Stirring up Cattern Cakes & Community ~ for Celtic Advent.

The Sunday before ‘Church Advent’ begins is always Stir-Up Sunday, and this year that fell on 22nd November. I wrote all about Stir-Up Sunday last year and you can read that post here if you would like to. 

Stir-up Sunday, which has become associated with the making of Christmas puddings and cakes, in fact takes its name from the opening words of the collect of the day in the 1594 edition of the ‘Book of Common Prayer’; ‘collect’ being the name for a short prayer that gathers up the theme for a particular day in the Christian liturgy; 

“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” 

Medievalist Eleanor Parker, who writes as ‘A Clerk of Oxford’, tells us that “Several Advent collects begin with the Latin verb 'excita', which means 'rouse, excite, stimulate'. The translation 'stir up' has a nice energy about it, but a medieval English prayer offers the translation 'Egg' (as in 'egg on'), which also has a pleasing culinary flavour…” 

Indeed, a translation of an Advent collect from Worcester Cathedral begins, “Egg our hearts, Lord of Might”, which brings us beautifully to another meaning of ‘Stir-Up Sunday.” 

Because the ‘stir-up’ prayer came with the specification that it "shall always be used upon the Sunday next before Advent”, and, as most Christmas pudding recipes require the pudding to be kept for several weeks to mature before eating, it acted as a fine reminder that the time had come for pudding making; which certainly brings a different meaning to ‘bringing forth the fruit of good works’! 

And there were other interpretations of the day too. Victorian schoolboys, who were excited by the thought of the imminent Christmas holidays, took the day as an invitation to ‘stir it up’ by pinching and poking one another. We are told that ‘Crib Crust Monday’ and ‘Tug Button Tuesday’ offered similar opportunities to the rosy-cheeked schoolboy, with ‘Pay-off Wednesday’ being the day to repay small grudges in playful fashion! 

The Sunday before Advent is now more usually celebrated as ‘The Feast of Christ the King’, which was first celebrated in 1925, and so I thought that I would share this poem by Malcolm Guite, which warns us against the consumerism so deeply woven into the modern lead-up to Christmas; 

Christ the King 

Matthew 25: 31-46 

Our King is calling from the hungry furrows 

Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty, 

Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows, 

Our soundtracks drown his murmur: ‘I am thirsty’. 

He stands in line to sign in as a stranger 

And seek a welcome from the world he made, 

We see him only as a threat, a danger, 

He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead. 

And if he should fall sick then we take care 

That he does not infect our private health, 

We lock him in the prisons of our fear 

Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth. 

But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing 

The praises of our hidden Lord and King.

(Malcolm Guite) 

As an antidote to that consumerism Stir-Up Sunday invites us to gather with our families around the kitchen table and stir wishes into sweet puddings and cakes. That many of us are unable to do that this year even if we should want to is difficult indeed. 

Last year, I ended my blog on Stir-Up Sunday with a promise to invite my neighbours to the hedgehermitage kitchen this year to stir our pudding mix. But, of course, that too has not been possible with Covid-19 so present in our every day. Imagine then my delight when I visited the gathering place of the Little Church of Love of the World community (of which more on another day), the Wild Goose Collective, on the evening of Stir-Up Sunday to find an array of sharings informing me that many of our number had taken the opportunity to bake Cattern cakes, the traditional food of Catterntide, which falls on 25th November. As I had been doing the same, and as Catterntide is almost with us. I thought that I would share my recipe for Cattern cakes, which is based on an almost unchanged Tudor recipe and comes from the legendary ‘Cattern Cakes and Lace: Calendar of Feasts' by Julia Jones and Barbara Deer. 

This is my third year of making them and they are always delicious. You can read about last year’s Cattern cake-making adventure here. 

As last year, I recommend the use of an ancestral 1970s apron and gorgeously garish carboot sale rolling pin, but if you don’t have those you can proceed with what you have. Cattern cake recipes are very forgiving.

Here's the recipe. 

Ingredients: 

9oz self-raising flour (sieved) 

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon ~ I use 2 tsp and add some more later on, but I do have a great love of cinnamon. I advise bold experimentation. 

2oz currants 

2oz ground almonds 

2 tsp caraway seeds ~ or, as with the cinnamon, add a bit more. 

6oz caster sugar 

4oz melted butter 

1 medium egg, beaten 

Extra sugar & cinnamon for sprinkling

The recipe can be easily adapted for different dietary requirements. For example, Jan Blencowe of the Wild Goose Collective swapped the self-raising flour for Paleo flour with a heaped tsp of baking powder, substituted flaked almonds for the ground almonds, and used powdered stevia rather than caster sugar.

Method: 

Sieve the flour into a bowl and mix in all the other dried ingredients. 

Add the melted butter & beaten egg and mix to form a soft dough. I also added a tiny bit of warm water. 

Don't forget to lick the spoon!

Roll the dough out on a floured surface until you have a rectangle, approx 10 x 12 inches. 

Brush the rolled out dough with water and then sprinkle with cinnamon (lots!) and sugar. 

