Now We Live by Starlight ~ the Eighth Day of Christmas

Star of Bethlehem flowering at the 1,000 year church, April 2017

As we come closer to Epiphanytide, which begins on the evening of January 5th; the Twelfth Day of Christmas, we begin to live by starlight. If we take our Christmas decorations down then our homes can feel stripped bare and empty, cold as we sometimes imagine stars to be. But we also become open to the sky. There is nothing between us and forever, and eternity is at our fingertips.

To sink ever more deeply with our starlit journey we might watch this beautiful timelapse film by Harley Grady.

Stars have become more and more important to my own spiritual path and I hope to share something of that over Epiphanytide if I can find the words. But, for now, I want to share something of the star that is most important in the coming days; the Star of Bethlehem. 

Epiphany remembers the visit of the Wise Men, or Kings, to the Christ child, having followed the Star of Bethlehem to find him. There is a belief that our Christmas decorations, especially those representing stars or light, shouldn't be taken down before Epiphany Eve as it might prevent the Wise Men from finding their way. I love that, in folk belief, there is only now; the Wise Men are always travelling, and each Epiphany they arrive, with a little help from the twinkling star trail we put out for them. This is no small thing; we are not irrelevant, no matter how small we feel. Our smallest action is the pivot around which the universe spins. And when our fairylights have been put away and the stars have shifted, there is a little white flower who comes to remind us that that remains true, no matter what.

It's said that the Star of Bethlehem first appeared on the night of Christ's birth to guide the Wise Men, whose journey was made complicated by their maps and charts, to the child. When its work ended it burst into thousands of brilliant fragments and fell to earth. Where it came to ground a blanket of milk-white flowers grew.

You will know that you have found Star of Bethlehem when you see a flower with six white petals surrounding six stamens, each with a yellow anther. They bloom in the spring from early March until late May or early June. The flowers open in the early morning and are usually closed by noon revealing a beautiful green stripe on their underside, hence some of their common names; sleepydick, nap-at-noon, star-at-noon, johnny-go-to-bed-at-noon, and eleven o'clock ladies. When the flowers have died a three-celled seed capsule forms containing several black seeds.

Star of Bethlehem, Wiki Commons

Her genus name, 'ornithogalum', comes from the Greek words 'ornis' for 'bird' and 'gala', meaning 'milk', and was named and described by Dioscorides (40 to 90CE) in his 'De Materia Medica' due to her abundance of white flowers that 'when opened look a lot like milk'. 

In herbal healing she is known as the 'comforter' and is a gentle companion in sitting with the after-effects of shock, even those received long ago in childhood. She has been described as the 'Guardian of Grieving', and used in the treatment of those who are suffering from suicidal depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, offering a light to lead the afflicted out of the darkness. Indeed, she does that work for us all, blooming at the beginning of spring and reminding us of the need to come into the light after the dark winter months. She is the way-shower, a guide for the lost, just as she guided the Wise Men through the vast silence of the desert. Generous indeed for a star who has herself has been broken into pieces; the archetypal 'wounded healer', just as Christ is. I would never trust a spiritual path that didn't know how to honour the parts in all of us that are broken.

I find the image of the star fallen to Earth deeply moving and have often thought of her as a teacher, showing us that it's possible to follow diverse spiritual paths, whilst still being part of one wild and beautiful truth. In her myriad mirrored fragments, her many white petals, her brilliance of being, the Star of Bethlehem reflects them all. There is no 'other', just broken parts of one great beating heart. Perhaps that's why she is sometimes called the 'Reconciliation Star', the star of at-one-ment. And it does feel that there is much to reconcile, and to atone for. There is mending to be done, but we have our guide and she is pulsating with the energy that drives the universe towards justice.

Star Circle, Wiki Commons

But it doesn't feel that there is too much justice in the world just now; not when the President of the United States, who we might remind ourselves is also made of stars, appears to be wilfully driving us towards WWWIII, a war which many of our sisters and brothers would be justified in saying started many years ago. The world truly does feel shattered into a thousand sharp and ragged pieces.

Three years ago, in the wake of several star-shattering world events, a poem came whilst I was writing about the healing properties and folklore of this little white flower. Much of this piece of writing is based on that. If you would like to read it you can find it here. I continue to pray, as I did then, that by the time she returns in the spring there will be much healing between us to be held out in offering to her. Epiphanytide is our opportunity to realign ourselves with the star who, like Christ, fell to Earth to help us mend.

Star of Bethlehem is tired 

of dragging around the baggage 

that we try to hide, 

divisions that won't be reconciled, 

the willful non-seeing of the so-called wise.

Wakes bright with morning, 

asleep by noon, 

offers guidance with maps and tea; 

pours milk, leaves not bags, 

her best bone china 

slips from her exhausted hands, 

smashes into a thousand shards of stars 

on her kitchen floor, 

reads the auguries in their constellations.

Weeps for the weight of what she sees 

swept under the carpet. 

Star of Bethlehem carries diversity 

as a prayer in her shopping bag, 

walks with Jah, Allah, Shekinah 

wearing goose feathers in her hair 

in the stews of the Liberty.

Keeps a torch by the back door, 

shines a light on intruders ~ 

Guantanamo, Yemen, Syria, 

the housing of the poor, 

a nail bomb on Electric Avenue, 

knows that she can't take much more. 

No amount of bleach in her bucket 

will make this pure.

No amount of soap will scrub this whole.

And her batteries are running out. 

She may have to brave the dark. 

Star of Bethlehem hangs her head

in the churchyard 

closes in on herself at shadow fall, 

offers her flesh for the breaking of bread,

ties her scarf more tightly round her head.

Tuber or tumour, hate or hope. 

