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/

Hoping for a Sea-change ~ Celtic Advent Day 7

Image: Jacqueline Durban 

Today's offering is another favourite, a poem of waiting from Seamus Heaney; an excerpt from his much longer poem, 'The Cure at Troy'.

The word 'advent' is from the Latin, 'adventus' & the Greek, 'paraousia', meaning 'coming'.      This is a time of preparation & expectant waiting for what's coming, for something new and better to be born. Seamus Heaney's words provide the perfect meditation for this time. And quite appropriate as we await the General Election too!


History says, Don't hope

On this side of the grave...

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.


So, hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

(Seamus Heaney)



Register to vote (by 26th November) at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote


References:

On Seamus Heaney

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

On 'The Cure at Troy'

Buy it at Waterstone's

https://www.topangaauthorsgroup.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/junes-poem-pick-from-the-cure-at-troy-by-seamus-heaney

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

The Courage of Columbines ~ What We Choose to Bring to Birth

Nathaniel Hughes, author of 'Weeds in the Heart' and teacher of Intuitive Herbalism, talks of there being many different types of herbalist; ceremonialist, healer, activist, folk/hedge~witch, wisdom~keeper, cunning woman and many more. I'm not sure which of these, if any, I am but I know that sometimes plants begin to tap at my edges asking to be heard. The cottage garden columbines are one of these. It was more than a decade ago that I dreamed that columbines, along with harebells, were one of 'my' flowers, and so for more than a decade I have neither forgotten, nor understood why. Dreams are like that, and the ways of the woven sacred can move excruciatingly slowly. That is why long dreaming winters and cups of tea were invented I imagine. It was only last week, when I went into a tiny church, St Mary Magdalene's on the North Downs not far from here, and turned their Book of Common Prayer to the 9^th of June, that I discovered that I share my birthday with the Feast Day of Saint Columba, the abbot who founded the important abbey on the Isle of Iona in Scotland. Although I haven't yet found a particular connection between St Columba and the flower both their names have their roots in the Latin word for 'dove', with St Columba's original Irish Gaelic name 'Colm Cille' meaning 'church dove'. I love this tender thread that weaves my own story with the flower, the saint, and the Spirit. But, even before I discovered the thread, the columbines were calling, especially since I made friends with a little community of them in the churchyard of the 1,000 year old church where I spend much of my time.

Granny's bonnet, lion's herb, lady's shoes, dove plant, God's breath, pigeon flower, pigeon foot, sow wort ~ our native columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris, belongs to a genus of more than 65 species. Often to be found at the edges of meadows and woodlands, it may be more familiar as a resident of cottage gardens, having been cultivated and hybridised with other European, and also North American, members of the aquilegia family. They are a major food source for the garden bumblebee and also for cabbage moths, dot moths, and mouse moths, who are able to feed on many poisonous plants without harm. The genus name, 'aquilegia' comes from the Latin, 'aquila' meaning 'eagle', due to the petals being said to echo the shape of an eagle's claws. The name might also come from 'aquilegias', a 'water- collector', because of the flowers' water holding capabilities, although it feels to me that the flowers are the wrong way up for that; perhaps here there are whispers of the World Turned Upside Down? 

In contrast, their common name, 'columbine' comes from the Latin, 'columb' for 'dove', due to the spurs of the flower petals looking like five doves sitting together in a circle. What depth of meaning for such a fragile plant to hold, and we have hardly scratched the surface! I find it fascinating that even at this layer of meaning, in the weaving of words, columbines already present much to reflect upon with eagle/hawk and dove being the names given, most often in relation to American politics, to those who are pro or anti-war. The eagle was also a prominent symbol in ancient Rome, especially as a standard of the Roman legion, the teeth and claws of Empire; the legionary who carried it being known as the 'aquilifer', or 'eagle-bearer'. Contrast this with the common folk meaning, the 'people's' meaning, of dove, a word associated with peace and with Spirit, particularly in the Christian faith for whom the dove is one of the most beautiful symbols. Indeed, as Christianity spread into Europe the columbine became associated with the values of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and its three-part leaves became a symbol of the Trinity, with the circle of doves a symbol of the Holy Spirit. So much so that columbines were once often used to stand for Jesus in religious paintings. 