Gently roll, as you might for a swiss roll. It doesn't need to be too tight. 

Cut into approx 2cm wide slices and pop on a baking tray, leaving space in between to allow them to spread a little. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°c/Gas Mark 6 for about 10 minutes, or until golden and crispy on the top. Mine took about 25 minutes! Bask in the loveliness as your house fills with the smell of spices and good things. 

Remove your cakes from the oven & pop on a wire rack to cool. You can sprinkle on some more caraway seeds at this point, and even more sugar & cinnamon if liked. 

Once cool, they can be stored in an airtight container for up to 7 days but I can almost guarantee that they won’t last that long. Although I made a large batch of Cattern cakes on Stir-Up Sunday I have already had to make more so that I have some for Cattern Day on Wednesday! 

Traditionally, these cakes would be enjoyed with a 'hot pot' mixture of rum, beer, and eggs, but, so far at least, we have stuck to tea here in the hedgehermitage. Absolutely lovely too. 

Do let me know if you decide to make them.

As for stirring wishes into the mix, this Stir-Up Sunday I chose wishes for creativity,  community, love, and fierce resistance to the dying of the Light. In the year ahead I will do all I can to make sure that my wishes come true.

Good Company for the Journey; a resource list for Old Advent (updated for 2021)

'Follow the Star' (Virginia Wieringa)

For an updated Old Advent Resources list for 2022, and on, please pop along to my new blog at  https://beedurban.substack.com/p/good-company-for-the-journey-a-resource

One of the possible challenges of following Old Advent is that, although we are riding on an ancient tide, we may not feel the sense of shared experience that waiting for the beginning of ‘Church Advent’ with its four traditional Sundays would bring. I like to celebrate both but I very much value the two weeks of sinking into the stillness of the winter dark before the first candle is lit on the Advent Wreath, and I love having the freedom to create my own traditions during this time. It matters so much that we learn to trust ourselves and our own intuition outside the more defined structure of institutional religion. We are waiting for a wilder God, and so we too are invited to find our little fragment of wild.  

Nevertheless, it is lovely indeed to have resources to go to on days when we might feel disconnected or uninspired, or when we just feel like settling down with a cup of tea and good company. And I am endlessly curious about the ways in which others weave their own journeys with the sacred. Because of that I have gathered together some resources, both in print and online, that we might choose to explore. 

The first book is ‘Celtic Advent: 40 Days of Devotions to Christmas’ by David Cole. A former full-time church minister, David Cole is an international teacher and retreat leader, as well as the Deputy Guardian for the Community of Aidan and Hilda. He writes from the perspective of Celtic Christianity and this book explores the ‘three comings of Christ’, which are believed to have been traditional reflections within the Celtic church in the winter season. These are the incarnation of Christ, the coming of Christ into ourselves in every moment, and the ‘second coming’ as described by the Book of Revelation. 

Each day the book offers us a short reflection on a weekly theme, a gentle action, such as a meditation, for example, following the flow of knotwork and swirls on a page from 'The Book of Kells', or questions to ask ourselves, that we might take to deepen our Advent journey. We are also provided with a Bible reading and a short prayer. Many of the days draw their inspiration from the lives of the Celtic saints, who are an endless source of encouragement and delight. 

Another book providing daily readings, although not specifically for Advent, is ‘The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year’ by the ever-wonderful Caitlin Matthews; a source of delight throughout the year. Remember, books aren’t just for Advent! 

This is a less explicitly Christian book, or not Christian at all, and so would suit those of us who don’t follow that path or like to broaden our spiritual understanding. 

We’re told that “using poetry, myths, reflections, rituals, and visualisations, [The Celtic Spirit] leads us on a year-long pilgrimage that will help connect the cycles of your soul to the circle of the seasons...Brimming with the legends and lore of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, The Celtic Spirit is a brilliant introduction to the sacred wisdom of the Celtic path ~ and a potent resource for daily spiritual renewal.” 

Ruth Burgess of the Iona Community has written books covering all the seasons and festivals in the Christian Year. Her ‘Candles and Conifers: Resources for All Saints’ and Advent’ is brimming with good things. 

We’re told that, “'Candles and Conifers' is a collection of seasonal resources ~ prayers, liturgies, poems, reflections, sermons, meditations, stories, and responses, written by Iona Community members, associates, friends and others”. It offers resources, both for groups and individuals, from All Saints’ Day to Christmas Eve and includes saints’ days, Remembrance Day, World AIDS Day, and Advent. There is even a cats’ Advent Calendar! 

In towns and villages 

In tower blocks and terraces 

Christ is waiting to be born 

In palaces and shanty-towns 

In high streets and back-streets 

Christ is waiting to be born 

In the vastness of the universe 

In the intimacy of our hearts 

Christ is waiting to be born 

Another offering from the Iona Community is ‘Doing December Differently: an Alternative Christmas Handbook’ by one of my favourite authors, Nicola Slee, together with Rosie Miles. 

