The Blessings on our Doorsteps & Dying Alone in the Time of Corona

Hello dear readers. I hope that you, and those you love, are well in these extraordinary times. This is just a small sharing before I write more in the weeks to come, especially as we move into the strangest of Holy Weeks & Eastertide. For now, we are continuing our forty days & nights in the wilderness, which has seemed so deeply apt this year. But, of course, it is a wilderness whose blessings we have unlearned how to see.

We are well here in our self-isolation and I have been enjoying many heart-opening walks, during which I have foraged for wild medicine. I have bern hugely drawn to nettles, who I am finding more and more ways to incorporate into my diet, and also to cleavers spring tonic, of which more soon. Today, I have heard that it's going to be beautifully sunny for many of us and so I am hoping to go for a little walk to the woods to see if I can find wild garlic. These are blessed times in so many ways.

But I wanted to write a little about another nearby plant and all that her presence and recent flowering has led me to reflect upon.

The plant pictured above is beautiful herb-Robert, also known as red robin, fox geranium, & stinking Bob, amongst many other names, who has come into flower just by our front door.  She has so many wonderful edible and medicinal qualities that I'm quite determined to write a longer blog about her soon. But what her presence makes me think about today is how supported we are by the other-than-human world, and otherworld, that surrounds us.

Aside from herb-Robert, on one side of our front door we have cleavers and, on the other side, nettles. All either support our immune systems, or are, like herb-Robert, actively anti-viral. I feel better, and more protected, just by knowing that they're there but I fully intend to add herb-Robert into my daily medicine taking practice; not because of what I hope to gain, but because its presence by our door feels like an invitation to relationship.

Over recent weeks it has become more clear that so many of us feel deeply, achingly, alone and unsupported; this is why swathes of us immediately took to stockpiling when Covid-19 first came to our shores. It's why so many insist on going out to get-things-done, even though they would be better staying at home and asking for help. And it is making our mourning even more painful to think that our loved ones, or anyone, has died 'alone' in a hospital bed.

This wound is deep; borne partly of the human condition; that feeling of separation that so rarely leaves us. But it has also been nurtured in us through many years of the deliberate erosion of community, and also our disconnection from sister death, our loss of relationship. No wonder that we panic so. We just don't trust Life. If only we were able to look just outside our front doors, or in the cracks in the pavements we walk every day, or in so many places that are so familiar that we look but rarely see. We are surrounded by friends. We are never without good company or support for the journey, and that feels to be especially true now.

But, today, I especially want to say something about dying alone, as we come to a time when some of us and some of those we love may fall to the coronavirus. It is indeed a terrible thing to contemplate dying without the surrounding presence of those who love us. Particularly in this country, we are very used to that being possible, although we might also breathe deeply into the fact that many choose to die when their loved ones have slipped out of the room, and that our animal kin will often take themselves away to wait for their final heartbeat.

To die is a solitary activity, but we are never alone in it. Sister death is with us, our ancestors are there to hold out a hand, our God. I know in my bones that many beings of good intent will show us the way.

When my dear, beloved dad died I was the only one who was with him; it was a privilege, the holy of holies, but I didn't feel that it was my presence that made him not alone. He was so busy with what he had to do; he moved his hands in the air in ways that I later discovered mirrored the movements he made at work when using his lathe, every now and then he would reach up as though picking an apple and then hold the prized fruit to his lips with great pleasure. When he had been struggling, for what seemed like forever, to let go of this wordly life, I prayed for his mum to come and show him the way. And I swear that he took three more deep breaths and died. It was the most beautiful moment of my life and it mattered that I was there as a witness but no, it wasn't my presence that made him not alone. Far from it.

And yes, it must be frightening and heatbreaking to be in hospital ill and dying and not to be abe to have visitors, and the greatest of tragedies for loved ones not to be able to hold a hand one last time before death comes. But we are never, ever alone and no one dies alone. The herb-Robert, the cleavers, and the nettles by my door tell me that. My dad taught me.

Be of good heart, beloved friends. We are held in this world, the next, and the places in between. We could not be more blessed.

On the Radical Hospitality of Ragwort

I want to write a love song to Ragwort, so often despised and derided, endlessly at risk of eradication. I have fallen out with several people over my high regard for Ragwort as she is (unfairly) blamed for the deaths of horses & cattle. We so often value creatures in whose eyes we can see our own reflections, both literally and metaphorically, over the health of our planet. Ragwort is one of many teachers inviting us to do better, as are so many despised beings. 