I like very much that the folk name of these little flowers is linked with the Trinity and with Christ, and through him to standing up to the Roman Empire by facing it with a rebellion of love and the fierce call for justice. I like to think that St Columba, whose own 'Celtic form of 'wild edge' Christianity was forced aside by Rome and it's monk, Augustine, would have approved of the columbine and of the story she carries in her petals. It should never be forgotten that the story of Jesus is grounded in this rebellion; in a refusal to submit to Empire, in siding with the poor and the outcast in the face of corporate and Imperial power, in gathering around him disciples who were not thought learned enough for other Rabbis and teachers and giving them a place in the world that is so often not there for our own young people who may become vulnerable to gang culture and radicalisation as a way to find belonging. This is the path of peace and radical love; the dove standing up against the eagle, of speaking truth to power, despite its message being taken over by Empire when it became the official religion of Rome in 312. Imperialism as an ideology is inherently anti-life, and this energy against life will corrupt, contaminate, and undermine, anything that stands against it and which has beauty in it.  It is up to us to choose where we identify, which path we take, where we will make our stand; no matter who our god/gods/no god might be. The columbine reminds us of that choice, that we have a responsibility in what we bring to birth. This is a rebellion of petals, a revolution of feathers. 

In a piece of wild synchronicity, which so often occurs when I sit down to write pieces such as this, I discovered that to the indigenous First Nations people of Canada the eagle has quite a different meaning. Rev. Cannon Ginny Doctor, Coordinator of the Indigenous Ministries for the Anglican Church of Canada and member of the Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan, writes that for her people, the eagle is a bird of peace. When The Peacemaker came to unify the nations, he travelled the land spreading the need for understanding. At each place he would plant a Tree of Peace and place an eagle on top to watch over the people and warn them if the roots of the tree were being disturbed by disagreement amongst them. The indigenous people, the people of the land, make the eagle a bird of peace, where Empire makes it a bird of war and domination. It is up to us what meaning we choose, whether we will stand with the people of the land, with deep myth and meaning, or with that which seeks to subvert both. It isn't easy to speak out against power, to “fight colonialism with a colonised tongue” (Akala). We might feel that it is impossible, but perhaps by rooting ourselves in the Tree of Peace and the wisdom of the columbine and all our green allies we can be rooted enough to begin to choose what we bring to birth, knowing that it is our birthright, our earthright. We think that we are alone but we're not; we live in a wild web of relationship and belief in the good, in the rightness of Life. And Life wants to live.

And these little flowers, these columbines, do have much to share about that choice. Although they are rarely used in healing in modern times due to their supposed toxicity, their leaves were traditionally used to make lotions for sore mouths and throats (helpful in speaking out!) and in Spain people who were troubled by kidney stones were advised to chew a piece of columbine root in the mornings. The idea that columbines are poisonous seems to come from Charles-Ernest Cornevin, who in his 1893 book 'Des plantes vénéneuses et des empoisonnements qu’elles déterminent' (Poisonous Plants and the Poisonings they Cause), said that it contains aconitine, possibly because it is in the same plant family as one of the most poisonous garden plants, aconitum. However, there is so scientific evidence that this is the case and indeed there are no recorded cases of harm caused by columbines. Interesting then that it should be given such a reputation. And then, what of choice and what we might 'bring to birth'?

Culpepper's 'Complete Herbal' of 1649 says that the seeds of columbine, which are just appearing now all across our land, “causeth a speedy delivery of women in childbirth” when taken with wine. In contrast, the fabulous 'Poison Garden' website says that the 'wise woman' of the village would use columbine to bring on abortion as a community service, 'the best known reference to it coming in Thomas Johnson’s 1633 revision of John Gerard’s ‘Herbal’ where he says that Clusius, the 16th century Flemish botanist, reports its use by Dr Francis Rapard to facilitate labour when the seeds are crushed and mixed with wine. It was thought to be widely used as a home remedy.' Plants, such as birthwort for example, which would aid childbirth are also likely to cause an abortion if used at an earlier stage of pregnancy, and so it is with columbine. There was a time when the green beings around us offered us the right to choose. Now of course we live in very different times, cut off from the earth and all that she offers us, and so the columbine's message of choice becomes more and more urgent, especially now.