The book “explores how people of faith and goodwill might mark the midwinter season and the Christmas festival with integrity and simplicity. How can we include others and celebrate difference without putting us all under intolerable strain, or perpetuating false and oppressive myths of the idea family life? 

Drawing on ancient roots but also minting fresh language, fresh gestures, fresh meanings, what rites, rituals and ceremonies might we use that are meaningful to us today to help us mark out the days and nights of this midwinter season?” 

There are chapters on family Christmases, alternative community Christmases, solitary Christmases, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Christmases, and non-Christian Christmases, amongst many others. We are provided with historical, liturgical, theological, and sociological perspectives, as well as suggestions for giftgiving and sitting with the midwinter darkness. 

There are also suggestions for Advent, such as holding an Advent Tea and some ideas for journeying through Advent with children. I particularly love Nicola Slee’s ‘alternative Advent Calendar’, which includes such sips of honeyed wisdom for our focus each day as, ‘Darkness. Tiredness. Tears’. ‘welcome laughter where it mingles with all things troubled and trembling’, ‘cynic in you, become child again’, ‘teach yourself starry-eyed wonder’, ‘rip up the Round Robin’, and ‘choose justice in place of sadness.’ Amen to all of that! 

Next, we have two poetry books; ‘Circle of Grace: a Book of Blessings for the Seasons’ by Jan Richardson and ‘A Star-filled Grace: Worship and prayer resources for Advent, Christmas & Epiphany’ by Rachel Mann. 

Jan Richardson’s book is at times almost unbearably beautiful and a great source of comfort and wisdom on the darkest of days. She tells us that, “within the struggle, joy, pain, and delight that attend our life, there is an invisible circle of grace that enfolds and encompasses us in every moment. Blessings help us to perceive this circle of grace, to find our place of belonging within it, and to receive the strength the circle holds for us.” ‘Circle of Grace’ begins with ‘Where the Light Begins: Blessings for Christmas and Advent’ and is a quiet and gentle ally in these long nights of winter; 

“...this is what 

I can ask for you. 

That in the darkness 

there be a blessing. 

That in the shadows 

there be a welcome. 

That in the night 

you be encompassed by 

the Love that knows 

your name."

Anglican priest, broadcaster, and writer, Rachel Mann, “questions the cosy and sentimental view of the festive season and takes seriously the idea that God in Christ is born as a vulnerable outsider who transforms the world in radical ways.” 

As well as poems and light and dark, and prayers, liturgies, meditations, plays, and reflections, the book includes a section on ‘voices of Advent & Nativity’ where we can hear the thoughts of Mary, Elisabeth, Joseph, a Roman soldier, a shepherd, an angel, and Herod, amongst many others. 

Saw this is the same  is a modern, often challenging, take on the Christmas story and so a valuable resource in shaking us out of our well worn and familiar furrows; 

“Zecharias (II) ~ excerpt

Luke 1: 57-80

And what is to be learned from silence? What is to be learned from listening to a different voice from the one religion tells you is true? The male voice. The voice of authority. The voice everyone imagined God used in the wilderness to command Moses.

My time in silence has taught me to cherish a different voice. A voice with another kind of authority - ancient, comprehending. A mother's voice perhaps. That knows exactly where all her children have come from. That will not sleep till she knows they are flourishing.

I have been blessed to hear that voice...

I learned to trust the quiet voice of God that does not insist, but waits for us in the silence and gives us our true voice...

For God is faithful. She is the womb of us all."

Rachel Mann’s ‘In the Bleak Midwinter: Through Advent and Christmas with Christina Rossetti’ would also be a thoughtful addition to an Advent bookshelf. 

I also heartily recommend anything by new Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, whose writing is warm, accessible, meaningful, and often funny. For this time of year, 'Let it Slow: an Advent Calendar With a Difference' is lovely.

Another printed resource is ‘Making Winter: a Creative Guide for Surviving the Winter Months’ by Emma Mitchell. 

This is a beautiful book; certainly not a specifically Advent-related offering but filled with ideas for engaging with the pulse of winter, scattered with lovely photographs taken at Emma’s cottage in the Fens. This gathering of nature-inspired crafts describes 24 projects, including silver jewellery making, paper-crafting, crocheted mittens, foraged infusions, scrumptious recipes, and nature diaries. Just lovely. 

Other bookish recommendations are: 

Walter Brueggemann, ‘Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent’ and ‘Names for the Messiah: an Advent Study’. 

Richard Rohr, ‘Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent’. 

Jane Williams, 'The Art of Advent: a Painting a Day from Advent to Epiphany’, which is absolutely lovely!

And one of my absolutely favourite Advent resources, especially for those of us who take our inspiration from nature, is ‘All Creation Waits: the Advent Mystery of New Beginnings’ by Gayle Boss with illustrations by David G. Klein, which includes portraits of twenty-four creatures, such as the black bear, the wild turkey, the little brown bat, the meadow vole, the red fox, and the honeybee, and describes the ways in which their survive the winter knowing that, “the dark is not an end, but a door.” 

Although the book is a little difficult to get here in the UK it is available on Kindle or as an audible book and you can hear a little here https://vimeo.com/181256237.

