Honouring the Sacred Flame - Spirit Messengers & Wicker Effigies

Blessing of the Wicker Owl at Fantasy Forest Festival 2025 - Photo by Loz.Pics

Creature of Feather and Flame,

Carry our hope upon blazing wings,

As ashes transmute into light.

Spirit Messenger of Memory,

Whisper our beloved's names into the fire,

As ancestors bear them into the night.

I have had the honour to hold the blessing dance and ceremony of the Wicker effigy at Fantasy Forest Festival since the festival first began in 2019. Over the years, the festival and the blessing have grown in energy and purpose. People spend the weekend tying their wishes, hopes and losses onto the effigy, or more recently, placing them inside. Sometimes people have also placed small envelopes of ashes inside.

This blessing is sacred. The emotions and energies imbued into each wish and memory placed in the wicker animal are palpable.

When the crowd gathers for the lighting of the wicker, now in their thousands, the intentions and expectations become a force of magic, raised energy which creates tangible power. This power aids the fire in sending our hopes and dreams spiralling up to the heavens above.

Each year, I am asked why the animal is set alight. Especially as it is so beautifully made, and as we all love animals, we don't like the idea of seeing their likeness burn. The fire is not an act of destruction but of transmutation. We light a fire to send our love to the spirit world, and an effigy becomes a messenger of remembrance, an embodiment of our wishes, or our grief. Each year, a different animal spirit is worked with to hold the festival's energy; some animals burn fiercely and wild, whereas others burn with a gentle grace. I have never been as hot as when dancing with dragon fire, and never witnessed a wilder fire than that of the great Mother Bear.

The fire awakens the spirit of the animal, as the spirit messenger carries the prayers and memories up to the gods, to the ancestors, and to the sun, moon and stars.

By communally lighting the wicker effigy, we give space to all who need to wish, to pray, to heal, to grieve, and to remember all they love and are grateful for. All are held in this space, all are free to heal, to dance, to cry, and to remember pure connection.

Burning effigies is one of the oldest forms of ritual and magic known to humankind. The fire is linked to the essential warmth and light of the sun, to abundance, fertility and passion. Fire transforms one physical state into another and is connected to the divine spark of the gods. Fire magic also purifies, heals, and clears the way for the new life to begin. Wicker fires are particularly popular around Lughnasadh, when the sun still blazes brightly but the nights begin to draw in, and the first harvest takes life from the land. Lughnasdh is a festival in which the Celtic god Lugh, not only celebrates the harvest of the land but also grieves the death of his mother, the goddess of the land.

At the end of this year's ceremony, a large group of people all raised their re-enactment swords, or even their light sabers, in a spontaneous act of honouring. We feel it in our bones, these ancient rituals, these connections to the land and each other, and in some half-submerged part of us, we remember and we call it home.

All photos by Chris Down except the first photo, which is by Loz.Pics