Here in the UK, our Government, in the wake of a disastrous General Election result, are seeking to form a loose coalition with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, founded by fundamentalist Protestant leader Ian Paisley in the 1970s. I stand in profound disagreement with the views of both parties, but at the time when the columbines in the 1,000 year churchyard are going to seed and revealing their deepest medicine, it is the DUP's attitude to abortion rights that is uppermost in my mind. As I write, the UK Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a mother and daughter who have been involved in a legal battle for women from Northern Ireland to be offered free abortions in England on the NHS. In Northern Ireland terminations are only available if a woman's life is at risk, or if there is a possibility of permanent damage to her mental or physical health. Rape, incest, and fatal foetal abnormalities are not considered reasons for legal abortion to be offered. Many women, more than 700 in 2016, travel to England at great expense to access private abortions. Those who can raise the money often endure travelling alone, overnight by boat if they can't afford air travel, to a place that they have never been. One 28-year-old said, “a lot of bad things have happened to me in my life, but this has been the worst.” In order to save for the journey she had to cut down on food for her family, including her two young children, and stop heating her house. 

Other women, financially or otherwise unable to travel, buy abortion tablets on line and receive them through the post. It is unknown how many this applies to, although the Dutch charities Women on Web and Women Help Women, who are able to provide women with abortion pills by post, receive around 3,000 requests for advice and help from women in Ireland and Northern Ireland each year. In 2016 1,200 parcels containing such pills were seized by Irish customs who investigate all 'suspicious' packages. A woman in Northern Ireland is currently being prosecuted for helping her 15-year-old daughter procure abortion pills and last year a woman was prosecuted for taking them, having been reported by her flatmates. In Northern Ireland, which has the harshest penalty for abortion of any country in Europe, women who have illegal abortions, and anyone found to have helped them, risk life imprisonment. 

The Abortion Support Network, a charity which offers financial support to Irish women who need to travel to England to access their abortion rights, have said that, “We've heard time and time again from women forced by the despair induced by a combination of poverty and draconian abortion laws who have taken matters into their own hands – by ingesting chemicals, by overdosing on medications, by drinking excessively, by literally throwing themselves down stairs to try and induce miscarriage.” Pregnancy counsellors in Northern Ireland have been known to hand out 'information' booklets warning of “a 72% higher risk of rectal and colon cancer among women who have had abortions and a 50% greater risk of breast cancer”, also suggesting that, “a woman who has had one may be more prone to seizures, tremors, comas, frigidity and committing child abuse.” Amnesty International has called upon the UK Government to urgently push for abortion reform in Northern Ireland. This coalition will of course make that less likely and Owen Paterson, the former Northern Ireland secretary, has suggested that there may be a parliamentary debate on further reducing abortion time limits during the next few years. As things are a climate of fear has been created with many women unwilling to speak even to their close friends for fear of being reported; turning woman against woman, dividing us, forcing a climate of silence and unspoken pain and grief. One woman who, unable to afford a trip to England, was forced to go through abortion alone and terrified of being reported said, “I feel am being punished for being poor. If I had had money, I would have gone to a clinic, met a nurse, heard from her that everything was going to be OK.” She eventually went to her GP for a check-up two months later and told her that she had had a miscarriage. 

This is far from the wisdom and choice offered to us by our sister-ally, the columbine; our gentle dove, our wise-woman granny's bonnet, with her offering of wild plant medicine to hold our young women in their journeys. I stand with them against a coalition that would deny women the choice to choose what we bring to birth. Judy Griffin in her book, 'Flowers That Heal', says that columbine “enhances the ability to think and act independently of others”, to “drop the role that others have made for us”, and to claiming our autonomy. I stand with the columbine in holding the roots of wild earth wisdom and the liberation of heart and body.

