Two Poems for Advent ~ Celtic Advent Day 24

Photo: Snowberries, Jacqueline Durban 

Maggie Jackson began writing Advent poetry as a way to focus on the deeper meaning of the season and to not become drawn into the ever-increasing commercialism of Christmas; a poem a day reflecting on happenings in her own life, events in the news, and daily Bible readings.

I have chosen two of her poems to share and love how beautifully nature weaves through her words in a way that is by turns bleak and warming, much like the season of Advent itself.

ADVENT by Maggie Jackson

Wednesday, December 2nd

Red roses
late pruned
watched by
redwing who
eats
bright rowan
berries

                       Votes are cast for bombs
                       words are hurled in
                       Westminster
                       ‘sorry’ is not one


                                              People are hungry
                                              loaves and fishes
                                              feed the crowd
                                              seven baskets full

                                              Matthew 15:29-37


Sunday, November 29th

It was the wildest of days.
Gales and torrents of rain.
The road turned to river.
No-one passed by.
The rowan flung down the
last of its berries.

I kept watch all morning,
straining to hear the clunk
of the rusting latch and
footsteps running to the door,
the family arriving
in spite of the storm.

I kept watch all day,
hearing only the screaming wind.
Yet no-one passed by,
no-one sought shelter.
Had I got the wrong day, or time?
Was it all too late, or too soon?

I had kept watch all year.
Too much to hope for, perhaps,
that the travellers should stop here.
But, as I turned from the window,
a blackbird perched on
the gate-post, unruffled
by the storm, so still,
as if carved from stone,
waiting, guarding the path,
ready to greet with song
the bearers of the fledgling God
who chooses to enter my home.

Maggie Jackson

Find more of Maggie Jackson's Advent poetry at www.livingspirit.org.uk

Defiance in the Dark ~ Gaudete Sunday for Celtic Advent Day 23

The third candle has been lit on our Advent Crown and the light is quietly increasing, although it may feel to many of us that the darkness has deepened since last I wrote.

The UK general election results have left many reeling and deep in grief, and I am amongst them. I have tried to write, and have several half finished pieces to share, but often I am rendered wordless by events or am trying to manage in my own ineffectual way the distress ebbing and flowing here in the hedgehermitage since the vote took place. My husband, who has Asperger's and has already had most of his support from our Government removed and who is currently in the midst of yet another assessment process, is overloaded and overwhelmed. I feel for those, and there are many, who are much less well off than we are.

And so, I breathe deeply as I write that this week's candle, the third of Advent, was dedicated to Gaudete Sunday and to joy.

Gaudete Sunday takes its name from the Latin word 'gaudete', 'Rejoice'.  Some of us may be familiar with the word from the song of the same name by Steeleye Span.

Ever so lovely.

Gaudete in Domino semper: 
iterum dico, gaudete. 
Modestia vestra nota sit 
omnibus hominibus: 
Dominus enim prope est. 
Nihil solliciti sitis: 
sed in omni oratione et 
obsecratione cum gratiarum 
actione petitiones vestræ 
innotescant apud Deum. 
Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: 
avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; 
again I say, rejoice.
Let your forbearance be known to all,
for the Lord is near at hand;
have no anxiety about anything,
but in all things,
by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving,
let your requests be known to God.
Lord, you have blessed your land;
you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.

Philippians 4:4–6; Psalm 85 (84):1

This reminds me of Mary's fierce and revolutionary song, the 'Magnificat', which was the first thing I thought to write about as the Election results came in; 'He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.' These songs are not an inventory of what IS but a call to what will BE. Here, is Paul's own song in the face of suffering, written to the Philippians as he awaited sentencing and certain execution at the hands of the Roman Empire; 'Rejoice in the Lord, always'. Not their Lord, of power over and might; OURS, the Peasant King of the World Turned Upside Down. Or, as our priest Eileen described it yesterday, "the upside down world of justice and joy." To find joy, to be joyful in the midst of despair, this too is the Resistance. And that is what Advent is all about.

