World wide symbol of male nurturance of the Earth, the essence of The Green Man is present in the stories of the Sumerian Tammuz, Babylonian Dimuzzi and the Egyptian Osiris. Each of these shared a simliar function, that of protector, lover and son of the Great Goddess. In each of these roles the ancient fertility god acts as husbandman, he who cared for and was nurtured by the Mother. This tradition was also a function of the Celtic god Kernunnos, and it remains celebrated today in the Hindu rites of Shiva and Vishnu.

Dionysos reminds us that a second responsibility of the Green Man is to feel the ecstatic intoxication of sensuality and emotion. And Yogic Christ, the inheritor of this dying/resurrecting god tradition, carries forward these qualities of compassion, child-like intuitiveness, courage, and self-sacrifice into our own time.

The warrior, a related Green Man represented by Celtic Lugh, Norse Tyr and Hindu Kartikeya, depicted qualities not of aggression but of spiritual one-pointedness, phallic potency, and right action.

The Green Man, © Andy Partridge

Please to bend down to the one called the Green Man
He wants to make you his Bride
Please to bend down to the one called the Green Man
Forever to him you're tied

And you know for a million years he has been your lover
He'll be a million more
And you know for a million years he has been your lover
Down from the Hills to the Shore

Heed the Green Man
Heed the Green Man

Please to dance round for the one called the Green Man
He wants to make you his child
Please to dance round for the one called the Green Man
Dressed in the fruits of the wild

And you know for a million years he has been your father
He'll be a million more
And you know for a million years he has been your father
Run to his arms from your door

Lay your head, lay your head, lay your head, lay your head
on the Green Man Lay your head, lay your head with mine
lay your head, lay your head, lay your head, lay your head
on the Green Man
Build a bed out of oak and pine

See the Green Man blow his kiss from high church wall
And unknowing church will amplify his call

The descriptive text and image used on this page are Copyright © 1996
Jai Bhagavan Ltd, Devotional Statues

The code word is :- Easter