The murder of the innocents, 

child radicalised, 

drowned on the refugee boat, 

finding belonging in the EDL, 

bleeding out in the stairwell in Peckham Rye.

Herod turns his head, shuts his eyes, 

she opens her petals wide. 

And she is growing wild, 

escaping the confines of the flower bed.

Sinking her roots into holy ground, 

gathering up the pieces that she let slip, 

knows it's time to get a grip. 

She weeps for mercy, grieves for grace, 

what we might have been, what we are. 

Yet still she loves the pilgrim soul in us, 

the spark that journeyed 

from the furthest star 

and fell to earth forged in fire. 

She puts the kettle on. 

~ Jacqueline Durban, 2017

Star of Bethlehem flowering at the 1,000 year church, 2017

References:

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2017/06/star-of-bethlehem-for-all-who-are-lost.html?m=1

Mary Unbound ~ the Fourth Sunday in Advent for Celtic Advent Day 26

Our fourth Advent candle is lit

I began writing this on Christmas Eve & am finding it hard to believe that Advent has ended already! Although I had planned to write on all forty days, this is my twenty-sixth sharing and I feel quietly proud of that, especially considering all that has unfolded, both personally and politically, during Advent. I want to thank everyone who has come along with me in this journey into the dark and thank you especially to everyone who has made lovely comments, both on line and when I've been out and about. It's such a wondeful affirmation of my work and a real encouragement. I have already begun dreaming of what I might write about next year. I am thinking of changing the name to 'Wild Advent', or perhaps 'Hedge Advent'. Let me know what you think.

I have also decided to continue writing through the Twelve Days of Christmas and the whole of Christmastide, which lasts until Candlemas on February 2nd. We are quite justified in leaving our decorations up until then so don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

Here in the hedgehermitage we have adopted a tradition of burning the evergreens from our Christmas wreaths at Candlemas, which is a lovely way to end Christmastide and wake up the year. And the period from Christmas to Candlemas is forty days, mirroring both Celtic Lent and the Lent preceding Easter. To claim this time back in any small way is part of the Beautiful Resistance. It's loss is due either to the Industrial Revolution or to the dictates of the Church-as-Institution, both of which have sought to control us for their own benefit. We can resist in all manner of ways, and what could be more symbolic than reclaiming the deep winter and decorating our homes with evergreens until the light truly returns, not just until Boxing Day or Twelfth Night?

But, first, it feels right to end Advent properly. The last week, or few days, of Advent introduces us to an intensely female space populated by Mary and, in this land, by the Welsh Mari Lwyd, both travelling by starlight. That they become more prominent now, in the dark womb of the year, seems right. We are waiting for a birth after all. And so it is meaningful indeed that the fourth candle in the Advent Crown is dedicated to Love and to Mary; she who gives birth to Hope, and to a wild and radical resistance whose light has continued burning for two thousand years.

On the night of the UK Election, when it became clear that all hope was gone, it was Mary's defiant song, the Magnificat that repeated in my head; "From henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed." To claim our blessings in such dark times is a wild resistance indeed. And, heartbreakingly, "S/he HAS filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty." This is my prayer.

Some, particularly those who know my history, wonder why I now go to church and call myself a Christian, although I still find labels divisive and unhelpful. Mary and her Magnificat are a big part of that, because here is a faith that, far from being apart from the world, embraces it, a faith that, at its best, when it finds injustice, 'goes towards' it rather than turning away. It is written almost into its atoms that it should be so. Here is a faith of 'God embodied', present in human form, and not just human but radical, subversive form, standing against Empire and oppression, standing alongside the most vulnerable and oppressed, identified with and one of them. A wounded healer. As someone pointed out on Twitter just the other day, Jesus rejected the 'worthy'; those with both secular and religious power and, instead, chose to spend his time with thieves and sex workers; homeless, victimised, shining like the sun.

And here in the Magnificat is his mother; a young woman, a teenager, declaring her defiance. This is not the Mary, meek and mild, that we have been sold by the modern institutional church. This is Mary calling for revolution; the World Turned Upside Down.

Mary by Ben Wildflower

A friend once told me that she had 'found a guru' and had been instructed to rid herself of her anger in order to truly follow her spiritual path. What does this mean in a world of injustice? I want no part of a spiritual path like that. I know that I wouldn't find Mary there.

Mary’s ‘Magnificat’, found in Luke 1: 46-55, is the longest set of words spoken by any woman in the New Testament’ and considered by many to be deeply subversive. It was Mary’s spontaneous response to being declared ‘blessed’ by Elizabeth, who at that time was pregnant with John the Baptist. One might suggest that it was subversive enough for two such strong women to take centre stage in such deeply patriarchal times, but there are so many layers to this story.

It is believed that Mary was barely a teenager when she became pregnant with Jesus, and that Elizabeth was likely to have been more than sixty years old, certainly well past child bearing years. For women of such different ages to call one another friend and confidant as equals is subversive indeed. And Mary’s song of blessing is not one of simple joy; it is threaded through with fear; the fear of a young girl, unmarried and pregnant at a time when to be so risked social ostracism and humiliation. Indeed, under Jewish law, she was at risk of stoning for adultery.

Even in that context, she sings for hope, defiant in the face of danger. It is this defiance which caused the Magnificat to become a “radical resource for those seeking to honour the holy amongst the conflicts and suffering of real life.” (Rev. Carolyn Sharp). It has often become a source of strength for those on the margins who have struggled for liberation. Indeed, from the 1970s in South America, despite the authorities presenting her as an image of piety, Mary became Maria Libertadora, Mary the Liberator, an extremely powerful and important symbol of revolution.

