It would appear that word has escaped.

A Lodge from a land far, far away (mid Wales), and judging by some of the administrative timelines involved perhaps a long time ago as well, recently contacted the Province of North Wales with a rather intriguing request. Their question was simple enough:

“Do you happen to know a chap called Wayne Owens, and could he possibly save the day by delivering a Welsh Masonic talk for St David’s Day?” I am paraphrasing here, the actual email is below.

So, somewhere out there, amongst the winding paths of Freemasonry, people I have never met have stumbled across my work, my talks, my articles, my ramblings, or perhaps my occasional bouts of enthusiastic Welsh Masonic evangelism, and thought, “Yes, he’ll do.“

I must confess, that is rather a lovely feeling.

After all, most of us spend years quietly contributing to our little corners of the Craft without ever imagining that our reputation may travel further than we do. Then one day a message arrives from strangers, asking if we might lend a hand, share a story, or bring a little bit of Wales to their celebration. It is both humbling and deeply flattering.

Of course, not all heroes wear capes.

Some wear aprons.

Others wear robes, cloaks, bardic regalia, or enough ceremonial attire to outfit a small druidic uprising. Should the emergency require it, I possess several suitable garments and am fully prepared to answer the call.

For now, however, I think I shall take a moment to appreciate the compliment. My ego, which has worked tirelessly behind the scenes for many years, deserves a little recognition. At the very least, it has earned a polish.

Possibly two polishes.

And if we are being completely honest, it has probably earned a rather good coffee as well.

After all, fame is a heavy burden to carry, especially before caffeine.

I would be grateful if you could forward the following enquiry to North Wales Association of Masonic Study on my behalf.

I am getting in touch to enquire whether a brother might be available to deliver a lecture at a Masonic meeting in Blaenau Ffestiniog on 11th March 2027.

As it is St David’s day on 1st March each year, I am particularly interested in arranging an engaging lecture on the history of Freemasonry, with a strong emphasis on North Wales and its Welsh heritage. I have noticed Wayne Owen’s work and research into Masonic history, as well as his knowledge of the Province of North Wales, I thought he would be an ideal person to approach.

Ideally, I would love the lecture to explore the development of Freemasonry in North Wales, the history of local lodges, and the connection between the Craft and the communities in which it has flourished, including the slate-quarrying heritage of Blaenau Ffestiniog.

I appreciate that this is a broad subject, and I would welcome Wayne’s thoughts on what might make the most interesting and appropriate lecture for the occasion.

If this is something he might be interested in, I would be grateful if he could let me know his availability in March, together with any fee or expenses that would apply.

This evening was the Bishop Wilkins College SRIA meeting.

We had a full evening planned, including electing our next Celebrant, a double Grade II° ceremony, and our current Celebrant was going to finally give his paper from going into the chair. What could go wrong?

Well in the run up to cut off for booking a meal, more and more people sent their apologies, some for valid reasons, but the majority were going to visit a craft lodge to see an installation. Personally I am of the belief that your own meeting should always come first, especially if you are in office. But, nether the less we had enough people to do the evening since we had spare people who could fill in roles so all was well.

Then the night before the meeting, our treasurer happened to message some people about the meeting only to be told they were not attending. This included the Celebrant who was doing the ceremony and the talk. But never fear we had the exact number of people (thanks to a visitor) to do the ceremony for the one candidate still coming. And I decided to write a paper on the day of the meeting for “just in case”. We were OK.

Then the day of the meeting came, and as the treasurer checked if a member needed a lift to the meeting, he was informed that he was going to the same installation as the others and not attending the college meeting. We were now officially one person short.

Luckily Bishop Wilkins College has both the Chief Adept, and the Provincial Secretary in it, and they managed to sort it out so we could do the Grade II° for the candidate who turned up, and we had time for two papers, one from myself and another from our Visitor who was also a past member of the college. In the festive board after as we were all chatting away, everyone was saying how enjoyable the evening ended up being. 

So while up to the start of the meeting everything was going wrong, the end result was a great night for all. So let this be a lesson to you all, never give up when things are going wrong because sometimes what comes after is worth it!

This evening carried that familiar blend of quiet anticipation and gentle chaos that seems to follow me around the Rosicrucian world. I made my way to Clwyd College at Mostyn for what turned out to be my fourth Rosicrucian gathering this month, a detail that suggests either admirable dedication or a worrying lack of hobbies. It was our Installation meeting, always a moment of ceremony and transition, and despite the hurdles it unfolded with surprising grace.

The College Secretary had recently stepped away from all things Masonic, which meant several parts of the evening had been assembled at speed. A few chairs were empty, a few roles redistributed, and the new celebrant had not prepared the traditional celebrant’s paper that should accompany his ascent into the chair. In the SRIA this is not a small omission. The talk is part of the rhythm of the Order, a moment where scholarship meets symbolism and the new celebrant sets the tone for his year.