As for horses & cattle, proven cases of Ragwort poisoning are rare. They will only eat fresh Ragwort if starving due to our own neglect, and so it is dried Ragwort in hay that is the real challenge, if a challenge there is. In this way, again, Ragwort calls to us to be more mindful, more present, to slow down. Instead of looking to ourselves, we fear her & try to wipe her out. Indeed, she is one of five plants named as an 'injurious weed' under the provisions of the Weeds Act 1959, which means that the Government can require a landowner to prevent her spread.

Recently, there has been petition to have this act rescinded, although this was closed early due to the General Election being called. The Government responded to the petition by saying that they have no plans to rescind the Act at this time, particularly as the Act doesn't call for the eradication of the five listed 'injurious weeds'. However, I would reply that it is not the Act itself but the message that it conveys which is injurious to Ragwort and her sister plants (Broad-Leaved Dock, Curly Dock, Creeping Thistle, and Spear Thistle).

Growing on the shingle beach, Folkestone November 2019

Writer Robert Macfarlane tells us that 'pharmakos' in Ancient Greek ritual is a human scapegoat, exiled at a time of crisis in order to purify the sins of a community. The related word 'pharmakon', from where we get our word 'pharmacy', means both 'poison' and 'cure'. Ragwort is one of our great scapegoats, like foxes, like Hogweed. We think of it as poison but it holds within its golden petals so many cures. And yet, here too, we find echoes of the crucified Christ, and so of the crucified Earth. I wonder how many scapegoats we will need before we begin to take back our power in thinking for ourselves?

 

A native plant to the British Isles, Ragwort is a member of the daisy family & considered one of the top nectar producing plants in our land. Abundant on wasteland and waysides,she offers at least seventy-seven insect species home & food, thirty of these relying on her, & only her, for their survival. Ten are considered rare or threatened. A further one hundred & seventeen insects, including solitary bees, moths, & butterflies, use her as a wayside hostelry as they travel between feeding or breeding sites. She belongs, she denies no one, and she matters.

Growing in the edge places

Once, Ragwort was much used medicinally by the people of the land as a cooling wash for burn or for inflamed eyes. Her juice was also used to bathe sores & cancerous ulcers. Hence, one of her folk names of 'Cakerwort'. A poultice of her leaves was applied to bring relief in cases of rheumatism, sciatica, and gout. She was also used as a gargle for sore throats. In Ancient Greece it was used to make an aphrodisiac, known as 'Satyrion', and the leaves and can be used to make a good green dye, with the flowers producing yellow, brown, and orange hues.

No doubt mindful of the many benefits of Ragwort, known in the Isle of Mann as 'Cushag', to insect and human alike, the Manx poet, Josephine Kermode, wrote; 

Now, the Cushag, we know,

Must never grow,

Where the farmer's work is done.

But along the rills, 

In the heart of the hills,

The Cushag may shine like the sun.

Where the golden flowers,

Have fairy powers,

To gladden our hearts with their grace.

And in Vannin Veg Veen*,

In the valleys green,

The Cushags have still a place.

Other than Cushag and Cankerwort, some of Ragwort's folk names are; Stinking Willie, Benweed, St James-wort, Stinking Nanny/Ninny, Dog Standard, Staggerwort, and Stammerwort. The penultimate name refers to the old belief that Ragwort would 'cure the staggers in horses', and presumably the last to a belief that the flower was a helpful remedy for stammering.

I love too a new name for Ragwort, Benyon's Delight, coined by Dusty Gedge in 2011 in response to the wildly inaccurate comments by then Government Minister with a responsibility for biodiversity, Richard Benyon, who has a professed hatred for the herb. Oh, the irony! MP for Newbury Mr Benyon wrote that, "I hate Ragwort. And I am on the warpath for those who let this poisonous weed spread." His Facebook post was accompanied by a photo of him pulling up Ragwort, watched over by a benign cow. You can read more about why he was wrong on the excellent Poison Garden website here.

That Ragwort is known as 'St James-wort' (or herb) is intriguing. There are several possibilities for the St James to which this refers. One is the brother of Jesus, a leader of the early Church, although I can find no reason for Ragwort to be associated with him. One writer suggests that Ragwort's fluffy white seedheads are reminiscent of St James's white beard, although this seems rather tenuous even though the plant's former Latin name was 'Senecio Jacobaea' or 'Old Man James' (my woeful Latin translation skills notwithstanding).