I have also gathered together a list of online resources that might be of interest. I will share more of these when I write about online Advent Calendars in the next week or so. But here are some wonderful ones for now:

The first is the yearly Celtic Advent Calendar from Contemplative Cottage, which can be found at https://contemplativecottage.com/celtic-advent-calendar/. 

You can learn more about it here https://contemplativecottage.com/2020/11/15/observing-celtic-advent-and-liturgical-time/ 

Christine Sine of ‘GodSpaceLight’ has been celebrating and writing about Celtic Advent for many years. You can read her reflections here https://godspacelight.com/2018/11/14/welcome-to-celtic-advent-set-your-heart-in-the-right-direction/ and she has also created a rather wonderful Spotify playlist for the Advent season here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/177C7QIoOAwHkY0bAjU87S?si=M92QFRasTTK-Wz1tS48IbA 

Further sharings at GodSpaceLight which might be of interest can be found at https://godspacelight.com/2020/11/16/meditation-monday-the-light-is-coming/, and https://godspacelight.com/2020/11/14/taize-style-contemplative-service-for-november-15-2020/

https://godspacelight.com/2021/11/15/waiting-with-expectant-hearts/

https://godspacelight.com/2021/11/15/meditation-monday-welcome-to-celtic-advent-once-more/

and here is another helpful resource list https://godspacelight.com/2016/07/06/celtic-resource-list-updated-for-2016/

Christine can also be found on Twitter @ChristineSine where she shares posts on the #CelticAdvent hashtag. 

John Birch at Faith & Worship also provides some beautiful Celtic-style prayers and worship resources for the seasons. His Advent offerings can be found at https://www.faithandworship.com/#gsc.tab=0 

Rev. Brenda Warren has provided a tremendous resource, 'Celts to the Creche', which provides a Celtic or Anglo-Saxon Saint for every day of Celtic (Old) Advent. You can find it here https://saintsbridge.org/

24-7 Prayer Scotland are also following Celtic Advent and have shared a blog about it here https://24-7scotland.com/songs-in-the-wasteland-birdsong/.

They have also been sharing the most beautiful Celtic Advent prayers on Twitter via @247PrayerScot; 

‘We have waited long for You.

Deep has been the darkness... 

We will not fear the shadows that surround us 

if only You will come among us! 

We await the sound of a cry in the night, 

the joy that follows pain, 

the coming of hope.’ 

- from Celtic Daily Prayer, Book Two 

I will end with some wonderful Celtic Advent sharings from Tadhg Jonathan, whose writings can be found at https://tadhgtalks.me/2017/11/04/celtic-advent-cosmic-thoughts-at-the-cafe/,https://tadhgtalks.me/2019/11/14/celtic-advent-even-more-cosmic-thoughts-at-the-magic-cafe, and https://tadhgtalks.me/2016/11/16/ephemera-its-time-to-celebrate-the-first-day-of-the-celtic-advent-season/

There really are so many resources that we could choose to dive into, and of course our challenge then is not to replace the busyness of a manic Christmas season with an equally busy Old Advent, as we try to take in far too much information. But it is also helpful to have a gathering place for such things just in case we do need them. I love all of these resources and often get out all my books and open web pages in readiness for Old Advent to begin, and then I go for a walk along the hedgerow instead. May our journeys always be led by our own deepening awareness of the beauty held in the darkness. 

May this eternal truth be always on our hearts, 

that the God who breathed this world into being, 

placed stars into the heavens, 

and designed a butterfly’s wing, 

Is the God who entrusted his life 

to the care of ordinary people. 

[He] became vulnerable that we might know 

how strong is the power of Love. 

A mystery so deep it is impossible to grasp, 

a mystery so beautiful it is impossible to ignore. 

(Poem/prayer: John Birch, http://www.faithandworship.com used Under Creative Commons Licence)

The Lightbringers ~ for Celtic Advent.

I want to use my next few Celtic Advent posts to share resources that you might enjoy and which might deepen our journey through the dark months. To begin, I can think of no better resource than 'The Lightbringers', the newest offering from author and maker of wondrous things, Karin Celestine, also known as Celestine and the Hare. 

If I could choose just one book to take with me through the dark then this would be it. It was published on 12th November, the day after Martinmas and during Diwali, the Festival of Light; quite deliberately embracing the bright hope that both these festivals hold. Each page is a meditation on darkness, carrying the light, and the importance and power of small things, all threaded through with folklore and the sweet winter song of the land. It begins; 

“The Earth breathes. 

In the summer, she breathes out and the world fills with warmth and light. She laughs and dances and the flowers spill out from her cloak. 

Folk feast on the fruits of summer and make flower crowns. They dance and light bonfires, jumping them for courage. 

When the Earth has danced and laughed till she is tired, she settles down to sleep…” 

So unfolds the story of the small creatures who “keep safe the last sparks of light deep underground”, guarding it until the seasons turn again. And of the larger, but not necessarily wiser, human creatures who light candles and Yule logs for courage in the dark, despite fearing that the light will never return. 