Theologian Henri Nouwen described the difference between joy and happiness by explaining that happiness relies on external conditions but that joy is knowing that we are held in absolute love and that nothing can take that away. I'm not sure that many of us feel secure in being held in absolute love, despite it being true, but I do agree with Henri Nouwen that joy can be present in the saddest of times. This is what Small Beauties, which I have written about many times before, teach us; that circumstances may sit on us like a dark and increasingly stormy cloud but, every now and again, the sun will come out and we will glimpse wonders.

Last Saturday, still feeling tearful, heartbroken, and raw, I ventured out as I had promised to deliver some leaflets about lovely Christmas happenings. I didn't want to go but I made myself because I had promised. This is anothet reason why community and respobsibility matter; they force us out when we might otherwise curl in ourselves and perhaps never fully reemerge. And so I went out and I did experience moments of joy.

I found that the Goat Willow down the roadhas new leaf buds, I found a newly-revealed-by-winter bird's nest, the bare-branch trees were beautiful against the winter sky, Solid Dennis, our cat companion, found a new sitting place, I played pee-bo in church with a toddler who was fascinated by my bindi and flower hat, I found a quince bush, I received a surprise gift in the post, our new giant bag of bird seed arrived, and our garden was visited by the Mac Gwylan herring gulls who nest on our roof and a stunning magpie.

Some of this weekend's small beauties & moments of joy

And all these things delighted me, even the trees despite them being the only few survivors of a new housing development.  Or perhaps, because of. In this complicated and complex world we often discount what's beautiful, what brings us joy and hope. We so quickly move to, "yes, but....". We don't need escapism or false positivity but we do need moments of joy. They are respite and food for the long journey to justice. To me these little joys are fleeting but perfect moments of connection to the spark of Creation when everything else falls away. We need those.

And respite is just what Gaudete Sunday is all about. As I have written before, following an older tide, Advent once echoed the fasting and austerity of Lent and, like Lent, lasted for forty days, beginning at Martinmas on 11th November. This was known as 'St Martin's Lent', a name by which it was known from at least the 5th Century.

In the 9th Century, Advent was reduced to the more familiar four weeks (or four Sundays) but remained a time of repentance and fasting. Gaudete Sunday, like Laetare Sunday in Lent, falls halfway through this time and is an opportunity to celebrate the closeness of Christmas Day without the accompanying austere practices. There is only so much that people are willing to take! I also recall that there are several made up saints' days during Advent as further excuses for frivolity.

I have long maintained that spring, not winter, is the season for self-denial and gentle fasting and the efforts of our ancestors to find reason for a knees up during Advent is further proof of that.

And so, Gaudete Sunday has opened us into a week of joy in the midst of deep despair for many. This is perfect Advent work; not to suggest that life is easy, but to accept the challenge of finding sweetness in the sour, to affirm that the 'upside down world of justice and joy' is a reality whose time will come, despite the evidence of injustice and sadness all around us, and to be defiant against the dark.

Christingle at St Martin's 1,000 year church

References:

Gaudete Sunday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete_Sunday

Laetare Sunday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetare_Sunday

Phillipians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Philippians

Margaret of the Fox Earth ~ Celtic Advent Day 22

               Painting of Margaret of the Fox Earth by Marie Roberts

         used with the permission of the artist.

In my sharing for Celtic Advent Day 21 I mentioned that I would like to write about the 'Desert Mothers & Fathers' indigenous to these Isles; contemplatives living in solitude, not in deserts, but in woods, valleys, and caves, on mountains, islands, and wild shores. My first, is Margaret of the Fox Earth, who I discovered through artist Marie Roberts, whose beautiful picture of her accompanies this post.

Margaret of the Fox Earth, or Meg O' Fox Holes, was a real person who is reputed to have lived a solitary existence in the cave dwellings of Kinver Edge, on the border between Worcestershire and Staffordshire during the 17th Century.