Mary the Revolutionary https://marcuscurnow.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/a-revolutionary-hail-mary/amp/

During British rule of India the Magnificat was banned from being sung in church. Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was executed by the Nazis in 1945 having worked for the German resistance movement, was deeply devoted to Mary. In a sermon given at Advent in 1933 he said, “The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.” In Guatemala in the 1980s the fascist Government banned its recitation considering it to be ‘too dangerous’.

During Argentina’s ‘war’ against political dissidents, the ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’ placed Mary’s challenging words on posters all over the capital plaza and the display of her song was subsequently outlawed by the military junta. And, of course, Mary too understood the pain of the loss of a child.

More recently, in 2012 Russian all female punk band, Pussy Riot, became famous when they invaded the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour in Moscow and sang a protest song against Vladimir Putin's re-election. The song they sang was a prayer to Mary. Part of the lyrics translate as, "Mother of God, you're a feminist, come and help us. We know you're with us in our protest. Holy Mary, drive Putin away..."

Mary sings of the ‘world turned upside down’, of a time when the “rulers will be brought down from their thrones”, “the humble will be lifted up”, and “filled with good things” as the “rich are sent away empty”. These are themes which often rise in our midwinter traditions. The Mari Lwyd, or Grey Mare, of South Wales, and our soul caking and wassailing traditions, ensure the same sharing of resources from rich to poor. We also have customs such as the ‘Lord of Misrule’, who was often a peasant chosen by lot to preside over Christmastide festivities ~ a reminder that the social hierarchy was maintained by consent, rather than by right. I think that it would be of benefit for some amongst us to be reminded of that now.

Last September I heard Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans Cathedral, speak on Mary. One of his subjects was 'Mary the Revolutionary'. As an illustration of the long tradition of relating to Mary as rebel he quoted his favourite Mary poem, written by Mary Coleridge in 1900.

MOTHER of God? No lady thou!
But common woman of common earth;
'Our Lady' ladies call thee now.
But Christ was never of gentle birth;
A common man of the common earth.

For God's ways are not as our ways:
The noblest lady in the land
Would have given up half her days,
Would have cut off her right hand,
to bear the child that was God of the land.

Never a lady did God choose
Only a maid of low degree
So humble she might not refuse.
The carpenter of Galilee:
A daughter of the people, she.

Mary sang the song of het heart.
Never a lady had so sung.
She knew no letters, had no art;
Yet to all mankind in woman's tongue
Hath israelitish Mary sung.

And still for men to come she sings
Nor shall her singing pass away:
He hath filled the hungry with good things -
and the rich he hath sent empty away."

( Mary Coleridge)

It seems fitting then that Advent ends as dusk falls on Christmas Eve and darkens into a night that was once known as Mõdraniht; Night of the Mothers or Mothers' Night, a vigil held by Anglo-Saxon Pagans and attested to in the 8th Century by the Venerable Bede. Although this was not a Christian festival we could choose to deepen into the way in which this night celebrating the female ancestors and the Mother Goddesses of Old Europe resonates with the story of Christmas. We might all then sit in vigil and contemplate and support those who bring light to birth in the winter dark.

And remember too that, unlike the linear ideas of Conservatism and its ilk which feed from a well that can only run dry, these radical ideas of fairness, of equality, and of justice espoused by Christ, and so many others, are reborn and renewed every year in an endless cycle. A prophet who speaks truth to power, a troublemaker, a king who refuses an earthly crown, he will be cut down until we learn to do better, until we give up our scapegoating and our crowning with thorns. And for Christ's sake, for Mary's, and for our own, I hope that we do that soon, but, for now, rejoice that the Prince of Peace has been born again, vulnerable, fragile, all too human, and luminous with Hope.

This Advent has been a powerful journey for me because it has taught me about longing (and the loss that goes with it). From singing 'O, Come Emmanuel' on a Dover roundabout to welcome refugees in a hostile world, to repeating the Magnificat as a little raft to cling to on the night of the Election when it felt that everything vulnerable was thrown under the wheels of endless greed, I have learned that longing is where hope and despair collide, and it is the hope that keeps us singing.

Advent has ended. Christmastide is here!

References:

Jeffrey John at Southwark Cathedral, 12th September, 2019.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_mother_of_Jesus

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

https://marcuscurnow.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/a-revolutionary-hail-mary/amp/

https://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2010/12/jesus-god-tax-christ-health

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_13854296

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mōdraniht

The Peace of Wild Things ~ Celtic Advent Day 21

St John the Baptist in the Wilderness by Hieronymous Bosch

I have been thinking a lot today about peace and power. It feels as though it will take a powerful spell to hold us in this week, or those of us in the UK at least as we wait for our General Election to unfold. And, with great serendipity (I love that 'seren' in Welsh means 'star'. I am following it!), the two middle weeks of modern Advent often journey with John the Baptist. John the Baptist is someone I often sit with when reflecting on power. He provides an important, challenging, and counter-cultural, example of a different model than the one we are used to, woven through with the importance of withdrawal into the wilderness and communion with other-than-human allies. This is just what we need as medicine when our human world feels stretched to breaking.

Born at Midsummer, at the height of the sun's power, & so the beginning of its decline, St John has travelled with us into the darkening year as we wait for the rebirth of the Son/Sun at Midwinter. And, in the petals of his flower, St John's Wort, we find the concentration of solar power that we need to lift the depression & anxiety which often comes with the dark.

St John's Wort/Tutsan Photo: Jacqueline Durban 

St John's Wort is one of our most important plants of Midsummer, hinted at by the beautiful bright sunburst of her flowers. People of the land once picked the herb on St John's Eve, 23rd June, & made garlands to hang over the door as a protection against evil spirits & storms. After dark, Midsummer's eve bonfires were lit & St John's Wort was thrown into the flames; a symbol of the sun fallen to earth dispelling the darkness.