Rather, it seems more likely that Ragwort is the herb of James, son of Zebedee, or St James the Great, who, again ironically, is the patron saint of vetenarians, equestrians, blacksmiths, and pharmacists, although there seems to be no particular reasn why. He also watches over those suffering from arthritis & rheumatism, both of which were once said to have been relieved by the medicine of Ragwort. It is to the shrine of St James the Great that the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St James, pilgrimage route leads. This was one of the most important Christian pilgrimage paths in the late Middle Ages and I like to think that its edges are graced by the shining petals of Ragwort. St James' Feast Day is on July 25th when Ragwort is at the height of her flowering. It feels relevant too to note that both the St Jameses were martyred, as Ragwort so often is too; a martyr to us seeking to deflect blame for our own behaviour to the beings of the wild.

During the long, hot summer of 2018, I was blessed to live closely with Ragwort when she came to live in proliferation in the hedgehermitage garden. She not only filled the air with sweet honey scent ~ who knew that she smelled so gorgeous ~ but taught me much about shame, maintaining boundaries without excluding, endless generosity in the face of condemnation, and how to endure scapegoating with grace & an ever open heart. All important medicines in these times.

Loving my first sniff of Ragwort for the year, 2019

I have watched Ragwort plants offer one another space to grow, sheltering other green beings through the long, parched summer, providing pollen, and sometimes dozing places, for bees when other flowers had succumbed to drought. It was incredibly noticeable that wherever the Ragwort was growing was a vibrant green, not just of Ragwort but of the other plants and grasses growing with them, where the rest of the garden was dry and brown. My husband informed me that, when he did need to uproot an occasional Ragwort plant, her roots were providing a home to all manner of invertebrates and were alive with life (which he carefully found new homes for). It seems, that where we are repelled, beings with more wisdom are drawn to her.

Ragwort in the Seabrook Valley, Summer 2019

2018's Herring Gull chick sits amongst the Ragwort

She has been less abundant this year, although I have particularly noticed her growing determinedly on the shingle beach here. I was pleased to be told that her growth has a two yearly cycle so I hope to be surrounded by Ragwort next year. I miss her when she's gone. Through the winter I will watch over the prayer of her roots until she comes again in the early summer. I am grateful and in awe of her spirit of hospitality and kindness, to both indigenous beings and migrants alike, and in the face of condemnation and risk to her own wellbeing when many of us would become stone-hearted and cold. She is an example to us all. I look forward to her return.

Ragwort seedheads

Mr Radical Honey clearing (some of) the Ragwort for winter

Notes:

*  Vannin Veg Veen is Manx for dear little Isle of Man

References:

Ragwort Advocacy ~

An excellent resource for Ragwort facts can be found here ~  http://ragwort-hysteria.blogspot.com/

Here https://friendsoftheearth.uk/nature/ragwort-poisonous-ragwort-mythbuster

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/26/damned-as-dangerous-but-ragwort-is-full-of-life

 http://www.ragwort.org.uk/

and there is much reason to be found here  http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/jacobaea_vulgaris.htm 

and, especially, here in regard to the demonisation of Ragwort  http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/blog/blog160911.htm

Ragwort info ~

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

Ragwort as medicine ~   

https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/ragwor02.html

On St James ~ 

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

https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/st-james-the-greater-patron-saint-of-vets-cats-history

Day 16 of the Plant Spirit Ally Challenge ~ Write a Story, Poem, or Prayer

Sitting over words very late, I have heard a kind of whispered sighing…
~ W.S.Merwin

Here I am with my second sharing as one of the co-hosts for Hagstone Publishing's Plant Spirit Ally Challenge, which takes place through the whole of May. If you would like to know more about it do go and have a read of my previous post on shrine making and visit HagstonePublishing’s website. There is all sorts of yummy stuff there.

And so to today; writing about writing with written words about writing. It feels a bit overwhelming, but I will have a go. When I thought about today the main thing that I wanted to say was please don’t worry, and I think that I will expand on that a little before we begin. If you are thinking of engaging in today’s prompt and feel nervous, just remember that this need only be a playful & happy experience. The words you write don't need to make sense to anyone but you, or even to you! Sometimes, as with journeying, the meaning unfolds later, or remains as a beautiful mystery that pulls at the unconscious ~ a shining thread to connect us to the Otherworld where understanding is woven in a way that we can scarcely imagine. Many of us have been put off writing, traumatised even, by our time at school, when we are taught to use words ‘properly’. Let me just say that there is no ‘properly’ here. In fact, the more improper you feel like being the better as far as I’m concerned!

