(Yns Mon/Anglesey, Spring 2011)
Some may have
noticed that I haven't written anything on my blog for some time; it
has been a deep journey through the dark months and, once I have
tasted winter on my tongue part of me goes to a place that doesn't
have the words for much. But now it is spring and the empty pages of
what~could~be~written are calling, sometimes even shouting. And so,
to get the words flowing again, I have signed up for the 'Bloggingfrom A to Z Challenge'. The challenge is now in its sixth year and
the idea is to write something every day, except Sundays, for the
whole of April. This means twenty-six posts, one for each letter of
the alphabet.
Most participants on
the challenge also choose a theme and, this year, I have chosen as my
theme 'Hedgerow/Hedgetemple'; two words that make me vibrate with a
sort of nameless pleasure so I thought that this would be a good
excuse to explore what those words mean to me. Without sharing too
much now, I will say that I have always had a fascination for the
'edge places', those places that can't be defined as one thing or
another; the marshes, the fens, the shoreline, the riverbank, and
always the hedgerow. Certainly hedgerows are planted by humankind as
markers but they become places of such rich biodiversity and mystery
that it is hard to define them at all, standing as they do on the
boundary of the tamed and the wild. Maybe too they allow something of
the untamed that was enclosed when we began farming in the Neolithic
4,000 to 6,000 years ago to thrive again, even in a small way.
The hedgetemple, is
similarly hard to define and is more a sense of 'beingness' than a
defined thing or place, an attempt to allow a sense of belonging
between people on diverse spiritual paths but who share a love and
reverence for all that is wild and green and who reject the
constraints of more organised groups and religions. I can only say
that, for me, the word itself, and my exploration of what it means to
me, has been a deep healing.
I have no intention
of attempting to define or pin down what the words hedgerow and
hedgetemple mean in the days to come and, at this moment, I have
little idea of what will be written but I hope and expect that there
will be wonders; that a leaf might be lifted, a little hollow peered
into, or an edge revealed, to allow just a little bit of magic to
shine through. To the hedge!
Tomorrow, I will
begin with A is for Activism, Apples, and Afallon...