There are over 490 species in the genus Hypericum to which St John's Wort belongs. The name may derive from the Greek for 'above icons' for its use over shrines as protection. I believe that the species depicted above is 'Hypericum Androsaemum', also known as Tutsan, which takes its name from the French 'tout sain', or 'all holy', due to its association with St John, or 'toute saine', 'all healthy', for its medicinal properties.

The Solstices, summer and winter; the points of longest dark & light, are times of vulnerability. We need both the light & the dark to be physically & mentally well but our relationship with them has been subverted by electric light & working indoors. Being exposed to regular patterns of light & dark regulates a bodily rhythm which developed over three billion years as life evolved on Earth in tune with the Sun’s day/night cycle. It is built deeply into our genetic makeup, but we are so lost that we need help in reweaving the threads of that relationship. Thank goodness then that we have our plant allies and the wisdom of our saint-ancestors to help us.

Like the Sami sun goddess, Beivve, who was called upon to restore the mental health of those who went insane because of the continual darkness of the long winter, John the Baptist can helps us to stay well by offering us the petals of his namesake sun-carrying flower as a balm. At midsummer we need to gather up every ounce of sunshine we can for the journey ahead. Often it is hard to think about the dark and decline, especially at the height of the sun's power and when we are looking forward to several months of long summer days and balmy nights. But John the Baptist reminds us that we need to make ready. This is Advent work.

Another of St John's plant allies is Mugwort.

Mugwort, Mudsummer 2019

Mrs Maud Grieve tells us in her 1931 'Modern Herbal' that Mugwort was once known as 'Cingulum Sancti Johannis', connected to the belief that St John, the wild, dark twin of Christ, wore a girdle of her flowers & leaves in the wilderness. A protective crown was woven from Mugwort on St John's Eve (June 23rd) & the herb gathered on that night as protection throughout the year. In the Isle of Man, mugwort is known as 'Bollan Bane' & is worn on Tynwald Day, which also has associations with St John.

I love midsummer-born St John for his knowing that, even at the height of our greatest power (the sun on the longest day), the seeds of our decrease have already been sown ~ 'And this was his message: "After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." (Mark 1:7). This is why John the Baptist is also known as the 'forerunner'; born six months before Christ, he paves the way; 'John said, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord!" (John 1:23)

How many of us feel now that we are voices 'crying in the wilderness' as the vested interests of age-old entrenched power tighten their grip on our world, to the disproportionate detriment of those who have the least? But how much more power might they have without our voices?

Again, Mugwort may be of help here, not only as a herb of dreaming (and we do need to keep our dreams intact), but as a companion to wayfarers, often popped into a shoe to protect the long traveller from fatigue, sunstroke, and wild beasts. May we all have the energy to keep putting one foot in front of the other as we journey through these days.

It matters too to remember that the 'Lord' John makes straight the way for is not a king on high, but a lowly refugee, whose family tree contains whores, outcasts, and immigrants, who will stand up to the power of Imperialism, both religious and secular, in his own land, and will die for it, but who will turn the ways of worldly power upside down; a 'servant king' of the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us.

In his book, 'Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent', Walter Brueggemann describes John the Baptist as the one who, 'prepares us for the newness' that will break our 'tired patterns of fear'. And so it is. Even as the Peasant King turns the tables over, John is in his own way doing the same. Here is a man who could have great power handing that power willingly to another man, preparing the way for that man, even to the cost of his own life. This is not how we are told human beings, especially men, are. We are told that it's natural to be in competition. John the Baptist tells us that this isn't so.

And we can all do this work of 'making straight the way' for change to come, for justice ~ within ourselves, but also in the wider world; by staying informed, being aware, by talking with others, and through our votes. If not for ourselves, then for those who come after us. We too are the forerunners of a hope that will not die.

I hope that I will be forgiven for not remembering the source, but a few days ago I read some fine words on how we might go about deciding on our vote, and I paraphrase; "if you are uncomfortable, vote for a better life for yourself. If you are comfortable, vote for a better life for someone else." Amen!

I think that John the Baptist was often uncomfortable, but still he looked forward, looked forward to something better, he played his part in 'making straight the way'.

At the height of his own power John the Baptist attracted many followers, very many of whom thought him to be the predicted Messiah. But he rejected all suggestion of that; "I baptise you with water for repentence...he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire." (Matthew 3:11). I wonder how many of us, especially in this world where power and status have become our measure of worth, could find it in ourselves to dismiss the determination of others to lift us up?

Not being saints, perhaps in order to resist the lure of worldly power we must find an alternative source of self-worth, a counter-cultural sense of belonging, which is where we return to the 'peace of wild things'.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus spent much time in the wilderness. Often this is interpreted negatively, as a test or as self-denial, but with different eyes and an open, less tamed, heart we might see these times as necessary withdrawals from the centre of worldly power and human interaction to the comfort and potential of the wild edge places. Remember too that 'humble' and 'humus' (or soil) both have their roots in the word for earth. We are told that John lived in the desert, that he dressed in fur, and that 'his food was locusts and wild honey.' (Matthew 3:4).

John the Baptist in the Wilderness, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, 1490

Where would we find the 'wild honey' to speak Spirit on our tongues without making our dives into the wild, just as the selkie does when she reclaims her skin?  The myths and folktales of every culture are threaded through with these stories of departure and return.

As author and musician, Akala writes, "how can we speak with a colonised tongue?" Even our language is a trap, ill-equipped to convey the depths of our love, or our grief, or our rage. No wonder then that so many of our saint-ancestors are said to have lived 'alone' in the wild where another, older language holds sway; wild honey on their tongues.