Of course, the Small Ones, who live closer to the pulse of things, know better than that; they gather the embers of the almost extinguished light and they begin to walk. These are the Lightbringers. 

And so we are led on the most beautiful and fragile-strong of journeys, filled with vulnerability and fierce hope; much like the one we are on as we travel through the winter, and have also been on since our collective response to Covid-19 began in the spring. I have found that ‘The Lightbringers’ has already become the most wonderful friend and I have returned to it again and again. It is the perfect book to curl up with on a wintry Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea by your side, or on a rainy night with the wind howling and rattling at the windows. It is the cosiest of companions. 

And it isn’t just the beautifully woven words within ‘The Lightbringers’ that cast such a spell. The images are also enchanting. In her guise as Celestine and the Hare, Karin creates charming felt creatures ~ faerie hares, cleaning mice, shrews on swings, puck weasels, and arctic foxes in copper coracles, as well as silver and copper charms cast from nature, and the most beautiful ‘natbagger’s boats’. All the figures in ‘The Lightbringers’ were made by Karin, and all the photographs taken by her. She really is a creative whirlwind! 

Karin's website tells us that she; 

“lives in a small house in Monmouth, Wales. In her garden there is a shed and in that shed is another world. The world of Celestine and the Hare. 

It is a place where kindness, mischief and beauty help people find the magic in the ordinary. 

Karin is an artist and author, who creates needle felted animals of charm and character, including the stars of her own delightful stop-motion animations and her series of children’s books published with Graffeg. 

Her joy in the world of nature is also reflected in her sculptural copper pieces which complement her feltwork. 

Karin runs popular needle felting workshops, inspiring others to find their creative spirit.” 

Each page of the book also includes a small hand drawn illustration linking to the season and story by Tamsin Rosewell and a short piece on winter folklore traditions by Pamela Thom-Rowe at the back. Very lovely.

Karin explained at her recent book launch that she wrote the story of 'The Lightbringers', almost spontaneously, some years ago and shared it on social media. Many people asked for their own copy and she first made it into printed cards before it evolved into a book published by small independent publishers, Graffeg

There are gently held plans for three more books to be published in this series, one for each season, and Karin’s aim in writing them is to bring the deep folklore and festivals of the land back to consciousness; a vital work in healing disconnection in both adults and children. So many of us have come so far from these older rhythms and yet they are there, just under the skin of things. It would only take a simple spell to call them back, and here are the lightbringers to do just that. I have no doubt that they will succeed. 

In her blog, which you can read here, Karin says; 

“I love the British celebrations and folklore, though so many are being lost and forgotten. How many of us now bake a Lammas loaf? Or know not to eat blackberries after Michaelmas? These ancient tales mark the turning of the year and have wisdom still relevant. No matter what else happens, the days grow darker and then the sun returns again. Flowers blossom and harvests are gathered in.” 

It feels to me that part of our journey through Advent moves around a conscious attempt to place our bellies and hearts closer to the earth. Here is an invitation to come back into alignment, and, in a world where we expect everything immediately, slow down, reclaim the sacred nature of waiting, learn patience. ‘The Lightbringers’ can help us to do that in the softest, sweetest, and gentlest of ways. There is no demand, no rule to follow, only the quiet breathing of the earth waiting for us to notice. We sit in vigil. We wait. And, sometimes, we sit down with a cup of tea to read and rest in the peace-weaving of words carrying the promise that the light with return. 

I will leave the last words to Karin, who puts it much better than I ever could; 

“The Lightbringers sprang from I don’t know where in my heart. An ancient wisdom from my ancestors perhaps. A feeling for the dark days of winter, that we need darkness. Light needs darkness to shine. We need rest, recuperation. The wisdom of the earth is one we can learn from. We are in a busy busy keep going fast track, don’t stop rush noise of a world. Doing nothing is frowned upon but really we all need rest, time to pause, like the seeds in the earth, darkness and rest before we dance again. Central heating and lighting mean we keep going all year round but our bodies often yearn for the hygge of Autumn, cuddled up by the fire.”

And here are Celtic Advent and ‘The Lightbringers’ to remind us to begin, and to stay on the path. 

Karin is a great champion of independent bookshops. If you would like a copy of ‘The Lightbringers’ then do think about ordering it directly from her at https://www.celestineandthehare.com/books or from Kenilworth Books at https://www.kenilworthbooks.co.uk/the-lightbringers/, or of course from your own local bookshop. 

In tomorrow’s blog I have further resources, both books and online, to support us in our Celtic Advent journey. 

Further reading:

https://www.celestineandthehare.com/ 

https://www.celestineandthehare.com/blog/the-lightbringers

A Wilder Advent ~ Celtic Advent, Day 1

 

We traditionally think of Advent; the preparation period for Christmas, as beginning either on 1st December when we open the first door of our Advent calendar or, if we are churchly minded, on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which this year will be on 29th November; also the beginning of the church year. But there is an older, and perhaps wilder, Advent which was marked from at least the 5th Century when Saint Perpetuus, then Bishop of Tours, directed his monks to fast three times a week from Martinmas, St Martin’s Feast Day on 11th November until Christmas Day. 