I had suspected this might happen. There is a particular silence that descends when someone has not prepared a lecture, and I could hear that silence forming long before the meeting. So earlier that morning I gathered a few notes from some research I had been doing and shaped them into a short talk. Nothing too heavy, nothing too academic, just a playful little quest for the Holy Grail with enough humour to keep the room awake and enough Monty Python references to ensure the brethren were smiling rather than bracing themselves for a dissertation.

It went down well. The room laughed in the right places, nodded in the thoughtful ones, and for a few minutes we all wandered together through myth, mystery, and the gentle absurdity that makes our Order so endearing.

Sometimes you simply need a back up plan.

Today has been a day all about Coronatio Quadrans. This was a pure coincidence, and not planned.

Whilst talking to an old friend this morning, I was reminded that I owed CQ an article for their next publication and that I had not sent one in. This led to me re-writing an old paper on “Ye Sons of the Widow” that I had done possibly over Lockdown (or just before) for the old OpenLodge writing challenge. I was able to get the paper into a sensible and (I hope) entertaining format and posted it off to the editors before they could start shouting at me. Which is how it has gone in the past.

After sorting that, and grabbing some food it was time to log into the Coronatio Quadrans associates talk, where a Canadian was booked to give a talk on Cosmic Consciousness from an engineering/scientific aspect. 

The associate talks have been on the generalised topic of Cosmic Consciousness but from different perspectives, such as spiritual, historical, scientific, and practical.  once the topic is over, it will make a fantastic and educational special edition of the CQ magazine. 

I have just got back from the 2-day High Council Meeting of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (or SRIA).

Day 1 (Friday):

So I had to wake up at silly-o’clock to head off into England and to sunny Lamington Spa, and the fantastic conference centre Woodland Grange. Arriving early so that I could get the lay of the land, I wandered over the the SRIA registration table, where I discovered my nametag had not been printed, so I therefore got to write my own.

For the weekend I shall be “Lord Fauntleroy De Richleau the Third“, I then collected my welcome bag of mints, pen, notebook, bookmarks, and other goodies and entered looking for coffee. You will see that a big part of this weekend will involve coffee. But I must insist I am not an addict!

There was free coffee, everywhere had free coffee machines, it was HEAVEN!

After catching up with many people, and drinking even more coffee the High Council started at 1pm. We had a Requiem for those who passed, and then reappointed, and appointed those in office, including our own new Chief Adept for the Province of Western Counties and North Wales Dr. Steven Markham.

Out with the old and in with the new.
Our old Chief Adept hands over the baton to the new Chief Adept

We then had the first talk of the weekend, the CCR winning paper on “Allegories of Internal Alchemy in the Fama Frateritas Rosae Crucis” before breaking for coffee.

Everyone then split up either to hear the second talk of the event, or go for the rituals of grades 9 and 8. I was honoured to join the Third Order and go for my grade 8. It was a fantastic ceremony, and it will take me a few days to read the ritual and understand all that was involved.

Coffee break! then Dr A. Fear gave a talk on “Journey into the body: Know yourself” we then broke for a meal at 5:30pm.

Afterwards I booked into my room, grabbed a change of clothes to relax, and off to the final talk of the day which was “a demonstration of Esoteric Music Through the Ages” which involved singers, music, talks.

It was then time to go sit and chat in the bar until the wee hours of Saturday morning….

What a Day 1.

Day 2 (Saturday):

I was up and on my second coffee of the day by 7am. Then when breakfast started serving it was time for a full English, before dropping my bags off in the car, and signing out of my room before the day started at 9am.

Well most people’s day started at a more reasonable 10am, but I attended the Director of Studies meeting at 9am. Where we heard about the new diploma scheme and how to volunteer to be part of setting it all up. It was an interesting meeting and worth skipping that 4th coffee to go to.

It was then time for the 3rd or 4th talk of the weekend (I have lost count) which was “CRC’s Journey“. I say it was a talk, but it was a performance. A video played of the Metatron giving CRC permission to return to earth for a one night only special. And the speaker came in wearing a monks robe and bald cap, and without breaking character (or voice) gave an account of CRC’s journey as if from CRC himself. Best performance of the weekend!

Then it was time for a quick coffee break, before the next talk “Enoch – Who walked with God – The lost patriarch of Englsh Freemasonry” which was another very interesting talk.

We then did the High Council work of appointing officers for the year, hearing and voting on the reports, an address by the Supreme Magus. Then High Council was closed, and we all left for food. lots and lots of food.