Around the 3rd Century CE, Early Christianity saw many hermits, monks, and ascetics, both male and female, retreating into the wilderness, mainly into the deserts of Egypt, Israel, and Syria.

westconcordunionchurch.org

There, they lived simple lives of solitude, peace, and prayer, also wrestling with the less beautiful aspects of human nature; those aspects of us which seem so easily to fall prey to manipulation by our media and those in power. These contemplatives were known as the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Many followed their example and these desert communities, necessitating I imagine that  'solitude' became more a state of mind, became the model for Christian monasticism.

But they did, it's said, find a sense of peace, and they believed that they were doing their holy work for us all; imaginal cells. That has led me to ponder who our own 'desert mothers and fathers' might be, whether Christian or otherwise; those who withdrew from the world and sought out the wild in our own lands. This week I will be writing about some of them, beginning with a new poem, Margaret of the Fox Earth', this evening.

It may be that we are much in need of their wisdom of withdrawal and return, and of seeking out other-than-human allies for sanity's sake, as the week goes on. And I have no doubt that it will benefit and comfort us, no matter what the result, to have one foot in the wild, with the reminder that there is more to life than this.

As for John the Baptist, he reminds us that no worldly power is forever & it is in tune with nature for our influence to wax & wane;

"Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down to fright your men in town,
but the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.
Stand up now, Diggers all...

To conquer them by love, come in now, come in now,
To conquer them by love, come in now.
To conquer them by love, as it does you behove,
For he is King above, no power is like to love.
Glory here, Diggers all."

('A Ballad History of England', Roy Palmer)

I am grateful to John, and to his St John's Wort & Mugwort plant allies, for modelling and holding the truth of the World Turned Upside Down, & for protecting us we confront & come to terms with our deepest vulnerabilities and our own hunger for power. None of us are immune. May we, & those who seek to rule us, always walk with their prayer at the very soles of our feet. And may we be humbled to our roots.

Mugwort, 2018

References:

John the Baptist

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_3:4

https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20101202_1.htm

Mugwort

https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/m/mugwor61.html

https://howtolucid.com/mugwort-for-lucid-dreaming-2/

https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/m/mugwor61.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/flabbywitch.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/mugwort/amp/

St John's Wort

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypericum_perforatum

https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sajohn06.html

Walter Brueggemann, 'Celebrating Abundance'

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780664262273?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=CjwKCAiAob3vBRAUEiwAIbs5TpESiMI-or7XhP6W9SXu3LGMayI8leQ52dYLRrOx_OvEx6dpWsyxLBoCcUYQAvD_BwE

Desert Mothers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Mothers

Desert Fathers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers

Beivve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaivi

Three Acres and a Cow/Roy Palmer

https://threeacresandacow.co.uk/2014/05/a-ballad-history-of-england-by-roy-palmer/

St Werburgh: Resurrection, Reciprocity, & Rewilding ~ Celtic Advent Day 6

Stoke Festival's 'Werburgh Wander', 2019, Via Marg Hardcastle on Twitter

Over the next few days of Celtic Advent I thought that it might be nice to learn about two female saints with an intimate connection to the wild spirit of swans and geese. We have already learned that these water birds are more often found in relationship with the feminine and yet we tend to hear their stories in relation to male saints, such as St Martin and St Hugh. Instead, let's sink into the tales of St Werburgh & St Pega, both of whom have feast days during Christmastide. 

St Werburgh, whose Feast Day is at Candlemas on 3rd February, was an Anglo-Saxon princess born around 650 CE in Stone, Mercia (now in Staffordshire). Her father was the Christian King, Wulfhere of Mercia, & her mother St Erminhilda of Kent. She was a nun for most of her life & began her training at home with her mother and St Chad, later Bishop of Lichfield, who himself had been a student on Lindisfarne. Chad controversially followed the ways of Celtic Christianity, both before & after the Synod of Whitby which voted to place the British Church under the control of Rome. Later, Werburgh, who was instrumental in convent reform, followed in the wake of her grandmother & great-aunt as Abbess of Ely Cathedral. 

St Werburgh statue

Werburgh died in Trentham, Staffordshire & was buried there in 700 CE. It's said that her brother, Coenred, decided in 708 to move her remains to a more conspicuous place in the church at Hanbury, but I have discovered a tale which says that nuns from Hanbury stole her remains and took them home with them! It's said that at this time her body was found to be incorrupt, or preserved; a sure sign of saintliness. A year later, Coenred took holy orders and became a monk in Rome, which is when stories of Werburgh & her geese began to emerge.

The Goff Window, St Peter & St Paul's, Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire

The first was that, whilst living in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire, she banished all the geese from the village & so protected the crops from damage. Interestingly, her distant cousin, St Mildrid of Thanet, is said to have done the same thing and was the protectress of wild geese in Kent. The geese were said to have done as she asked, a sure sign of relationship, rather than domination. 

Often these relationships were reciprocal, as in one story of St Cuthbert on the remote Farne Island. One day, a group of ravens flew down and began to gather straw from the thatch of Cuddy’s roof. He chased them away but, three days later, one returned as he dug his garden and bowed its head to him with wings outspread in apology. Cuthbert told the raven that they were welcome to return and on their next visit they brought with them the gift of a lump of lard, which Cuddy kept and encouraged visitors to use for the purpose of waterproofing their shoes. So many of the stories of our wild edge early Christian saints are grounded in respect and sharing with non-human family. What I particularly love is that this isn't a paternalistic interaction, where we are the pinnacle of Creation beneficently choosing to care for 'lower animals'. No, in these stories the other-than-human beings have agency and a will of their own. We negotiate, rather than impose. We accept having a little less for the good of all. And it works. So it is with the geese of Mildrid & Werburgh.

