Our Flight Through the Winter Dark ~ Celtic Advent Day 1

Image: 'Nights of Reindeer & Starlight' by Wood Hill.

Today has been the first day of Celtic Advent; an enfolding time of waiting for the birth of the Sun/Son at Midwinter.

There are several possible dates for Advent to begin ~ the first Sunday in December, the traditional church date & the beginning of the new church year, & December 1st, when we open the first door on our Advent calendars. This year both fall beautifully on the same day. 

But there is also an older tide; that of 'St Martin's Lent' or, what has become known as 'Celtic Advent', observed by the ancient church of Britain & Ireland; our 'indigenous Christianity' one might say, the one that listens, rather than imposes. This Advent is a waiting deeply woven through with the starlit winter dark, the Celtic saints, & the song of the sacred Land.

Most now keep Celtic Advent from November 15th (or the 14th eve), but 'St Martin's Lent' traditionally began at Martinmas on the 11th; a day still celebrated in some Eastern European countries as a men's festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, with the women's festival, Catterntide, on the 25th.

It's interesting that one of the symbols of St Martin, who was an ex-soldier & a protector of children & the poor, was a goose. Of which more on another day. But, for now, it's telling that in medieval times, although many celebrated Martinmas with an autumn feast, only the rich could afford a goose, with the poor dining on duck or hen.

Which is why it was such a subversive delight for the Cratchits to have a goose for Christmas Day in Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. In 1824, Dickens' father was sent to the Marchelsea prison in Southwark for a debt to a baker & Dickens was forced to leave school to work in a factory. No doubt, like many amongst us now, he had many Christmases without good cheer.

At Advent we set our minds to asking for nothing less than the rebirth of hope & justice, the World Turned Upside Down coming as a vulnerable child amongst outcasts & refugees. But, first, we make our long journey through the winter dark, trusting to starlight & our own inner flame to show us the way.

Image: 'Nights of Reindeer & Starlight' by Wood Hill.

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

Lest We Forget

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppy, 2019

Lest we forget how our hearts, courage, and decency, our love, are turned against us by those in power. 

Lest we forget that our military recruitment services deliberately target schools in deprived areas, turning a broken society to their own advantage & attracting condemnation from the UN. 

Lest we forget that, although even we don't allow those under 18 to fight in war, when they do children recruited at 16 are twice as likely to die. 

Lest we forget, as we honour the dead in the 'Pages of the Sea' that many WWI soldiers drowned in their own trenches. 

Lest we forget veteran of the conflict in Northern Ireland, David Clapson, who died alone in a diabetic coma after the Government's Austerity measures deprived him of food and the electricity needed to keep his insulin cold. 

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppies, 2019

Lest we forget the victims of Yemen, those who die in refugee boats fleeing wars not of their own making.

Lest we forget that our media is more interested in Jeremy Corbyn's coat and the size of his poppy than that our last Prime Minister was married to an arms dealer and sold weapons to oppressive regimes on our behalf.

Lest we forget that we are the second largest arms dealer in the world & that our current Prime Minister pushed for arms sales to Saudi Arabia even whilst they were using them to murder Yemeni civilians, including 140 people who were attending a funeral. 

Lest we forget that the Church of England, who speak out against war, continue to rent buildings to military conferences and have historically benefitted from investment in the arms trade. 

Lest we forget that the Royal British Legion accepts sponsorship from the UK's biggest arms company, BAE Systems, who before they merged were Armstrong & Vickers who sold arms to the Ottoman Empire. The very weapons which were turned against British soldiers in WWI. 

Lest we forget the words of Harry Patch, the last surviving WWI veteran, who died in 2009; "Politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder."

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppies (detail) 2019

Never be fooled into thinking that war is anything more than the business of the rich and powerful with the poor as collateral. There is no such thing as the 'Glorious' Dead. 

At the rising of the sun and its going down, we WILL remember them. 

