those
planets, but particularly with the Sun.

The deosil direction, of course, is opposed by the counterclockwise
widdershins or withershins direction, from the Teutonic, "wieder sinn,"
or the "other way." Rather than completely antithetical to the deosil,
however, this is the direction of motion of the planets relative to the
fixed stars, at least in prograde motion. In retrograde phases, they
again join the deosil direction. For Mercury and Venus, their prograde
motion is when they actually move through the heavens faster than the
Sun. The other planets in retrograde only appear to move in the deosil
direction, but they are still slower than the apparent motion of the
Sun, which is actually the speed of the Earth's revolution. Islam
prefers the widdershins (counterclockwise) direction for honoring sacred
sites, while most other cultures prefer the deosil for similar purposes.

Interestingly, the process of circumambulation was formerly called
"compassing" (Psalm 26:6 I will wash my hands in innocence; so I will
compass thine altar, O Lord. See also Job 22:14), which expressed, among
other things, a willingness to accept the vicissitudes of the year, to
follow the Sun. In this sense, deosil "compassing" echoes ancient solar
worship, although by the Middle Ages, this was hardly considered a pagan
practice, having been incorporated into various church practices,
including periodic processions around the boundary of the parish led by
one or another of the local (operative) guilds to assert unity of the
parish and its possession of the incorporation. Such processions were
typically associated with the feast days assigned to particular guilds.

In English common law, an annual deosil circuit of one's property line
was a necessary minimum legal precaution to maintain possession.
Otherwise, any passing vagrant might be able to assert squatters'
rights. When one purchased or inherited property, one of the first
responsibilities was for the new owner to personally execute a deosil
walk around the property, with witnesses in tow. This asserted ownership
and served notice that you intended to retain your legal rights. If
disabled, you would have to hire someone to carry you around the
property or risk losing it. Thus, our candidates in circulating around
the lodge room are effectively taking possession of a new identity,
while being accepted into a new incorporation.

Curiously, circumambulations in the three Craft degrees in my
jurisdiction place the candidate in the N.E. corner three times as an
E.A.; four times as a F.C.; and five times as a M.M. Could this
possibly allude to another of our emblems, Euclid's 47th problem, which
is often represented as a 3, 4, 5 right triangle?

Let's revisit what Albert Mackey had to say about this in his 1882
edition of THE SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY, Illustrating and Explaining Its
Science and Philosophy, its Legends, Myths, and Symbols.

[begin quote]
THE rite of circumambulation will supply us with another ritualistic
symbol, in which we may again trace the identity of the origin of
Freemasonry with that of the religious and mystical ceremonies of the
ancients.

"Circumambulation" is the name given by sacred archaeologists to that
religious rite in the ancient initiations which consisted in a formal
procession around the altar, or other holy and consecrated object.

The prevalence of this rite among the ancients appears to have been
universal, and it originally (as I shall have occasion to show) alluded
to the apparent course of the sun in the firmament, which is from east
to west by the way of the south.

In ancient Greece, when the priests were engaged in the rites of
sacrifice, they and the people always walked three times around the
altar while chanting a sacred hymn or ode. Sometimes, while the people
stood around the altar, the rite of circumambulation was performed by
the priest alone, who, turning towards the right hand, ...

This ceremony the Greeks called moving , from the right to the right,
which was the direction of the motion, and the Romans applied to it the
term dextrovorsum, or dextrorsum, which signifies the same thing. [end
quote]

Mackey was certainly correct about it being nearly universal among
ancient civilizations. In addition to the Egyptians (e.g. for
installation of Pharoahs, symbolic of inheritance of the family
lineage), Greeks, and Romans, there are many later examples. A major
part of the Moslem Hajj is the tawaf, involving seven circuits around
the Ka'ba, the purpose of which is to remember Allah. In Tibet the
practice of Kor Wa is also related to the smaller prayer wheel.
Buddhists perform a deosil circuit to worship a stupa or the Bo tree
with recitation of sutras and scattering of petals. This is also a form
of respect shown to special teachers. In Thailand, it is called the WAt
Ba Pong. The Hindu "following the sun" around the sacred fire and, in
the temple pradaksina (or parikrama), meant to go around any sacred
object, person, or place, trees, plants, temples, including the whole of
India. Other practices include the seven circuits (hakkafot) around a
cemetery before a burial by Sephardi and Hasidic Jews. In Witchcraft the
terms deosil and widdershins are still used relating to a magic circle.