After lunch there was a chance to re-hear some of the previous talks if you had missed them, a group of us decided to play pool, then have a cold drink outside in the sun before heading in for the last talk of the weekend. “The Camino de Santiago – A Masonic and Rosicrucian initiation into The Self“

What a weekend!

The Supreme Magus of the SRIA along with the heads of our sister organisations

In the last two days, I have been to two masonic events to listen to two talks.

On Friday evening I attended Wrexhamian Chapter in Wrexham where I heard a talk on the Gresford Disaster from someone who worked at Gresford Mine many years after the event, and has spent years helping to spread the story of the disaster, and assist with the museum. 

For those who have never heard of it, The Gresford disaster occurred on 22 September 1934 at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, when an explosion and underground fire killed 261 men. Gresford is one of Britain’s worst coal mining disasters: a controversial inquiry into the disaster did not conclusively identify a cause, though evidence suggested that failures in safety procedures and poor mine management were contributory factors. Further public controversy was caused by the decision to seal the colliery’s damaged sections permanently, meaning that the bodies of only 8 of the miners were ever recovered. Two of the three rescue men who died were brought out leaving the third body in situ until recovery operations began the following year.

On Saturday morning I visited Old Ruthinian Lodge in Ruthin where I heard a talk entitled “The Death of an Admiral” from W. Bro. Michael Crumplin. 

This talk was all about Doctors and Surgeons in the time of the Napoleonic wars, and Lord Nelson (the mentioned Admiral). The speaker was a retired Surgeon and an expert in the subject, having written several books and was the advisor on the film “Master and Commander”. It was very informative and everyone there said they could have keep listening for hours more.  We also only had one person who was a bit upset by some of the graphic medical pictures and drawings that were on the slides. And everyone loved the actual old surgical tools that were brought for us to look at.

This evening Nev, Hugh, and Myself went along to the “Clwyd Veteran & Vintage Machinery Society” to give a talk on Blood Bikes Wales,

The talk started a bit chaotic since our laptop decided to crash in the most spectacular manner and lock us out, and our backup laptop could not login due to Windows updates. So we had to ad-lib the talk while I setup my phone to stream to the projector. Even though we had these issues the talk went down very well, with the audience laughing and taking part. Several members even came up to us after the talk to ask if the technical issues was an act to add comedy and entertainment to the talk.

The Clwyd Veteran & Vintage Machinery Society gave us a speakers donation of £200 which was increased by a bucket collection to a total of £302.48.

Blood Bikes Wales

Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.

Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.

​This evening I attended Mold Royal Arch Chapter at the Mold Masonic Hall, to give a talk.

The Chapter’s Scribe Ezra had reached out to contact me from the North Wales Association of Masonic Studies Lecture List, to see if I would be available to come along to their meeting to give a talk. I asked if they had anything in particular that they would like a talk on, and I was informed they wanted “The Missing Word on the Plate of Gold”. I always enjoy visiting Mold Lodge, and since I had never visited Mold Chapter I jumped at the Change to go and give them a talk.

It was a very enjoyable evening, and all the Companions seemed to enjoy the talk.  I even bumped into an old NWAMS speaker who was before my time, and we got talking about the association, and talks we had given. It was interesting to see how the association had changed over the years.

Today  Nev, Hugh, and Myself went along to the White Table meeting of The Lodge of Rhuddlan Castle, to give a presentation on Blood Bikes Wales.

It was a well attended meeting, with a large number of Masons, and None-Masons (or not yet Masons) in attendance. The Lodge pledged £5657 to the 2028 Festival, £350 to the North Wales Mountain Rescue, and £1,500 to Blood Bikes Wales.

We were then treated to a Gourmet five course meal, in great company, with as much wine and port as we wanted (poor Nev was the designated driver).

It is a hard job, but someone has to do it. #ItsWhatWeDo

Blood Bikes Wales

Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.

Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.

This evening I went along to Mold Masonic Hall to attend the Daniel Owen Festival English lecture by Robert Lomas titled “A Secret Flowering of Skill and Genius, about how Daniel came to write Y Dreflan.“

It covered the time between Daniel coming back to Mold from Bala, his accident, and the start of his writing career.

It was an enjoyable talk, and the Mold lodges managed to raise some money for charity.

In 1881, Daniel Owen’s wrote his first original novel which was originally published in chapters in Y Drysorfa during 1879-80. In the 140+ years this important piece of Welsh literature has never been translated into English.

This was a shame, since it prevent newer generations from reading this work, even older Welsh speakers would struggle with the unique Mold Welsh in which Daniel wrote.

Robert Lomas has spent the last two years translating this book, and it is now for the first time available in English. You can pick it up from Amazon, or all sensible book stores.

(I am not just saying this because I wrote an introduction in the book)