Folkestone war memorial, November 2019

On What Our Children Are Telling Us ~ the Government's report on tackling childhood obesity

Foodbank collection at All Souls', Cheriton's Harvest Festival, October 2019

I have decided to post a few pieces here that, like my article on Operation Christmas Child last week, contain my immediate reaction to happenings that mean a lot to me. They might be shorter than my usual sharings, less polished, and I'm sure not entirely complete ~ there is always more to say ~ but sometimes it feels important to say something, rather than nothing at all. I have quite a long list of beautiful blog posts I would like to share but I am struggling to find the space for writing & so I hope that you will forgive me, dear reader, for these occasional, less perfect, deviations.

Today, I want to write about the Government's strategy on childhood obesity.

When I first read Prof. Dame Sally Davies' ideas about tackling childhood obesity by, for instance, banning food & drink on public transport I was niggled, then I was angry. Now I am enraged.

You can read more about it here.

Whilst I agree with her that company profits are being put before people, & that that must change, there is clear evidence from a range of studies over decades that obesity is now linked to poverty; unlike in the past when the poor were starving & the children of the rich were obese.

These studies, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Wellcome Trust, concluded that the "powerful influence of the obesogenic environment [growing up in an environment that encourages, or at least facilitates, unhealthy eating] has disproportionately affected socioeconomically disadvantaged children", and that policies to prevent childhood obesity have been "ineffectually focused". Naturally when the Mail Online reported on this study in March 2018 they resorted, as ever, to 'victim shaming', suggesting that the report blamed rising childhood obesity on cheap junk food & declining activity levels. This, of course, is an oversimplification and it seems that today's Government report follows the same pattern.

Instead of tinkering around the edges, we must address the deeper issues affecting our children. Instead of reinforcing the age-old stereotype that the 'lower classes' need the kind, paternal hand of the 'upper classes' & Gvt to control ourselves, that we are some how more at the mercy of our baser instincts, maybe some thought needs to go into changing the fact that the well off are now growing 'fat' on the misery of the poor; if not physically then certainly in terms of wealth & power.

I have seen many people today, rightly, rejecting the recommendations in this new report whilst suggesting that parents need to be educated in how to feed their children healthy food, particularly on a budget. Whilst, I agree that we can all learn more about how best to care for our bodies, I reject the insidious and internalised blame masquerading as care which is thinly veiled beneath these, no doubt well meaning, comments.

In feeding ourselves and our children we cannot, and must not, discount the anxiety, lowering of self-esteem, and all-pervading depression, caused by decades of Conservative rule. The people feeding their own children now are the children of the children of Margaret Thatcher's brutal Government. So many of us knew that this would happen, have been screaming it into the wind. And depression spreads like poison in the blood. If adults are desperately unhappy, their children, through no fault of the parent or the child, live in a cloud of despair. Who wouldn't reach for a sugary or buttery treat?

And even without the depression, many parents are forced to take several jobs to make ends meet, working long hours, & so unable to cook for their children, sometimes even then compelled to use foodbanks.

Several years ago I read a horrifying report that food which needed to be cooked was being returned to foodbanks because some couldn't pay their gas/electricity bills & so were unable to cook at all. Whilst I accept that this may not affect large numbers of people (and it should be none at all), how easy would it be to make good & healthy food choices whilst living like that? And, of course, working long hours makes us desperately tired and more likely to reach for the quick energy-hit of sugar.

And then there is our disconnection from the outdoors, an issue which disproportionately affects children from low income and BAME households; so many playing fields sold off & built on, so much woodland and other open space lost to development in the name of greed. And we are encouraged not to care, to self-medicate with television and cheap snacks  ~ and, by the way, making the cheap snacks more expensive, as suggested in this report, only makes people poorer. There is no suggestion that healthy food should be made cheaper! ~ And, of course, even if children do have open spaces around them, their parents are often too tired or despairing, or just too busy working, to take them out, and we are so threaded through with fear by the media that many children never go out alone. 