And yet, this feels in so many ways overwhelming. All these things are happening far from me and my little community of columbines in the 1,000 year churchyard. Can the columbine help us to find the courage to raise our voices loud enough to be heard? Marvellously, we have not yet reached the end of our exploration. There is one more piece of folklore that might help us to choose the wilder path and a clue is found in one of the columbine's common names; lion's herb. In medieval times, it was believed that lions ate columbines in the spring to give them strength and so that rubbing the flowers on one's hands would bestow the 'courage of lions'. I think that we might well need that in the days and months to come. It really is time for a rebellion of petals, a revolution of feathers; for the eagle, for the dove, for the columbine, and for us all; it's time to choose what we bring to birth. And perhaps consider too that, although our green companions have much to teach us, it's we who give them their meanings. These are our stories of rebellion, of wild courage, which we have hidden safely in their petals, just as our far off ancestors buried their own treasures in the earth when invaders came. It's not the columbine that allows us to choose. She brings a reminder but the choice has always been ours. We don't need to wait until her flowers come next spring. We have always had the courage of lions. It has always been us, and it's time to roar!

Columbine; looking like a tiny lion

(Disclaimer: please don't take wild medicine, such as the columbine, without the advice of a qualified herbalist. In the case of the columbine, most of us no longer have the wisdom to know what amounts are safe for us to take. Until we claim back our wisdom, let's allow the earth to hold us as safely as she can and respect our not knowing)

References:

On columbines ~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_vulgaris

http://www.karensgardentips.com/garden-types-styles-and-designs/shakespeares-flowers-and-gardens/shakespeares-flowers-columbine/

http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/aquilegia_atrata.htm

http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/blog/blog270412.htm

https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/100859/i-Aquilegia-vulgaris-i/Details

http://plantlife.love-wildflowers.org.uk/wild_plants/plant_species/columbine

http://loveinidlenessembroidery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/columbine.html

'Flowers That Heal', Griffin, Judy, Paraview Press, 2002.

Other references ~

https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2017/06/15/wild-lectionary-the-eagle-shared-its-strength/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40271763

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/abortion-ireland-northern-ireland-women-travel-england-amelia-gentleman

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/13/abortion-figures-prompt-fresh-calls-for-reform-of-northern-irish-law

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/northern-ireland-abortion-women-culture-suspicion-fear-prosecution-belfast

This is Still OUR Land ~ for Election Day and every day

(Denton, Kent, 4th June 2017)

This is Still Our Land

This is still our land

and your arrogance won’t break her.

Her trees grow green and wild

and your power games will not make her

into a barren land where life is not for living,

into a well of souls with eyes staring, unforgiving.

Our ancestors have sung this land

and she has her own spirit.

Other songs have joined with hers,

her boundaries have no limit.

Tolerance is in her blood and sings in her blue rivers

Suspicion has no home in her so don’t try to begin it.

Her serpent currents run,

despite your machinations

Her dragon lines flow on,

have no room for your intentions

And those of us who love her can feel her deep heart beating

We’ll sing her on with open hearts, our voices raised in greeting.

Her warrior soul protects us all,

does not seek to turn on others

Our mother land embraces all,

Joy and freedom are our lovers

And when you think you’ve had your way

and our hearts are torn and burning

We’ll shout with voices of true power

Our land is not for turning!

(Jacqueline Durban, Election Day, 5^th May 2005 and again and again and again)

(Southwark, July 2016)

On May Flowers, Sea Monsters, and What Moves Beneath the Skin

Hawthorn in St Martin's Churcyard, Folkestone, 9th May 2017

Today is Full Moon in Scorpio, and so also Lunar Beltane; the most blessed of days, dripping with the diamond-sweet nectar of the hawthorn, lucent with honey. Beltane is, on the surface which is as real and important as the depths, the brightest and most joyous day of grace celebrating as it does the edge of summer, the beauty of bluebells and wild garlic, the flowering of the May, the warming of the earth, and our warming with it. It is a time to unfurl and stretch, to breathe and bask, to engage fully with life after the long slow days of dark. For many of us, the cells of our bodies will have been calling for it since Imbolc at the beginning of February when first we sensed the light returning. It has been a long time coming. There have been days when I thought that I would never be warm again. And yet today, as the Full Moon begins her wild prayer, the sun is shining, our rowan tree is full of frothy blossom, and there are tiny blue butterflies blessing the garden. This is the best of times indeed.