In the Middle Ages, it became popular to use such circuits to make
symbolic pilgrimages. A good example is the Labyrinth spiral built into
the floor near the entrance at Chartres, although no longer used. Such
labyrinths later became a form of popular entertainment in royal
gardens, and we still have fun with them at hotels and corn fields in
the Midwestern U.S. Various Christian churches still perform a vestige
of the ancient circumambulation when they trace the stations of the
Cross, which are typically arranged in order around the walls of the
sanctuary.

Regardless of the meaning intended or taken from the practice of
circumambulation, it is apparent that it performs a function of
focusing attention and perhaps in engaging psychological processes.
Jung, for example, spoke of circulation as being a fundamental
psychological process and described dreams as rotating about a
centralizing axis of the Self, rather than representing a linear
sequence of events, as normal waking perception seems to present to us.
Dreams perambulate around a central theme, repeating images and
relations to deepen and expand the meaning. Much like a mandala.

"Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its
movement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural
course may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some
external but on its own center, the point to which it owes its rise.
The soul's movement will be about its source; to this it will hold,
poised intent towards that unity to which all souls should
move...." -- Plotinus, The Enneads

THE GREEN MAN

Clive Hicks explains this friend of the medieval stonemason

An enigmatic figure is to be found in thousands of images carved in stone in
the Medieval churches of Europe. It appears normally as just a face, usually
male, sprouting foliage, becoming foliage, or growing from foliage. It has
been suggested that this figure, now known as the Green Man, was a special
sign for the stonemasons but there are probably just as many in wood as in
stone. He is, though, almost confined to the building trades being uncommon
in painting, manuscript, or stained glass. Furthermore, and mysteriously, no
known Medieval account explains the reason for the Green Man.

The expression "Green Man" today embraces far more than just the carved
figure of the Middle Ages. About sixty years ago connections were first
conceived between a number of separate historical strands and these
connections have been developed more recently: a number of separate
traditions linking humanity with nature have now become seen as differing
manifestations of a very fundamental and basic pattern lying deep within the
human mind. Such a universal pattern, shared by all, expressed through
varying symbolic forms, is termed by psychologists an archetype. In this
case the Green Man represents the archetype which channels and reinforces a
mental attitude of sympathy for, and with, nature. The modern concept of the
Green Man associates it with a number of strands: a group of ancient tree
myths; the idea of the Tree of Life; related foliage folk customs found all
over Europe; folk tales such as those of Robin Hood, Gawain and the Green
Knight and others; the idea of the Wild Man or Woodwose; and the old English
inn name, "The Green Man", which has given the symbol its current title.

These strands are not directly linked by historical circumstances but by
archetypal association within human consciousness. The Green Man archetype
is seen as coming into manifestation in popular consciousness, periodically
encouraged, in response to the circumstances of the time. Its current
emergence is seen to derive from a widespread instinctive communal awareness
of the ecological crisis being caused by our increasingly unbalanced way of
life.

Folk Customs

Ancient mythology tells, in many forms, of the Mother Goddess bearing a son
without a father; a son who is put on the earth in order to help humanity
with what it needs. But while this son is of divine origin he is not
immortal and must therefore die.

In some of the myths he is associated with a tree and this connection
extends into Egyptian and Classical times. His death and renewal were
associated with Springtime regeneration, the miracle essential to all
communities. Furthermore, the essential mythological basis depicts the
divine originator of this son as being feminine: the Mother of all. Her
human divine offspring are revealed as masculine in a mythological weaving
of the traditional understanding of the origin and role of the feminine and
masculine.

Springing from this mythology are folk customs which, in Europe and
elsewhere, celebrate the regeneration of life in the Spring and the
regeneration of the community with new birth. Michael Dames has written
convincingly of the megalithic alignments at Avebury being used for this
purpose in the Bronze Age. Customs of this type, although forbidden in
Britain during the Puritan periods, continue in this country in many places
and survive all over Europe. Their antiquity is never on record and they are
first mentioned in print only about three hundred years ago but their origin
must be much earlier since it is implausible to envisage folk customs of
this nature being inaugurated so recently.