Author Paul Kingsnorth, who writes a great deal on the importance of words, in quite a different context than this one but which feels relevant here nonetheless, has suggested that one of the things that we might usefully do to support the wild is to create nature refuges. He is very careful to explain that it is no longer enough to talk about, or even to create, nature ‘reserves’. We must do more than ‘reserve’ space for nature. We must make her our centre and our priority, our first thought in all that we do. Words matter. Creating a refuge feels so much more urgent than setting aside a reserve. And so perhaps in taking part in day 16 of the Plant Spirit Ally Challenge we can create a refuge for words and for language, freed from the need to say something important, to rock the world on its axis, or even to make sense. Perhaps we can just give them space, set them free a little in the spirit of playfulness and curiosity, and see what magic they make.

In her book, ‘Writing to Wake the Soul’, Karen Hering quotes poet Heid. E. Erdrich, who tells us in the final line of her, ‘Origin of Poem’, “it might simply be a matter of finding and feeling our connection to what is deep and alive, well below the surface of things. In either case, it can require a lot of casting and long, patient waiting.

We fish our own waters

green and layered

weedy and warm -

Nothing rises,

no ripples, but we wait.

All we want is the tug -

something deep, alive, on the line”

~ Heid. E. Erdrich

I have a few little ideas and techniques to help us create a wild refuge for our words but I will firstly mention something that once helped me. A long time ago I was introduced to the idea that words and language are a sense; just like touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. They are a way in which we can explore the world, sending them out so that we can see what bounces back. They don’t need to be ‘right’, if there even is such a thing. They just need to be allowed to fly. And that is all we are doing here; sending out our words to explore the space between ourselves and our plant spirit ally and, if we choose to share, between ourselves and other people. Our words can be, and are, an offering to our plant ally, both the words themselves, but also the attention given to the connection and the time offered to the task. And, for any amongst us who are afraid to offer the written word, our courage in doing so is the most powerful and beautiful of offerings to this prayer of connection we are weaving. Be brave, be wild, be willing.

And we might consider too that the words we use aren’t ultimately the important thing. In the image and metaphor of words we are seeking an older tongue even than language; a universal understanding beyond the words themselves, a sort of dream language perhaps. We are seeking to share beyond the boundaries of surface understanding and diving into the wild seas of poetry, parable, and prayer. Who knows what might return to us on the tide?

In the Bible is the story of the Tower of Babel. We are told that, following the Great Flood, a united humanity spoke only one language. Migrating westwards, they came to Mesopotamia and decided that they would build a city and in it a great tower tall enough to reach heaven. In order to stop them God created many languages so that the people could no longer understand one another well enough to cooperate and scattered us across the planet. This story has been compared with that of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden. There are so many ways of interpreting both those stories but they both warn us that transgression leads to separation, from the Earth and from one another. Or we might say that separation leads to transgression, however we might understand both those terms. How easily we seek to blame the Divine in her many forms for our loss of paradise. It's we who separated earth from sky. I notice too that the actual wording in Genesis 11: 1 tells us that, “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” It wasn’t only humanity that shared one language. It was the whole Earth, and we all understood one another. 

How might we find our way back to the garden, mending the scattered pieces and reaching heaven at last? Again we are told that at Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit appeared as ‘tongues of fire’, filling those present. From then on, they were able to communicate in the language of whoever they met and to be understood. If we can put our differences aside, we will know that, whatever our religious or spiritual tradition, in connection with Spirit we are able to understand one another and share in community. Language, words, and writing, come from this desire to share experience, to connect and communicate. If we have words, if we can speak, then we can write. The voice is a prayer written on the sky, writing a prayer recorded on a page. They belong to us and there is no need to be afraid. We have all been gifted with tongues of fire.

Writing is in itself a solitary, private, and intimate activity. It is between us and our pen and paper. Or, of course, between our keyboard and screen, but I would encourage everyone who is able to to make some marks on paper for this task. I like writing on a laptop myself. Typing helps me to keep up with the speed of my thoughts and to move things around, and I find crossing things out on paper physically painful such a perfectionist am I, but there is something about sitting with a blank page and then making the first mark. And, like the making of any relationship, what that mark means or will become is only for us and the words to say. Let there be freedom in that.