Wild goose on the Thames, Jacqueline Durban

The other tale of Werburgh & geese is extraordinary, as her most famous miracle concerns her resurrection of a cooked goose.

Werburgh discovered one day that a large flock of geese was destroying her growing corn by feasting on it. To prevent this she gathered them up and began to keep them as though they were domestic geese. In the morning, she called them to send them out for day but discovered one missing. When she found that the goose had been eaten by her servants she demanded that the feathers and bones of the bird be brought to her.

When they had been gathered together she prayed over the remains and commanded that the goose should live; much like La Loba, Bone Woman, singing over the bones of dead creatures in Clarissa Pinkola Estes' 'Women Who Run With the Wolves'. The geese were, of course, delighted, cheering and crying out at the return of their lost sister. Werburgh quieted them & asked that no goose should ever enter that field again. On gaining their agreement she set them free to become wild geese once more and, from that day to this, their promise has been kept.

Here is a mutual contract between humankind & the wild, one which at its heart carries the requirement to share what we have without resentment, rather than believing that everything on the Earth is here for our own benefit, or fearing that we might suffer a lack. The wild geese of Spirit remind us.

Werburgh & Her Geese by Dru Marland https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DruMarland

And here is also a story of rewilding. At first, Werburgh thinks to control the geese by safely cloistering them in her convent. When she realises that she can't guarantee their survival she liberates them, because it matters more that they live than that she guarantees her own security. This is a reminder of how delicately balanced our relationship with all other-than-human beings can be, and that, especially in this age of climate change, our decisions must be based in mutual benefit for all beings, not just for us (and only a small number of us at that!). We aren't only individuals, a society, or even a species. But we are a community; part of a web of wellbeing and co-operation. The saints remind us.

From pinterest.co.uk

Earlier I told the tale of Werburgh's body being stolen by the nuns of Hanbury & taking them back to be buried there. And there they remained until the Viking raids of the 9th Century threatened their safety. Then, they were relocated to within the walls of the city of Chester. By the 11th Century, Werburgh had come to be considered the patron saint & protector of the city. During the Middle Ages a badge of a basket of geese was given as proof of having made a pilgrimage to her shrine. 

15th Century St Werburgh pilgrim badge, via https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/424565

 

St Cuthbert's remains were also moved due to the Viking raids. Having died on 687, his body was buried on Lindisfarne. In 875 Danish raiders took over the monastery & the monks fled, taking Cuthbert's remains with them. They wandered for seven years before finding them a resting place in Chester-le-Street. In 995 a further Danish raid prompted their removal to Ripon. There the saint 'revealed' that he wished to remain in Durham, and so he has.

Once, the bodies of saints mattered. It seems perhaps superstitious to us now but I find here an echo of prehistory when we believed that the ancestors became part of the land, when our barrows & stone circles held their bones and marked their passing, and, even further back, the time when our beloved dead were buried beneath the floors of our homes, part of life that included death. Once, we knew to keep the dead close. We have become so removed. And we understood that resurrection was a natural part of being, were reminded each spring in the return of green and living things, each autumn with the return of the wild geese. The monks of Lindisfarne didn't carry St Cuthbert's remains with them for nothing, and the nuns of Hanbury had reason to steal the body of St Werburgh. Once, we knew that there was power in bones; they anchor us, root us in place, remind us that we live on holy ground, whilst the wild beauty of life continues to spin and shine around us. 

And, just a little aside to perhaps reflect upon. There was a time when 'goose' became euphemism for a sex worker. In the medieval period sex workers, licenced by the Bishop of Winchester to ply their trade in the Liberty of the Clink in Southwark, were known as the 'Winchester Geese'. As my friend, Christina Zaba pointed out, wouldn't it be powerful to imagine that the 'goose' in St Werburgh's resurrection miracle was a sex worker instead. And it would put quite a different slant on the story of St Martin, who hid amongst geese when he was trying to avoid being made a bishop and was given away by their cackling! 

The Goose spirit may be even wilder than we realise!

Misericord at Chester Cathedral depicting scenes from the life of  St Werburgh, via: http://orthochristian.com/77344.html

References:

St Werburgh

https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/…/st-werburgh-and-goose…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werburgh

https://www.weedonbec-village.co.uk/uploads/walk-3-general-text-qr-9.pdf

https://wikimili.com/en/Werburgh

https://www.bathandwells.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/February-2016-Special-Places-shrine-of-st-werburga-chester.pdf

http://pilgrimsandposies.blogspot.com/2013/02/st-werburghs-day.html

http://pilgrimsandposies.blogspot.com/2013/02/st-werburghs-day.html

http://orthochristian.com/77344.html

https://www.festivalstoke.co.uk/werburgh--the-wild-goose.html

St Mildrid  

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/80901.html

https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/…/st-mildred-of-thanet-…

La Loba 

https://www.wilderutopia.com/…/la-loba-wild-woman-luminous…/

St Cuthbert

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert

Advent Calendar ~ a poem for Celtic Advent Day 5

Photo: Jacqueline Durban

For Celtic Advent Day 5, a favourite poem from 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. It's full of frost, and it melts me.

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

© Rowan Williams

Poem from Rowan Williams' first book of poetry, 'After Silent Centuries' (Oxford, 1994). Also to be found in his 'The Poems of Rowan Williams' (Oxford 2002).

St Hugh & the Swan Wife ~ Celtic Advent Days 3 & 4

Here we are at Celtic Advent Days 3 & 4.