And yet it is also Scorpio Full Moon. Scorpio with its insatiable desire for depth, for deep diving, for seeking out the sea monsters that move beneath our skin, and beneath the skin of the world around us. This is the wild edge, of the shallow and the deep, that we must learn to dance with if we are ever to heal the dualism which is so much a part of patriarchy; the way of thinking that refuses nuance or compromise, that sets good against bad, light against dark, masculine against feminine, mind against body, rationalism against creativity, and on and on. And this way of being isn't just in the world around us. It is in us too. We all walk with the not-beautiful within and we enjoy our certainties, even we secretly know that they are not so certain at all and our clinging to them means crushing someone else's.

The American Franciscan friar and writer, Richard Rohr in 'Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality' talks of how we must accept our own complicity and co-operation with what is ugly in our world and in ourselves, of how we stand frozen between our belief in goodness and the realisation of our own role in working against that goodness; through apathy, through greed, through fear, through despair, through just being so, so overwhelmed, and so many other ways in which we stumble and fall. He believes that we must learn to hold this contradiction; that everything is held within the perfect body of Godde, including us, and yet somehow everything is not perfect. That we must learn to “forgive reality for being what it is” before we can truly participate in changing anything. It is a deep, deep grief and yet perhaps there is some empowerment in knowing that we have a role to play in forgiving life for not being what we need it to be. Can we look into the eyes of the Sea Monster and love her? Can we acknowledge the monster within and still celebrate the blissfulness of the bluebell sea? If we are ever to mend the poison that seemingly seeps through much of our society then I believe that we must learn to do so, and in that we will also liberate ourselves. It takes so much energy to keep the Sea Monster down and we need that energy for other, and better, things.

Some years ago I did something that I was not proud of, through love, through hope, and through vulnerability, but also through weakness and lack of responsibility. It was then that my own sea monster showed herself to me. At that time she revealed herself as Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, whose story of dismemberment is so shocking to those of us who live in a less harsh environment and who have little understanding of the day to day struggle to survive, at least materially. Sedna, who loved so wildly and so wilfully and yet ended her story at the bottom of the sea, her flesh being devoured by bitterness and regret and yet with no way to make herself beautiful again. We must all pray that that is not what becomes of us. This is what she taught me about my own 'sea monster', who I am finding my own way to love.

Sea Hag Sedna

I am gasping in the shallows, floundering,
the seal song of my intuition calling, calling,
calling out into the steel grey sea,
the waters of shifting reality,
to a million, million teardrops falling.
And though I find myself in the wrong shape of me,
though I remember the ancient kiss of salt on skin,
I will not dive, will not surrender the safety of this suffocation.
My shadow is selkie shaped and I am drowning in this air of reason.

She comes quietly, moving slowly beneath the ice floes of my history,
seeking out the secret places where I hide my deformity.
She is monstrous in Her beauty, I am monstrous in my needing.
Could swallow the whole ocean with the greed of my wanting,
She is rising from the Mother Place of a million women screaming,
She is breaking through the barriers of my wilful non-seeing.
And She is sea breathing, licking the wounds of Her own ragged journeying...

I slam the doors, nail up the windows,
shore up the cracks with all my tired excuses,
fool myself She will not sense my longing for the ocean...

But She comes seeping in like dreams, beautiful in Her simplicity.
Her spiral being, deep shell knowing, a labyrinth of possibility.
She drags me down, Her fingers bloody stumps caressing,
My lover's deep brown eyes receding, and I am reeling,
the chains that hold me land-bound breaking.
Leaving the world of maps and signposts,
seeking what is old and wild, my whale knowing.
And I am flowing, dissolving my own boundaries,
have become unborn in this amniotic world of soundless seascapes.
I sift through the silt of all my self-betrayals,
Am powerless against the pulls and tides of my revealing.
And She stays with me, crooning, Her sea creatures' sharp teeth tearing,
until I am stripped white like bone and empty as a moonbeam.
So deep beneath the tide we rest in seaweed stillness,
and we are Sea Monster sisters, unreachable...

I surrender to this journey,
have let go all that anchored me,
am iridescent in my lunacy,
my shadow is selkie shaped and she swims with me.

I have tasted the wild seas of me...
I don't know when I will return.