And that disconnection; the loss of even wanting to be out, or being too afraid, of being tied to computer screens & televisions, of not knowing about the world of wonder, & messiness, & play to be found outside. I weep for our children and for all the 'Lost Words', whose loss has lessened the wonder.

I have worked as a counsellor with primary school children, mostly boys and mostly from poor families. They aren't lazy. They don't want to live on snacks. What they mostly want to do is play football or just run about. Instead, we make them sit still in classrooms, putting more and more pressure on them younger and younger to perform, to succeed, but only to succeed within the narrow parameters we have chosen for them to be of use in the world of work. No wonder that they eat.

This is the world that we have made. Looking at the most shallow level ~ the symptom, not the cure ~ won't mend it. We have to start thinking of ourselves, both as individuals & our society, as an ecosystem, a web of interconnections & relationships, & our ecosystem is dying. Our children are telling us that. It's up to us to make the system healthy again; but not with rules & petty blame, but with care, intelligence, and love.

And I am still in a rage. We all should be. How dare they talk about our children in this way!?

References:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/time-to-solve-childhood-obesity-cmo-special-report

https://theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/10/childrens-health-england-must-be-put-ahead-of-profits-says-chief-medic

https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/children-poorer-backgrounds-more-affected-rise-childhood-obesity/

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2018/mar/01/improving-childrens-access-nature-addressing-inequality-bame-low-income-backgrounds

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/may/21/how-can-we-get-our-children-playing-outside-again

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/oxford-junior-dictionary-replacement-natural-words

https://heated.medium.com/weve-sold-the-definition-of-food-42062e6c4a14

On Operation Christmas Child; Colonialism Masquerading as Charity

Earlier today I met a stunning Ichneumon wasp & deep-hearted & wise Birch Moon Wisdom on Instagram commented that wasp medicine is afoot. I agree! On so many levels, now that I have almost recovered from how beautiful she was, my meeting with her was significant, but perhaps more of that soon. In the meantime, I am reminded that several times in my life I have been accused of being 'waspish', that insult which is so often cast at women who speak their minds. And this week I have had to speak my mind in a way which I'm sure was unwelcome, & that's where I come to the angel because this was about Christmas.

In the 1,000 year church last Sunday we were given a talk on Operation Christmas Child, whose parent organisation is Samaritan's Purse, a US Evangelical Christian group which provides disaster relief throughout the world.

Operation Christmas Child organises thousands upon thousands of shoeboxes to be filled with Christmas gifts by well meaning people, including in our schools and churches, & then distributed to children who have been affected by war, famine, poverty, disease, & natural disasters. Since 1990, more than 168 million children in over 160 countries have been given shoeboxes; an astounding feat. It sounds so lovely, so kind, & in this complex & bewildering world we so need things that are kind. But truly Operation Christmas Child isn't kind or lovely at all. 

Firstly, Operation Christmas Child is evangelical, hoping to convert children & their families to Christianity; the sort of Christianity that voted Donald Trump into the White House & believes him to be doing 'God's work'. Ironic then that this organisation which professes to care for children supports a man who has overseen the removal of migrant children from their families, the deportation of parents whilst their children were at school through ICE, & the incarceration of children at the border with Mexico. Whether evangelism itself is a good thing might be debated (I say not) but evangelism of this nature; fundamentalist & done by offering shiny gifts to vulnerable children who are first obliged to attend a 'prayer meeting' is beyond both religious & human decency. And it could so easily be argued that the inequality of power in that exchange makes it almost impossible for any conversion to be freely arrived at. As one commentator said, "You have desperate people and you have someone who has food in one hand and a Bible in the other."

In addition, the president of Samaritan's Purse is US evangelist, Franklin Graham who has been accused many times of hate speech & who was quoted in last Sunday's talk. Indeed it was that that made me investigate the organisation more deeply. 