And so, here are just a few ways in which we might begin to make our beautiful marks.  

One way that really helps me when I feel stuck is ‘free-flow’, or automatic, writing, which I was taught about by woman of deep-heart, Tegwyn Hyndman. For this all we need is a stack of paper (always have more paper than you think you will need) and a pen. Begin by relaxing and moving into a ‘daydreamy’ state in whichever way you find easiest. We might spend some time slowing our breathing, we might meditate, or drum. It would be lovely to begin with Michelle of Hagstone Publishing’s ‘You Breathe Out, She Breathes In’ plant meditation from day 2, which you can find here. Having your plant spirit ally nearby would be a blessing, perhaps drinking some tea made from her flowers or leaves if your plant isn’t toxic in any way. I chose to have bath into which I added lilacs, my plant spirit ally for this challenge, and held a single lilac flower under my tongue. I also refreshed my lilac altar by adding new flowers and lighting a candle. It all just helped me to feel woven in, in touch.

For the free-flow writing you will need to create a sentence to lead you in. For my writing with the Lilac being I chose, “In the house of the Lilac being I find…..” but it could be anything that opens up the space. Perhaps, “Lilac wants to share that...”, or simply, “Lilac says that...” Write that sentence at the top of a fresh piece of paper, making sure that your stack of paper is nearby, set a timer if that feels right (it helps me not to feel agitated or tempted to keep looking at the clock), I suggest for ten minutes. I know that that feels like ages, but it really isn’t, and then just start writing. And don’t stop. Write whatever comes into your head or heart, without censorship or worrying about repetition or spelling mistakes or punctuation. Just keep writing and see what comes. Sometimes there is a flash of brilliance like a shooting star, and sometimes is enough. If you get stuck, just keep writing anyway. You might write, “I am stuck. I am stuck. I am stuck. I can’t think of any words. I wish that I had never started this...” and, when/if you can, bring your attention back to your plant. She may be waiting to tell you something. At the end of the ten minutes stop and read what you have written, without judgement if you can, and holding the words lightly.

Here is my free-flow with Lilac, uncensored but maybe with a comma added here and there, for ease of shared understanding; mine and yours.

"In the house of the Lilac being I find…

A prayer of petals, intoxicating, heat and heady scent. I seek the centre, push aside flower on flower to find the spell of her heart centre, but she has secret spells that elude my seeking sense. She calls me to deeper depths like light on water enticing me to dive. She ripples, is gossamer thread turned to gold, a blush of passion rising on the skin, graces afternoon tea with hidden lust for sweetness. She says more; more flowers, more sky, more honey on the tongue, more song, more breeze to turn petals to light, more depth, more pushing aside to find the heart, more hum of bees, more poems in the bark, more root, more space, more light. More, she says, and still more. And I am enough in this scattering of flowers and chaos of stems, in this snaking of roots. She says that I am more than I know and that I am enough. I can be close and grow and I can journey far. This mountain prayer, this song of shore, this salt-sea tide, this movement and this edge is all. This wave of love. This passion scent and sent in lust for life, for more, for more than this, and for this to be made of light. The this, the more, the prayer, the song, the serpent at the root, the poem, and the petal wild with light and love.”

Isn’t she exciting!!

Another practice, which I often choose when I would like to write a poem but feel under pressure, is to write a haiku. This is a simple Japanese poetry form made up of three non-rhyming lines of seventeen syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern; five in the first and third lines, seven in the second. To write a haiku is relatively easy, to write an enchanting one is harder, but that’s what makes them interesting. Here is mine for Lilac;

Sound the hollow bone.

Raise a petal to your lips.

In bliss, Lilac sings.

My haiku comes from Lilac’s genus name, ‘Syringa’, which comes from the Ancient Greek word ‘shrinx’, meaning ‘tube’ or ‘pipe’, and referring to the lilac’s hollow stems, which make me think of flutes or the bones of birds. I love that image.

Finally, if we are feeling really stuck or are just seeking a place to start, we might sink into the depth and beauty of simple description. What more beautiful prayer to relationship than to truly SEE the other?

So we might describe her colour, her taste (if it is safe to taste her), her smell, her texture and her temperature, her sound.