Advent, Christmastide, & Epiphanytide begin with the goose of Martinmas & end with the swan of St Brigid at Candlemas. I love this image & yet, marvellously, I discovered just the other day that there is a swan here at the beginning of our journey too. This is the Swan of Stow & of St Hugh of Lincoln, the patron saint of swans, whose Feast Day is on 17th November (16th November in the Catholic Church).

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/hugh_lincoln.html

I have come to love and value the saints. Although 'saint', like God, can be an emotive word, for me these are the tales of our ancestors. Like all tales they contain many tangled threads, which we can choose to untangle, or not, as we wish. I have no doubt, for example, that many of the 'Royal Saints' who proliferated as the Anglo-Saxon kings converted to Christianity, had more to do with facilitating & legitimising land grabs than grace. But, underneath all that, there is a strata of beings in deep communion with the wild places & the creatures to be found there, a continuing animism that stretches back to the beginning of human consciousness & to the place where we are all bound together no matter what our religion. For example, there are few visions of which I am more fond than of the St Cuthbert who emerged quite naturally & gently during one 'Novena for the Fallen Through'; antlered, with a cormorant on his shoulder & otters at his feet.

The association of God with water birds is as old as prayer, as ancient as bone. Marija Gimbutas writes often of the life-creating and protecting Bird & Snake Goddess, appearing in ancient iconography “as separate figures and as a single divinity. Their functions are so intimately related that their separate treatment is impossible. She is one, and she is two, sometimes snake, sometimes bird. She is the goddess of waters and air, assuming the shape of a snake, a crane, a goose, a duck, a diving bird."1 She tells us too that “geese, cranes (herons), and swans are encountered painted or engraved in Upper Paleolithic caves.”2

12,000 year old carving of human figures & water birds, Image: University of Barcelona

I remember a poll of Britain’s favourite, and least favourite, birds that was carried out some years ago. Swans were amongst our favourites, but they were also much disliked coming second to crows. The main reason given being that their necks were ‘too snake-like’.

In his book, ‘When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, & the Re-Enchantment of the World’, Mark I Wallace speaks of both Moses and Jesus as employing a form of ‘snake shamanism', with Moses casting a bronze serpent to mediate the healing power of God (Numbers 21), and, 800 years later, Jesus aligning himself with the serpent of Moses and “animistically shape-shifting into becoming the sacred serpent for the renewal of the people.”3 "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up." (John 3:14-15).

Despite the attempts of representatives of worldly power, such as King Hezekiah (715-686 BCE), to eradicate this ancient ‘snake cult’ & to impose a more governable & useful religion, Wallace suggests that, “the Bible articulates an unbroken line from Moses to the reign of David and the time of Jesus as a continuous exercise in shamanic healing featuring one of God’s non-human creatures ~ the snake ~ as central to restoring biological and social equilibrium.”4 It matters then to notice that goddess-saint Brigid is associated totemically with both the swan and the snake. 

These ideas may be unfamiliar, and perhaps challenging, to some but there is nothing to fear. Here is an unbroken thread from the first drumbeat and praise song stretching through all of the world’s religions if we have the open-heartedness & the courage to see it. Attempts to sever this thread, and so to locate power in worldly things, are about control & the enslavement of Spirit, nothing more. Why would we want to unroot ourselves? There is something here both about our 'animal bodies', and about our solidarity and relationship with the wild, that is longing to be included in our spiritual, and religious, experience. Something lost waiting to be welcomed home. The water bird, the snake, the wolf, the bear, are waiting to be offered room at the inn.

Bone swan pendants, Siberian, Middle Upper Palaeolithic

And for us, if the waiting of Advent is about anything, then it is about the coming of mercy, grace, and justice for all beings in physical form, the embodiment of God on Earth. Although that world-shaking event has been hijacked by Empire, it remains deeply subversive and liberating & needs to be reclaimed as just that. At Advent we wait in the luminous darkness for the Child of Light to be born, and this child will turn the world upside down. That includes the Church. No wonder then that so many fear him. The Saints, often choosing to live alone on the wild edges with only other-than-human beings for company, rejecting power & status, are a rich source for reclaiming what this season truly means.

And so to St Hugh of Lincoln and his companion swan.

Altarpiece from the Carthusian monastery of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les-Abbeville, France, Wikipedia

Hugh of Lincoln, also known as Hugh of Avalon, was born in 1135/40 as a member of French nobility. His mother died when he was just 8 years old &, later, his father withdrew from the world, entering a monastery taking his son with him.

Having chosen a life within the Church, Hugh was sent to England in 1179 in order to found the first Carthusian (or charter) house. That Henry II facilitated this was part of his penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, the then Archbishop of Canterbury.

We are told that Hugh was often in conflict with the Crown, establishing his independence from the king & standing up to him where needed. He even excommunicated the king's forester for mistreatment & extortion of the poor. This was brave when Thomas Becket had been murdered for much the same thing.

Hugh was known for his kindness & generosity, particularly towards the outcast, & attempted to protect members of the Jewish faith, who suffered great persecution at the beginning of Richard I's reign. His biographer, Adam of Eynsham, writes that Hugh would "wash and dry the lepers' feet, sit with them, teach them, console and encourage them, and embrace and kiss them one by one."5

From St Benet Church, Beccles, Suffolk, by Simon K on Flickr

But, at this Advent time, it's Hugh's 'deep & lasting friendship' with a swan that we might reflect upon. We are told that Hugh loved to spend time in nature, delighting in the company of wild creatures. Around the time of his ordination as a bishop, a swan appeared on the lake of Stow Park, where he often went to find peace, & drove off all the other animals.6 The swan was particularly aggressive towards humans but, on meeting Hugh, it became docile, eating out of his hand & refusing to leave his side. It even watched over him as he slept and attacked anyone who came close. Their friendship endured for more than fifteen years.