Martinmas is the most wonderful festival, marked by lantern-lit processions and remembering 4th Century St Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier who laid down his sword to follow the Prince of Peace and tore his cloak in half one bitterly cold night to share it with a poor man. This is particularly significant as a Roman soldier’s cloak, the hooded paenula or unhooded sagum, doubled as the soldier’s bedroll, being both warm and waterproof. That St Martin shared his cloak with another lessened his own chances of survival in a harsh climate but also had a deeper meaning. The sagum was worn in deliberate contrast to the toga, which was considered to be a garment only of peace time. Even those in the cities who were uninvolved in fighting would wear the sagum in times of war and so it was a symbolic act indeed to tear it in half. That St Martin’s Feast Day now falls on Remembrance Day here in the British Isles and throughout the colonised Commonwealth seems the most powerful of synchronicities, especially when we are entering a time which we hope will call in Peace on Earth. 

Before our time was colonised in the name of Capitalism and productivity so many more of our days were given over to the sacred and so it was with Advent and Christmastide, which once continued until Candlemas on 2nd February. There is a beautiful rhythm in this as it means that both Advent and the Christmas season last for forty days, mirroring the forty days of Lent and Eastertide. Indeed, Advent was once known as ‘St Martin’s Lent’. It also means that, once, Christmas and all that goes with it lasted for almost three months! We must reflect of course on the ways in which the institutional Church has also colonised the time of the Common people, but it does feel that there is much to be reclaimed by once more carving out a conscious space for the holy and hallowed to come in. 

And what better time for sinking into the holy than the middle of November, when the last of the leaves have fallen from the trees, taking the warmth of their autumn colours with them, and we are contemplating our journey through the long days of winter dark? We know that we will be called to rest, that we may be stripped to the bone. Why would we not want to be accompanied by the Spirit that will lead us back into the light when the time comes? 

It’s not known with any credibility when the marking of Advent first began; almost as though it grew up from the mycelial threads of the soil or fell from the stars, but it has called us to seek ways to sit in the in-between of the thin places for many hundreds of years, just as the even older earth-based faiths did before it and continue to do. This makes so much sense as at Advent we are sitting in vigil awaiting the incarnation of Divinity on Earth, an incarnation that will come with the birth of the Son and rebirth of the Sun at Midwinter. Christianity is a faith so deeply woven into the mess and muddle, and magnificence, of matter that of course it is rooted in these deeper tides. 

And so it is that with this older Advent we are seeking a wilder God; one that chooses to be born yearly within the rhythm of the seasons as a vulnerable baby, a child of a displaced refugee family without the safety of a place of belonging. A Divinity needing our care, our protection, and our fierce love. We are all pregnant with peace and suffused with wonder. In these weeks of vigil we too are invited to consider what we wish to bring to birth as we wait for the Star to light the winter dark. With the world as it is we are so desperately in need of hope and the feeling that we can make a difference.

And in 2020 we are journeying too with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused this to be the most uncertain of years. We are all ‘Advent people’, learning how to live well in the in-between places, or doing our best to learn. It is telling that many amongst us have already decorated our homes for Christmas, seeking to create the feelings of ‘comfort and joy’ that the season brings ~ a raft in turbulent seas. That so many have no other access to comfort than decorating for Christmas (in the absence of the yearly escape of a holiday) is telling but we are all nevertheless planting seeds in the fertile darkness of holy ground. 

And so to Old Advent, more usually known as Celtic Advent, which again has several possible start dates, most usually now beginning on the evening of 14th November with 15th November as its first day, but sometimes beginning on the 16th, or on the Sunday closest to Martinmas! This is all rather unsettling but gives us space to choose the date which suits us best and to explore what resonates with us most. There is a wildness and a breaking of boundaries in that alone. I choose to begin my own Advent on the 14th/15th. As I did last year, I hope to share a blog for each day of Advent, and continue into the 12 Days of Christmas (and possibly Candlemas if the world turns in that way). It would be lovely to have your company in the journey. 

The term ‘Advent’ is taken from the Latin, ‘adventus’, for ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’. In his poem ‘Little Gidding’, T.S. Eliot writes; 

      “We shall not cease from exploration, 

        And at the end of our exploring 

        Will be to arrive where we started 

        And know the place for the first time.” 

May this winter vigil see us arriving together on new, more beautiful, and ever more holy ground, knowing it as if for the first time. 

References:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin's_Day 

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

https://www.romanobritain.org/8-military/mil_soldiers_cloak_.php 

Holy Thorn & Holy Sacrifice: Remaking Boundaries in the Time of Corona

In recent days I have been hawthorn gathering; a joyous task indeed, but I have
also been thinking about sacrifice; both heartbreaking and holy, & how it is manipulated against us.

On Friday my lady employer, who is struggling to love the 'greedy' magpie who visits her bird feeder, was distressed to find that it had discovered the starling nest in her roof and had been taking chicks.