Whilst others lived there in community (continuing into the 1960s), Margaret's cave, known as Nanny's Cave or Rock, was set apart, obscured by woodland. She may have been a witch, or a Christian hermit, or both; our own Desert Mother, but very little is known about her.

What we do know is that there is an entry in Parish records telling us that a 'Margaret-of-the-Fox-Earth' died there on 8th June, 1617. The Pendle witch trials took place in Lancashire in 1612. We can only imagine the times that Margaret lived through and why she chose to take flight.

This poem is my imagining of who Meg O' Fox Holes was, and is.


Margaret of the Fox Earth (for Marie)


Still whispered within the sound
of the Severn Bore,
where silver salmon sister
shoals & shines.
Still rippled in the ebbs & eddies
of the Tame,
where moon-led elver mother
flows & folds for home.
Still settled in the soil of Shatterford,
where brother badger buries
stories to be mined.
She’s worn into the sandstone of the cave,
has tied her memory to the tides of time.

If it hadn't been for the fox-fire
in her eyes
she might have stayed,
made dry as dust by care,
but the flash of amber
gave her light away,
her feet too sure,
wild thyme between her toes.
Where she's gone to ground
only the nettle knows.

For she has taken flight on heel & paw,
armfuls of yarrow for her company,
with fly agaric blazing in her tracks,
has come to hunt the breath
that rises deep within the tree,
has shifted shape from prose to poetry.

She sniffed the changes coming on the breeze,
her ears, the threat held in Sunday bells,
the witch tree hanging with its rotten fruit,
found shelter in the seam of history.
Her non-conformity; her heresy.
Four-legged, she seeks her immortality
in the wilding hearts of women breaking free.

Briar roses twine the witching of her prayer.
Between her skirts the wilding apples grow,
distasteful to the ken of tamer tongue,
& blackthorn tears her skin to scar her sloe.

From Wyre to wild, Wren's Nest to Wenlock Edge,
From Kinver Fort to Drakelow’s dragon’s mound,
her echo prayer a howl on frost-fire nights,
to light, and life, and land her spirit's bound.

A living landscape shimmers in her wake.
And adders warp & weft her footstep's fall.
A mycelial map mirroring her veins,
that pulse with feral blood to drum her whole.
Four hundred years & still she is not old.

And, still, she's raw and ragged,
rag and hag,
is dancing autumn leaves that
spin the scarp,
Has skittered on the scree,
Her teeth are sharp.
Comes winter-psalmed to will us to re-spark
the amber light that's dimmed in our own eye.

Remember Meg who walked the vixen way,
fox made woman, woman-fox made whole,
She's worn into the sandstone of the cave,
her pawprints leave a track across the soul.

Jacqueline Durban, Autumn 2019

Margaret's/Nanny's cave, Kinver edge. mixedreality.uk

References:

Read more about Marie's painting of Margaret, and see more of her beautiful work here

http://marieroberts.co.uk/product/margaret-of-the-fox-earth/

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

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/

And Now We Turn to Peace ~ Celtic Advent Day 20

The second Advent Candle is lit

Today was the second Sunday in Advent and so two candles are now lit on the Advent Crown at the 1,000 year church. The light is increasing in the midst of winter dark.

Last week I explored Hope. This week's theme is Peace. I must admit that, only a few days away from a General Election here in the UK, I am not feeling very peaceful and haven't got a thought in my head about what I might write. But I will trust.

On the first Sunday in Advent I wrote about an alternative set of themes for the weeks of Advent followed by contemplative Carmelite nuns. The theme of their first week was 'waiting', and for this second week of Advent, 'accepting'. It may be that in holding peace in one hand and acceptance in the other we will find a gentle path through the days to come, whatever they might hold.