The swan is revered in many of the world's cultures. Often seen as symbols of love & fidelity, they are also representatives of light.

In Norse mythology two swans drink from the Well of Urd and are turned white by the purity of its water. Five flying swans are the emblem of the Nordic countries. In Hinduism they are connected to saints, who are both in the world and unattached to it, just as a swan's feather can be in water without getting wet. A royal swan was the vehicle of the Hindu goddess, Sarasvati.

Swans are believed to have the power to move between worlds, possibly because of their long migrations. Hence, their role as psychopomps, carrying the souls of the dead to the Otherworld. In 2016 a Mesolithic era burial of a young woman and her infant son was found in Denmark. The child had been laid on a swan's wing.

In Western Europe, swans arrive in the autumn and leave in the spring. When whooper swans and greylag geese migrated northwards from Scotland in springtime, it was said they were carrying the souls of the dead ‘north beyond the north wind’. In addition, swans often travel at night and so may have contributed to beliefs about the Wild Hunt & other processions of the dead found throughout Europe.

Although so intimately connected with the dark, swans are also deeply woven in with the light. Through their association with divine twins they have become solar symbols of the Indo-European Sun Goddess; the Sun and the Son being born in Midwinter from the deepest dark. Their star constellation; Cygnus (the Swan, also known as the Northern Cross), marks the beginning of the Great Rift, or the Dark River, a band of interstellar dust clouds that appear to divide a third of the Milky Way lengthwise in half, much like parted legs. Here, light flows from the womb of primordial darkness through the constellation of swans in flight.

A.T. Hatto, in his paper, “The Swan Maiden - A Folk-Tale of North Eurasian Origin”7, tells us that shamans of Arctic or North Central Siberian societies often wore bird costumes, with the Buryat, Tungus, and Yakut, considering the Swan to be their ancestress and/or totem. There are echoes here of the celtic bards who may have worn feathered cloaks known as tuigen, including the skin, feathers and necks of swans. Hatto suggests too that swans and geese were particularly associated with female shamans, as is also the case with female saints! More of that tomorrow perhaps.

But what then of St Hugh of Lincoln, patron saint of swans? There is a concept in shamanism of the 'spirit spouse', a primary helping spirit who assists the practitioner in their work, & the world's mythology is threaded through with tales of the 'animal wife'. These are shape-shifting women, often alternating between human form and their other selves as seals/selkies, foxes, cranes, and yes, swans.

Via Twitter

This may seem to have little to do with Advent & the birth of Jesus, and I am not suggesting that St Hugh thought of his swan in this way, although many of us know how deep the love can be between us and a companion animal and how that can connect us to, and guide us in, the more-than-this. We can remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit often appears in the Bible as a dove and that Christ might also be described as a 'spirit spouse'; appearing to nuns, who are the 'Brides of Christ', in dreams. Some, including male clerics & monks, have been inspired to write the most beautiful and passionate love poetry in response. Some of it makes me positively blush! In addition, the oldest known example of a form of possible 'swan shamanism' is to be found in Israel at the 420,000 year old cave site of Qesem in Tel Aviv where evidence has been found of deliberate defeathering of a swan's wing for what is believed to be ritual purposes.

And so, here at the outset of our journey through Celtic Advent, we have the swan; a symbol of the sun, of light being born from star-filled darkness, and of both earthly royalty & otherworldly divinity, & so of negotiating between the two as St Hugh of Lincoln was able to do. Here too is our reminder that we will struggle with 'turning over the tables in the temple' if we have not first wedded ourselves to the wild & its Wilder God. Once, God was a bird.

I will end with Mary Oliver's powerful-as-wild-wings poem, The Swan.

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain peltingthe trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross streaming across the sky, its feet
like black leaves, its wings like the stretching
light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it
pertained to everything?
And have you finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

- Mary Oliver

References:

1. p. 112, Gimbutas, Marija, 'The Goddesses & Gods of Old Europe', Thames & Hudson, 1974

2. p. 3. Gimbutas, Marija, 'The Language of the Goddess', Thames & Hudson, 1989

3. p.35-36. Wallace, Mark I, 'When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World', Fordham, 2019

4. p.36. Wallace, Mark I, 'When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World', Fordham, 2019

5. http://thegoodheart.blogspot.com/2008/11/swan-of-stow.html?m=1, retrieved 18th November 2019

6. As 5.

7. Hatto, A.T. (1961). The Swan Maiden: a Folk-Tale of North Eurasian Origin? Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 24(2), pp. 326–352. doi: 10.1017/S0041977X00091461, in 
http://www.thesoulofbones.com/blog/the-cult-of-the-swan

On St Hugh of Lincoln

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Lincoln

https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/11/13/the-saint-who-protected-the-jews-of-lincoln/

http://thegoodheart.blogspot.com/2008/11/swan-of-stow.html?m=1

On Marija Gimbutas

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas

On swans

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan

https://www.poetseers.org/contemporary-poets/mary-oliver/mary-oliver-poems/the-swan/

http://maryarrchie.com/2019/01/21/vedbaek-burial-a-baby-buried-upon-swans-wing/

An absolutely invaluable resource on the 'Cult of the Swan'

http://www.thesoulofbones.com/blog/the-cult-of-the-swan

On swan animism

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/swan-0012657

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/sculpture/flying_swan_pendants.php

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-archaic-humans-in-israel-collected-feathers-420-000-years-ago-1.7883700

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/birds-and-people-mingle-rare-piece-rock-art-180971690/

Neolitihic swan bone flutes https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/science/25flute.html