I absolutely understand that it is distressing to witness such things, & the alarm calls of the starlings will of course cause a response in our wilder, deeper, heart spaces which understand the older language beyond words, but magpies have babies to feed too & they need to teach their own children about food. They are scavengers & their chicks need to learn that meat is good.

Whilst we were talking it occurred to me that magpies have only one brood per year, feeding them for several months even after they've fledged. Starlings in the roof here seem to have two, or even three broods, per year. The magpies only appear to predate them when they have chicks of their own, not later when they are caring for fledglings, & so only the first starling brood is truly vulnerable.

In her book, 'The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, & Sustainability', Lierre Keith writes about the concept of 'kas-limaal', a philosophy held by the Mayan people which translates roughly as 'mutual indebtedness, or insparkedness'. Everything that holds the pulse of Life on this planet is indebted to everything else. Truly, there are no separate entities, only endlessly beautiful and evolving parts of a shiningly wild system of relationships. The starling I know does not want her babies to die so that the magpie's babies can live, but we are all indebted one to the other for our survival and sometimes that means sacrifice.

Sacrifice; the letting go of what we are or have so that others might live, always with the knowledge that in the great wheel of Life-Death-Life we will return again, is one of the fundamental principles on which life is made. To deny this indebtedness, to try to avoid it, which we so frequently attempt to do as individuals and as a nation, is to deny that we are a part of Life. The starling mother may wish that it were otherwise but she plays her role, as we all must do if we are wise.

Again, Lierre Keith writes that "for someone to live, someone else has to die."

"...he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

(2 Corinthians 5:15).

She continues that, "We are all made of the same substance, a substance animate and sacred. Because [of that] we are all siblings...The animating substance is more energy than mass, more motion that a thing. It passes through us, temporarily taking the form of a fish or a flower, and then it's transformed into a heron or a hummingbird, and then again into a coyote or an apple. And even though fish and flowers die, Fish and Flowers continue." This is Hildegard's 'viriditas', the 'green fuse that drives the flower', but it also drives us and everything. The grieving starling may one day be the magpie mother, and vice versa, but Starling and Magpie endure through it all.

Founder of community kitchen Three Stone Hearth, Jessica Prentice, has written that, "In ancient Greek there were two different words for 'life'; bios and zoë...zoë -life, life in the biggest sense of enduring life, Life with a capital L, requires the sacrifice of bios-life, the particular lives of living creatures. Zoë takes (kills, consumes, eats, sacrifices, requires) bios."

This concept is at the centre of many of the world's religious traditions; "Death extinguishes a particular life...but Life endures and transcends death," with death, of course, as one of the great engines of transformation.

"For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone."

(Romans 14:7)

These sacrifices which we are all called to make, whether consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, on behalf of Life are sacred. That they are required are the cross we all carry in service to the Tree of Life. We are holy servants of transformation, of Life-Death-Life, of destruction and resurrection, and our suffering is born of grace.

Which is why the attempts of the Right Wing press and our Government to force our youngest children and their teachers back to school, and mostly less well off and working class employees back to work, before even the British Medical Association considers it safe, is an unholy act against Life itself.

This anti-Life, Capitalist, cult will stop at nothing in its greed to feed itself. For them, we and our children are not sacrifices to the pulse of Life, but faceless fuel to power the machine which is strangling it.

They aren't asking for our sacrifice; they don't care about us enough to think about it in that way. The concept is not part of their conscious worldview. And yet, there are so many of us making knowing sacrifices now; keyworkers particularly are risking their lives (and often more so than they might if our Government was more caring), but each one of us who is living under lockdown is making a sacrifice of freedom, of not seeing our families, our grandchildren, or our friends, of holidays and long held dreams abandoned until who knows when. We are temporarily sacrificing life for Life. We have become hermits for the holy, and we have found blessings there as well as grief.

In our own small ways we have found that there is life on the other side of seeming death, and even within it. Our Government would like to wrench us out of this holy space, tear the children from our arms to make our own return to work easier, to cajole us into being 'heroes' in service not to Life but to their god of greed. We must not allow this to happen. Our lives are worth so much more than that, and we have the work of transformation to do.

This week is Rogationtide, an ancient season of the Church year and part of our agricultural heritage, at a time when so many of us are reconnecting, or newly connecting, with the land we live on. Traditionally, Rogationtide was the time for 'beating the bounds', or processing around the parish boundary to share knowledge of, and to ask for protection and blessing for, the land.

And the hawthorn is out; our fairy thorn so often planted at the edges of fields to keep us out of the common land which once belonged to us all, but also retaining a little bit of the wild that might otherwise have been lost, and providing much needed shelter for many.

Rather than coming to hate or resent the May, as well we might, we have instead embraced her, holding her ever closer to our hearts as a symbol of all that is wild and good in the earth and in ourselves, and we are sensibly just a little bit scared of her because we know our boundary markers and edge dwellers to be the challenging, tricksterish things that they are and should always be.