(Jacqueline Durban, 2011)

She was frightening. She dragged me down, and it has taken me a long, long time to return, but I know that I desperately needed to dive. And so on May morning I woke early and watched the dawn. It had been a difficult time for all manner of reasons and yet I had hopes of reclaiming the day. It was not to be, or at least not in the way that I expected. My partner's sleep moves in cycles and often he is up all night. So it was on May Eve and, on Beltane morning whilst I was soft from sleep, he began to show me videos he'd been watching of 'Social Justice Warriors' in an attempt to understand what is happening to his world. On this occasion it was students, and others, who wished to prevent a speaker that they didn't agree with from speaking on their campus; demanding that the speaker's right to 'free speech' was curtailed in the interests of their own 'right' not to be offended. They seemed not to understand the irony, or the unsustainable nature, of such a position. There was a protest where those from both sides began to accuse the other of being 'fascists', with seemingly very little understanding of what that word truly means, to pepper spray the opposition, throw bricks, and eventually what appeared to be home made bombs. They seemed not to care that others were bleeding, and yet it was clear that they did care, and care very deeply and with much passion. Both sides believed that they were in the right and refused to back down, seeming to almost celebrate and glory in every injury that their side sustained as proof that the others were in the wrong, rather than accepting that it was more likely that both sides held a spark of truth. It was insanity, literally. And it just made me sad. It seemed to me that the people in those videos, no matter which side they happened to be on, were mad with grief at a world that seems so deeply broken and were clinging to any life raft that they could find in the sea of chaos; the sea where the monsters hide just beneath the surface. I wanted to hug them all, to go towards them rather than running away, to tell them that the world is not so broken, that hawthorn is flowering, that they would feel better after a nice cup of tea, and did they know that the leader of the Labour Party makes his own jam and believes in the worth and dignity of everyone? It is changing, slowly. It will be alright.

And this is a dramatic example but there are so many others; of people set against one another unable to find a way to compromise, or seemingly unaware that such a thing even exists; Republican vs, Democrat and the election of Donald Trump, Remainers vs. Brexiters, Left vs. Right, and nowhere in the middle just to sit down and talk, to remember that we are all humans together in a world that we find so hard to understand. And, for me, this is what moves beneath the skin, the 'sea monster' that we must have the courage to look in the face. We are all so attached to our life rafts that we refuse to dive. We are too afraid to let go, to admit that we are lost, to cry out to whatever we call sacred, “Please, please help me. I don't know what to do!” Can we let ourselves be so vulnerable? Can we trust to the unknowing, rather than taking up a position and hanging onto it for dear life no matter what the cost? Can we look at someone we don't agree with, who we can never agree with; someone who is un-beautiful, just like us, who is lost, just like us, and complicit, just like us, and know that they too are beloved and are meant to be here, that Life wants them to live, just like us? Can we have the courage to believe that we can breathe underwater?

Soon, we will have a General Election. I fear the worst of outcomes, and yet I hope and hope and hope for the best. After the last one I couldn't speak for two days and I couldn't look at anyone. I was so, so angry and anger is good and gives us fuel to work for change. But what change can there be when we have forgotten that we are all humans together doing our best in a world that feels so overwhelmingly broken? My most favourite recent conversation was with someone online who, in response to a link that I posted on tactical voting informed me, as he always does when I post such things, that he will be voting very much in the opposite way than I would choose. And I replied that I was glad that he cared enough to vote, that I wished him luck, and that although I could not support his choices I celebrated his belief in the good and his hope for the future, and I meant it. And I will still mean it on June 9th, whatever the result may be. And it was utterly liberating. I have had enough of brokenness and hate. And I know that not one of us knows everything. Not one of us has the answer, if there even is an answer, to a broken world. And I wonder whether humility can find a place in this world any more. But there is love; that most misused and belittled word and way of wild power and mending. Can we love enough to believe that we are right, to work passionately for change, and yet not allow our rightness to need someone else to be wrong? Perhaps we can look at someone who we truly don't agree with, someone whose way of thinking makes us feel so much more lost and broken, and love them? Really love them. Then perhaps we truly can find a way to change the world and our sea monsters might not seem so monstrous after all. The hawthorn will bloom no matter what but we have deeper work to attend to.