Franklin Graham has spoken out against LGBT rights & in favour of conversion therapy, he supported the Iraq war & most definitely supports Donald Trump. Furthermore, he considers Islam to be "evil and wicked" & has said that Muslims should not be allowed to enter the US. It is ironic that his own organisation is named after the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story about overcoming bigotry towards those we consider 'other'. That is certainly not something that Franklin Graham is able to do. And, in addition, he is the highest paid CEO in the charity sector in the US. It must be hard indeed to consider the opinions of others when you can't hear them over the rattling of your own money.

In short, Operation Christmas Child benefits financially & otherwise from the continuation of war & injustice; a worldly system of greed openly supported by their president. You cannot provide 'relief' to the victims of war with one hand whilst cheerleading for it with the other. 

And this is certainly not the teaching of Jesus, a radical preacher in an occupied land who spoke out against injustice in all its forms. We must remember that he was murdered by the forces of Imperialism, and Operation Christmas Child is Imperialism in action; self-soothing by offering shallow charity, whilst ignoring, feeding, & even benefitting from, the deeper roots of injustice. Chillingly, Revd. Giles Fraser points out that US evangelism "systematically confuses the kingdom of God with the US's burgeoning empire. It is no coincidence that the mission fields most favoured by US evangelicals are also the targets of neo-conservative military ambition." And, of course, the more children and adults in distress, the more money Franklin Graham & Samaritan's Purse makes, and the more opportunities they have to create compliant & reliant Christians. This is the most terrible face of Christianity, and of any religion. 

Indeed, this is not truly Christianity at all. To follow Christ is to be counter-cultural, to demand the 'world turned upside down', to 'do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly' (Micah 6:8), or to do our best to at least. Operation Christmas Child/Samaritan's Purse is none of these. It is thinly disguised Colonialism by another name, and it preys on well meaning people, including my kind friend at church, who wish to share their prosperity with those who are less fortunate to spread its poison.

I am pleased to say that several organisations in the UK no longer support Operation Christmas Child by allowing their premises to be used as collection points. These include, Oxfam, the South Wales Fire Service, DHL, the Inland Revenue, & the Co-op. Surely our churches and our schools must do the same.

If we are to survive these times we must be better than this. We have to have difficult conversations, look and think more deeply, speak out; even if that means being considered 'waspish', be willing to listen and to change, sometimes to give up what we had held as good and precious and kind. And we have to transcend the attitude that tells us that a few plastic gifts in a shoebox makes up for hundreds upon hundreds of years of systematic exploitation and oppression. Then we might truly be doing God's work.

But, until we do, Christ have mercy.

There are several fine, Christian and otherwise, alternatives to Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Here are a few that I've been told about. Please let me know if you know of others.

https://linktohope.co.uk/shoebox-appeal-2019 ~ provides shoeboxes to families & the elderly to those in need in Eastern Europe

https://www.msrm.org.uk/liab.html ~ a Mustard Seed Initiative supporting children in Eastern Europe 

https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/the-backpack-project ~ a year round initiative to fill a backpack with everything children in Malawi need for school; clothes, art materials etc

References:

http://emilyjoypoetry.com/7-reasons-not-to-participate-in-operation-christmas-child-this-year   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan%27s_Purse#Controversy   http://humanistlife.org.uk/2015/10/14/why-parents-shouldnt-support-operation-christmas-child/   https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/news-opinion/truth-behind-your-childs-operation-854545   https://baptistnews.com/article/10-alternatives-operation-christmas-child/   https://baptistnews.com/article/stuffing-shoe-boxes-for-the-worlds-poor-maybe-you-should-reconsider/#.WbXydbJ96M8   https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/humanism-today/humanists-doing/good-causes-and-charities/samaritans-purse/   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/jan/15/fundraising.guardiansocietysupplement   https://sites.google.com/site/occalert/   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/10/religion.society   https://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/10/operation-christmas-childs-shoebox-campaign-just-propaganda-tool-christianity   http://www.inminds.com/occ.html   https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/news-opinion/wont-donating-christmas-charity-shoebox-13796645   https://www.secularism.org.uk/charities/operation-christmas-child.html   https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2014/11/  

And so we come to Lammastide

Yarrow, July 2019

 A very happy new moon and Lammas to us all!