As we are following the older, wilder, trackway of Celtic Advent it may be that we will find wisdom and comfort in the old saints. It comes to me that this would be the perfect week to write about St Pega of the Fens and St Caemgen, or Kevin, of the Open Hand. And we will sink into poetry, carrying with us the shining thread of hope already spun. And, next Sunday, the third candle will be lit, of that at least we can be sure.

Often at protest rallies a cry goes up, "No justice, no peace!", and it can feel that those two things are interwoven, that without the former we can never achieve the latter.  I have been inspired by the people of the Grenfell silent walk, who shout only for "justice!" for the victims and families of the horrific Grenfell fire. At the start of the walks we shouted for both but slowly they separated; peace in one hand, acceptance in the other. In this case acceptance that the path to justice is long in the midst of this, it matters to remember that to find peace in a world which seeks to unground us is also Resistance. 

In 1968, in response to the Vietnam War, Anerican novelist, poet, and environmental activist, Wendell Berry said; 

"We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them to concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations....I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war."

Nothing has changed. 

And so today I will end with one of Wendell Berry's own poems which always brings me a sense of great peace; 'The Peace of Wild Things'.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great
heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

St Blaise holy well

References:

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/

https://eu.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry

Writer Sarah Bessey is exploring the Advent themes of the Carmelite nuns on her blog at ~

https://linktr.ee/sarahbessey

A Generosity of Christmas Cake ~ Celtic Advent Day 19

Look at the beautiful Christmas cake homemade & decorated by my sister-in-law, Rebecca & given to us this week! Last year we didn't get our Christmas cake until June and a big chunk of it made its way to the Church of England General Synod, plus gained a donation for the National Fox Welfare Society. Life weaves in the strangest of ways.

And so, we are doing marvellously well this year as it isn't even Christmas yet and our cake is firmly installed in the hedgehermitage kitchen. I'm still hoping that some gets to Synod though; spreading sweetness in the corridors of power. The cake is beautifully sparkly with icing holly berries and leaves; quite, quite stunning and I know that when we cut it on Christmas Day (it was once thought unlucky to cut the cake until dawn on Christmas Eve) it will be delicious.

The history of our traditional Christmas cake is more fascinating than we might imagine. Often things become so familiar that they just ARE & we don't think about what they may once have been.

The Christmas cake was once porridge! In the 16th Century plum porridge or pottage, first written of in 1573, was eaten on Christmas Eve. This was a way to break the Advent fast before the festivities of Christmas Day. Over time the porridge oats were replaced by butter, flour, and eggs. Originally this new mix would have been boiled and it was only when richer families got home ovens that baking became possible; the boiled version becoming Christmas pudding and the baked version, Christmas cake. Dried fruit was later added, together with marzipan decorations, but this was traditionally eaten at Easter. However, with the increased availability of spices a winter version emerged; the Twelfth Night cake, with the spices symbolic of the gifts brought to the Christ child by the Magi.

Slowly the popularity of Twelfth Night cake declined, no doubt as we were 'encouraged' to make our festivities shorter and shorter and get back to work the day after Boxing Day. By the 1830s many traditions had migrated to Christmas Day and the Christmas cake went with them. By the 1870s, the cake we recognise today had developed. At this time Victorian bakers began decorating the cakes with winter snow scenes, echoing the idealised vision given to us by Charles Dickens. That is certainly a vision that's taken hold of me. In my mind, at Christmas, all children have rosy cheeks and a sprig of holly in their hats. And it always snows.

2016's Christmas cake, which was also our wedding cake!

There are several different types of Christmas cake in the British Isles, but these are generally variations on the fruit cake. One of the most popular is the Scottish style Dundee cake, made with whisky but without marzipan or icing. This gave rise to the tradition of 'feeding the cake', where alcohol is introduced to the already baked cake through small holes over several weeks (the cake having been made in November, often on Stir-up Sunday).