For Lilac ~

"In my nearby garden, she is white. Her flower spikes, growing on the end of long stems in gatherings of three and four, are a mass of single flowers, each one on a tiny green stalk that disappears in a froth of petals. Somehow she makes sense and shape of it. In morning light she is almost transparent with no colour at all. At sunset I have seen her turn to buttery gold. Her bark is pale, her trunk twists. She smells sweet, her flowers bitter on my tongue. She is all contradictions. The wilder faraway lilac is purple. Her flowers change from deepest pink to palest lavender with age. She is so wild with leaves and flowers that I can’t see her bark but I can hear the wind rustling through her, have heard the tap of rain on her surface. She smells deeper, headier. I seek out the perfectly opened flowers for the strongest smell. I bow before the petals that are turning brown and wish them well as they wane. And she is cool like ice on summer’s day and hot like heat haze. I am in awe of the life in her, of the whip-crack of her stems. I wonder whether I could ever be so scattered, so seemingly chaotic, and so surely myself."

I am sure that I have only scratched the surface of describing her and I found it almost impossible to only describe, rather than slipping into metaphor or simile. And that is alright too, because even in the struggle to draw her in to what I had decided I wanted her to be, and in failing, I have learned something of the Lilac being. It is all touching another. It is all the making of relationship.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Jalal Al-Din Rumi

And so, enjoy today’s delicious task, both you and your chosen plant ally. I will so much look forward to reading your words, if you do choose to share.

References:

Hagstone Publishing ~ https://www.hagstonepublishing.com/

'Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening the Sacred Conversation Within' by Karen Hering, Atria/Beyond Words, 2013.

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

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+2&version=NIV

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

Day 14 of the Plant Spirit Ally Challenge ~ Make a Shrine

Something a little different today as I have been taking part in Hagstone Publishing's Plant Spirit Ally Challenge, which takes place through the whole of May. It has been wonderful, enriching, and nourishing so far. I have learned such a lot, both from the Lilac being who I have been journeying with, and from fellow participants. I am jolly chuffed to say that I am one of the co-hosts of the challenge and have been asked to write two pieces; one today on making a shrine, and another on Thursday for Day 16 on writing a poem, story, or prayer. If you want to know more about the challenge itself, or to join in ~ it's not too late ~ do visit Hagstone Publishing's website at https://www.hagstonepublishing.com/ The Challenge is taking place on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with the hashtag #PlantSpiritChallenge if you would like to see what we've been doing. Such a lovely and deep-hearted community centred around the wisdom of our chosen plant allies, whether we chose them, they chose us, or a bit of both.

And so on to shrine making.

I feel that I have been making shrines, or altars, for so long that I rarely think about how I do it anymore. I do remember that when I consciously began creating them I wanted to get everything ‘right’ and that that seemed so very important, but built into that thought is the possibility of getting it wrong. The main thing that I would want to share about altar making now is that we really can't get it wrong at all. This is about our own wild and beautiful relationship with Spirit, in whatever way s/he/it manifests for us and it is for us to choose what our altar will be. All I know is that since I have stopped worrying about getting it right my altars seem like a natural extension of my heart and my prayer for connection and deeper living. 

As for prayer, it occurred to me once, I think through the words of a hymn, that there has not been a moment on this planet for thousands of years, or perhaps since the first thought, when a prayer hasn’t been spoken or lifted; that prayer is a whisper that surrounds the Earth in a beauty blanket of hope and sacred connection. And so it is with altars. I am quite sure that from the earliest times of our ancestors there hasn’t been an hour when someone hasn't collected together special objects and felt a connection to something larger than themselves in their presence; altars are a key. They open a door and they always have. This is the thread that we take up when we too choose to create an altar. And it may be that we have been creating altars since we were very small children, without quite thinking of it in that way. Children are natural altar makers, collecting together precious objects playfully and joyfully without self-consciousness and with no fear of getting it wrong. So, let’s find our way back to the child and make an altar in co-creation with the spirit of our plant ally.

Our task today is to ‘make a shrine’. The word shrine comes from the Latin ‘scrinium’, or a ‘case or chest for books or papers’, and from Old French: 'escrin', a ‘box or case’. It carries the sense of something precious, set apart. As for ‘altar’, Old English originally had various spellings alter, altar, but finally ‘altar’ may have been influenced by the French ‘autel’, from Latin words 'altare' (high) meaning podium or stage and ‘adolere’, to adore, in the sense of worship, honouring, and offering sacrifices to something beyond ourselves. These are places set apart. This is holy, sacred space dedicated to a particular energy or purpose, even if that purpose is simply to create a little pool of peace and beauty in an often manic word, a place where, when our eyes fall on it, we remember that there is more than this. Shrines keep us awake. They are a place to breathe. 