These seasonal celebrations of Midsummer and Lammas are especially tender, carrying within them, even as the sun feels to be at its height, the whispers of the waning of the year. I love those days when we can feel, almost beyond our surface consciousness, that the year is turning, that soon it will be autumn and time to turn to the dark. I imagine that this is how wild beings, both plants and animals, live; completely present in the moment but with an awareness beyond awareness of what is coming. We often mourn that we have lost that perception but I'm not sure that it's true. Perhaps we have just lost our ability to notice what our skin is sensing? Our disconnection, from ourselves and from the earth is great, but both these festivals of high summer offer us an opportunity to reconnect & remember; to learn again to taste the dark on our tongues.


There is a sadness that these days of grace carry with them, that we are somehow losing something. But, of course, the same awareness that tells us that frost is coming and that the dark is gaining a hold also tells us at Midwinter and Imbolc that the light is returning and that the promise of the first flowers of spring are just under the surface of the cold earth. This is where we find our hope. If we are wise, we walk always with both grief and gratitude in our pockets, because this is Life.

And so, we come to the time of the first harvest, of gathering in, & of beginning to contemplate what has been lost and gained since the first shoots grew as we turned to the light. Lammas, an Anglo-Saxon, & perhaps earlier, festival whose name comes from the Old English hlaf, 'loaf' and mæsse, 'mass', may have been the day when loaves of bread were taken to church to be blessed. For the Anglo-Saxons, harvest and the coming of autumn were the same thing, hence the beautiful 10th Century verse which tells us that;

"And after seven nights
of summer's brightness Weed-month slips
into the dwellings; everywhere August brings
to peoples of the earth Lammas Day. So autumn comes,
after that number of nights but one,
bright, laden with fruits. Plenty is revealed,
beautiful upon the earth."

Lammas grassses, July 2019

And, as for loss and hope, it is good to contemplate that there is such a thing as ‘Lammas growth’; the name given to the habit of some trees, such as oak, ash, beech, and hawthorn, to experience a period of renewed growth and tender spring-like green leaves at Lammastide. It’s thought that they do this to compensate for leaf damage due to insect activity in the spring; yet another example from the wild that loss can be harnessed to provide energy for the new. Life with death, death within life. Always.

And so we are turning to the dark and I am beginning to contemplate my own harvest. It has been a hard year in many ways and I will spend these days breathing into what I had hoped might grow and hasn’t, but I am also aware that I am entering this season much stronger than I was as the light came in; then I was full of hope but I had not properly prepared the ground in which those hopes would grow. Now I feel that much has been ‘dug over, and that I will plant more carefully and with more possibility of success. I put much of this down to my ever-deepening relationship with the green people, especially my journeys with the Lilac Being in May and with Blackberry in June. I am looking forward to exploring the ways in which Mugwort and Yarrow will support me in working with my boundaries; something which I desperately need. It is all such magic! I wasn’t consciously aware that I needed them but they have certainly brought me back to myself in the most magical of ways and I am quite in awe of the threads that were woven between the wild green and my knowing-beyond-knowing to make that happen. This season my harvest will be trust and I am grateful.

Ragwort & Yarrow, July 2019

Anglo-Saxon poem and Lammas inspiration to be found at:

https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-little-history-of-lammas.html

And my favourite Lammas thing; ‘This is a Prayer for the Resistance’ can be found at:

https://hecatedemeter.wordpress.com/2017/07/27/this-is-a-prayer-for-lughnasadh-this-is-a-prayer-for-the-resistance/

Long Man of Wilmington, Lammas 2014

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