Just as we have insisted on our love for the hawthorn, we can do the same with the restrictions that are placed on us now; seeing them not only as limiting, but as also offering liberation from a way of being that has for many years been unsustainable, both individually and collectively. In service to Life, we can give ourselves the time we need to explore this strange new landscape; grieve with the starling, rejoice with the magpie, offer help and support to those who are struggling, financially or otherwise, leaving none behind. And we can 'beat our bounds', asking for blessing and protection on these boundaries that we know to be born of holy, Life-honouring, sacrifice just as our Government seeks to break them.

Stay strong. We are doing this for love. And we are doing this for Life.

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.

Raising End of Winter Spirits ~ Making Gin Alexanders

Foraging basket with Alexanders

I have dipped one toe into my first gentle forage of the year; gathering Alexanders leaves from the hedgehermitage garden to make a flavoured gin; so easy that even I can emerge from my end of winter nesting to make it happen.

Foraging is perhaps my favourite thing to do; it is mindful, creative, it helps me care for my body (both because it involves walking & because it offers me healthy things to eat), but most of all because it creates a relationship & an intimacy with the land and the plant people, especially those close to home.

But I must admit that part of me resists foraging at all because, once I put my foot on the helter skelter ride of gathering, time becomes a different thing. I am a terrible procrastinator but there is very little room for doing-it-tomorrow with plants. They move so quickly from one stage to another that the prized petal, leaf, seed, or berry, can be gone before I've even picked up my foraging basket. So much longing waiting for their return, so much sitting with patience waiting for the right time, and then whoosh and they're gone! It really gets me in touch with what's real, and with what endures for all its ephemeral cycles.

There have been years when I've missed the spring cleavers, most of the nettle seeds, the rowan berries, & I dream of them all winter and still regret not being braver, or more present, or less world weary. But, when it works, it is also precious to live by something other than chronos, the worldly time of clocks & four walls; to step into the flow of kairos, the sacred time of sunlight, moon cycles, seasons, & the ebb & flow of growth. To be swept along by the generous tide of green is a gift to be cherished.

Alexanders, also known as black lovage, wild celery, & horse parsley, are almost ever-present in our garden but they are particularly lovely in the spring when their young leaves are pulsating with new growth and, a little later, when their green-gold flower heads are beginning to open. I also love them in the winter when they turn to dry stalks topped with shiny black seed heads.

Alexanders seedheads

They look beautiful and the tiny birds love to use them as perches. They are all leaves at the moment though and have almost entirely obliterated our garden bench!

The Romans called this stately green being 'Parsley of Alexandria' & introduced it to Britain as a pot-herb where it has thrived, particularly on the coast, which is why we have so many here. Although it was brought here primarily as food (its flowers can be steamed or eaten raw in salads, & its sprouts, buds, & tops  blanched all year round, together with its spring stalks, its black seeds can be ground & used like pepper) it has been used as medicine since ancient times & was eventually planted in medieval infirmary gardens. It can still be found growing in monastic ruins. Originally, it is native to wild Macedonia, the birth place of Alexander the Great.

A possible over-abundance of Alexanders
in the hedgehermitage garden 

As a medicinal herb the juice of Alexanders' roots & seeds have been used on cuts & wounds, & its bruised leaves used to stop bleeding. Its seeds soaked in wine were used to stimulate menstrual bleeding, & its leaves eaten against scurvy. The leaves were also said to 'sharpen the appetite'. That it helped with digestion was one reason for its inclusion, with nettles & watercress, in 'Lenten pottage', a gruel eaten in Ireland during Lent up until the 18th C, which was believed to ease the 'viscous humours' gathered in the stomach through the over-consumption of fish.

And so I pottered with my basket in the garden collecting Alexanders; they are wild & so to me that definitely counts as foraging. And we have SO many this year that gathering some feels essential! It is important though to be sure of identifying Alexanders correctly, as they are a member of the Umbellifer family which includes the highly poisonous Hemlock Water-Dropwort, although that is always found growing close to water. But there are others, like Hemlock, which it might be confused with. As I say, foraging builds relationship and the deeper that relationship is the better our ability to identify plants from their sisters.

Gathering these Alexanders I had to be particularly mindful as this year many of the plants have rust fungus (Alexanders rust, Puccinia smyrnii), which I celebrate as a being but don't really want in my gin.

Alexanders rust fungus

I was pleased with the leaves I did find though, & I feel more connected to the garden after the long winter months.

Having gathered the leaves, I carefully checked & washed them before slightly crushing the stalks (a bit of guesswork there but they smell lovely).

I then packed them loosely into a mason jar which I topped up with gin. You can also add sugar for sweetness at this point but I felt that I wanted to keep the pure flavour of the Alexanders as we move into spring. I'll leave them for three weeks or so & then strain them. I'm hoping that it will make a delicious spring tipple. So exciting!

Solid Dennis helped with my Alexanders gin making too, although to be honest his attention span wasn't all that...

To read more about Alexanders & using them to flavour gin pop to these links:

https://www.wildfooduk.com/edible-wild-plants/alexanders/

https://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/edible-wild-food-alexanders

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/dec/07/how-to-make-gin-alexanders