Not all Christmas cakes contain fruit. In Japan, Christmas cakes are covered in whipped cream and decorated with strawberries or other seasonal fruits and Christmas chocolates. In the Philippines, they are bright yellow poundcakes covered with macerated nuts. Traditionally these were fed with civet mysk, but rose or orange flower water is more often used. In Germany, the fruit bread, Stollen, known as Weinachtstollen or Christstollen, is traditional Christmas fare. In Italy, Panetonne, a sweet sourdough bread, is prepared over several days.

And, of course, there is the  Yule Cake, which is traditionally eaten in France, Belgium, French Canada (food can reveal the footsteps of Empire too!), Luxembourg, and Lebanon. The Bûche de Nöel is a light sponge cake covered with buttercream, often flavoured with chocolate, then rolled, covered in further buttercream and then streaked to resemble the bark of a tree. Yumptious scrumptious! This cake represents the wooden Yule log which has been burned for several days over Christmas in hearths across Europe since the Middle Ages. Layer upon layer of meaning and deliciousness.

I will very much look forward to tucking into our own Christmas cake, whose loveliness for me is enhanced by it being a gift created and given by family. Because, even more than food, Christmas is about generosity, sharing, and love.

Mr Radical Honeybee with 2015's Christmas cake

2016's Christmas cake, which was also our wedding cake!

References:

http://www.justlovechristmas.co.uk/history-of-christmas/history-of-christmas-traditions/christmas-cake.html

https://www.bluebellsbynicki.com/1283-2/

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

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

https://www.bakingmad.com/baking-tips/cake/how-to-feed-a-christmas-cake

Molecules of Mercy ~ Celtic Advent Day 18

Hogfather stamp

We are coming to the end of the first week of traditional Advent (with the older and wilder Celtic Advent beneath it). This week I have been writing about hope, something which feels in short supply at times. And I have mentioned my feeling that it doesn't really matter if a belief has objective reality as long as it gives us hope, or peace, or joy, and harms no one. It matters so much that we have strength for the journey. Which is why I have never quite stopped believing in Father Christmas, or believing that us believing in him makes him real at least. Because I believe in us.

There is a quote from 'Hogfather' by Terry Pratchett, who I often go to for words of wisdom. It always takes me aback with its raw and honest beauty, only faintly hidden beneath Terry Pratchett's warm and wondrous humour. This quote often makes me cry, because even on my most despairing and cynical days it touches the little spark of hope in me that never goes out, the belief that if we wish for something hard enough it will come true.

In 'Hogfather' Death tries to take the place of the eponymous Hogfather, a mythical being who seems to be a cross between Father Christmas and a Norse God. On Hogswatch Night (December 32nd), the Hogfather grants children wishes and brings them presents, and he is also responsible for the sun rising. But he has gone missing, kidnapped by a group who want to stop children believing in him, or in anything, and there are plenty of people in our own world who would love to do that. Belief is a fragile thing, and Death knows that it matters just as much as the sun rising. Both would mean the light going out. Here, Death explains to his grand-daughter, Susan, why belief matters so very, very much...

"All right," said Susan, "I'm not stupid. You're saying that humans need...fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WERE SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little ---"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same thing at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.  AND YET -Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point---?"

MY POINT EXACTLY."

(From Terry Pratchett's 'Hogfather')

And this is why it doesn't matter to me whether our belief has an objective reality.  It only matters that we believe in something. Something that tells us that life is worth living and that we can be better than we often reveal ourselves to be. As, the ever wise, Death also tells us, MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.

A few days ago I mentioned the belief of writer David Southwell, curator & recollector of Hookland that 're-enchantment is Resistance.' I am quite sure that Tery Pratchett would agree.

'Happy Hogswatch' by funkydpression

References:

Hogfather ~

Buy the book from Waterstones

Buy the DVD (I am not familiar with this seller but wanted to find an alternative to Amazon)

Quotes ~

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather

http://www.chrisjoneswriting.com/hogfather.html

On Hogfather as the best defence of Christmas

https://io9.gizmodo.com/terry-pratchetts-hogfather-is-best-defense-of-christmas-1747414176