The common factor in these customs is a character, always male and covered
in foliage, known in many places as "Jack in the Green" and usually
associated with the May Queen who herself represents the Goddess as Virgin.
In some of the historic customs "Jack in the Green" is symbolically executed
to allow in the spirit of Summer. In Britain probably the best of these folk
customs are to be found in Hastings and Rochester on the early May Bank
Holiday, and in Castleton, Derbyshire on Garland Day, 29th May.

The Wild Man

One of the Medieval sources of the Green Man may have been the sense of
spirits in nature and the idea of the Wild Man, or Woodwose, a legendary
natural man living in the wild. The ancient belief that primitive men were
living wild in the forests was reinforced by actual alienated individuals
and outlaws living in that way naturally connects with stories such as that
of Robin Hood; a connection supported by the traditional image used on signs
of a "Green Man" inn - Robin Hood, or a forester, or a wild figure covered
in hair and brandishing a club.

The Wild Man also has a psychological significance: it represents the
natural person within each of us; our tastes and our talents which we have
to direct to act well in the world. The Wild Man is by no means a negative
image. One set of figures in York Minster shows a Wild Man protecting a
Green Man from a demon -- the Green Man, as we shall see, representing
divine consciousness in the world being guarded by the natural forces within
us. The Green Man is a worldly angel, acting not "from above" but from
within the world itself. The Wild Man does not need to be subdued but his
potential has to be made real, has to be tamed or smoothed - like the rough
ashlar, another symbol of completion familiar to Freemasons. We have to
bring together both the angel, and the Wild Man, within us.

The Carved image

The principal incarnation of the Green Man is as a carved image, a face
integrated with the foliage spilling out of it. The image is international
but the different traditions appear to be separate which reinforces the
concept of the image as a variation of a single archetype. Although many are
inclined to seek a Celtic origin for the figure, in the European tradition
its origin appears to be Roman as revealed in carved foliate heads dating
from the second century AD together with some mosaic images in several
places. The earliest known Green Man in a Christian context is found on a
slightly later tomb in Poitiers but the figures remain uncommon in Christian
iconography until the twelfth century, reaching their heyday perhaps in the
fourteenth. After the Renaissance (fifteenth century) and the Reformation
(sixteenth century), the Green Man continued as a decorative image in
architecture until its use faded in the early twentieth century - until the
current revival which began around 1990. At present, Green Man images are
occurring widely; in the restoration of Windsor Castle, for example.

The most significant period in the life of the carved image was the Middle
Ages when thousands of green men were included in church iconography. And,
in spite of a complete lack of any contemporary account of the image, or the
reasons for including it amongst the saints and sinners, there is a powerful
sense that the green men in churches convey a profound meaning, a meaning
most probably not explicitly expressed at the time - otherwise surely
someone would have written of it. They are more than conventional decoration
and are found in conspicuous and important locations.

Of course, not every building was composed with a symbolism fully
appreciated and many decorative features must have merely followed local
precedent. Nevertheless, many of the images, especially in churches, were
instructive. They aimed to keep us on the straight and narrow path. The
Green Man is here to help in this - but to help with what we need, not with
what we want; to achieve this, he is quite often fierce. There is a
four-part Green Man capital at Woodbury in Devon that is clearly didactic:
it points to the consequences of ignoring divine wisdom.

Consciousness and Wholeness

Many green men though look out at us through the foliage without expression,
as if just seeing. In this they may be considered the consciousness of
nature, the Divine consciousness, which is also to say, our consciousness,
for we are all part of the Divine. In this, the Green Man is the witness of
the holy drama of life enacted before him.

The importance of the Green Man is demonstrated by the fact that he is
depicted in one church or another observing all the central events enacted
by Christ and that he occurs in every conceivable location in the church.
Yet the Green Man is never part of the action. He is confined to
observation; to consciousness rather than action. The Green Man,
consciousness in Nature, acts as the eyes of God, and of course he is us -
for we are the eyes of God in creation. The Green Man has an active,
masculine role in the world but springs from a concept of the divine being
feminine. Both aspects are within us. We have the task of reunifying the
masculine and feminine, making that which has been separated whole again -
the Sacred Marriage of the Mysteries. Following, in fact, the meaning of the
word "religion". the root of which is the Latin re-ligare, to rebind that
which has been separated. The Green Man has a wonderful breadth, reaching
the most profound meaning but also touching upon lightness and fun; the fun
of finding new green men in almost any church you explore, and the fun of
enjoying the sparkling gaiety of the Spring festivals.