Shrines are found in many of the world's religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Paganism, and in many different settings, such as churches, temples, cemeteries, and in homes. For example, small household shrines are very common among the people of South and Southeast Asia, whether Hindu, Buddhist or Christian. Usually a small lamp and small offerings are kept daily by the shrine. Buddhist household shrines must be on a shelf above the head; Chinese shrines must stand directly on the floor. And it is true that one of the first decisions to make when creating a shrine or altar is where we might put it, especially in a busy home where we may have little space.

When I began making my own altars at home I made sure that they had a table of their own and they took up a central position in wherever I might be. Now that I share a home with another person I make my decision about altar placement in a different way. I create altars everywhere; they can be as simple as a vase of flowers or a collection of favourite stones, but my main seasonal altar is along one side of our kitchen worktop. That was a completely practical decision when I began; that’s where the space was, but now I find that I like having my altar in the kitchen. The kitchen was, and is, after all the first altar. But I also make altars when I travel; on bedside tables or on desks, when I give talks, as I sometimes do, I try always to have the simplest of altars beside me. They remind me who I am and why I'm doing something the scares me.

For me, my altar is my anchor, the place that I spin out from into the everyday world. There have been times in my life when I have neglected my altar, failed to change it with the seasons, and let it gather dust. I know that whenever this has happened something in me, and in my home, has died. My altar is also my hearth, the place where I warm myself when the world feels cold. It matters to keep the flame there alive. This reminds me of a story I once heard of an old woman in the Scottish Highlands who had lived in her tiny croft since she was a small girl, always refusing to move, despite much cajoling. One day, she suddenly declared that she was ready to go and happily moved into a more modern home. When she was asked why she had unexpectedly decided to leave her croft she simply answered, “the fire went out’, and so it is with our altars. We need to keep them alive.

So, once we have found our place, which can be as small as a shelf or a windowsill, how might we go about creating the shrine itself, how do we make it a place set apart? I’m sure that there are as many different ways as there are people making altars but for me they begin in two ways. I either have something very deliberate in mind and gather objects that fit, or I might create an altar more intuitively, not being quite sure why something has been chosen but allowing that understanding to unfold as my relationship with that particular altar unfolds. We can begin simply. In the case of the Plant Spirit Challenge, perhaps with something as simple as the plant we are working with itself, a few leaves, or an image if the plant is impractical for the space. Perhaps a candle, or some crystals around the pot. We might think about what colours we associate with our plant and add an altar cloth in that colour. We might ask the plant what colour cloth s/he would like. This is a co-creation after all. We are calling spirit in. It doesn’t have to be complicated, only real.

It has been a deep journey for me with Lilac, the plant I chose to walk with for this challenge, and that journey is still unfolding. It feels that my altar is the same; a movement, a work in progress. It began very simply with a vase of lilacs, a beeswax candle, and a carved orb depicting spring flowers. I added a photo of myself when I was quite young looking angrily at the camera. I like the energy in that photo and it holds something of the me I hope to reclaim, remembering that lilac likes to live close to humanity but to be left to grow wild. I think that the little girl in that photo wanted much the same thing. I added hare statues and images for the same wildness of spirit. I am letting the relationship between lilac and hare unfold. 

Since this beginning I have added the lilac leaf print I made for the art day of the challenge, the jar of honey gin and lilac elixir I made, and a tiny bottle of gin containing the lucky five petalled lilac flowers I’ve found on the lilacs I’ve brought in to the house. I have added amethysts for their lovely lilac colour and aventurine for the green. Underneath all of this are two doilies passed on to me from my Grandmother. I like this foundation in my motherline. I feel the pulsing of ancestral blood in my tiny corner of sacred space. I remember them there.

And once we have our altar, what then? I say, let's trust ourselves. We will know what to do. This is liminal space. There is no one here but us and love. But we might choose to place objects there, such as my elixir, to soak in the sacred. We might also make offerings. The time that we choose to take in tending our altars is an offering in itself, but we might also burn incense, chant or sing, offer words of poetry or prayer. This is our own little door to sacred space; a place to focus and to dream. And we just can’t get it wrong.

References: 

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

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