Summer Solstice Blessings

All spring the cuckoos have been calling, an aural game of tag across the valley, "here I am, where are you?" Louder and more present here than ever before they embroidered every hour with their cheery call, now that they have gone there is an emptiness to this solstice day that feels sad. Perhaps it's because instead of the glorious hum of happy insects on a sun-drenched summer's day all I can hear is the tang and hiss of the very rainy rain and the rummaging of fretting dogs on the sofa. They are rearranging the cushions, searching for comfort when really what's wanted is to go out, but it doesn't matter how many times they go to the door wanting a walk, when the door is opened there is still rain outside and canine minds are swiftly changed!

On this day, when we tip from up to down, from the increasing light to the decreasing light, the still-point at the centre of the year (Solstice comes from the Latin; Sol - the sun, sistere - to stand) it's good to take a moment  to be grateful for our Sun. Even on a day when you cannot see it through the clouds, cannot feel it for the rain, to remember that without the sun there would be no life on this planet. No-thing.

The gate between this world and the other would be firmly shut!

Traditionally here in Britain the celebrating of Midsummer begins the evening before. This is the most auspicious evening of the year to gather herbs, these will be the most potent for use in the making of incenses or medicines for use during the dark months.

The dawn of the longest day is celebrated by the lighting of fires, kindled by the sun himself, to light his way downwards. The Oak king has been usurped by the Holly King and will go to wait for rebirth at the Winter Solstice in the wheel of the stars. The Holly King will oversee the gathering of the harvest, the coming of the darkness, the turning in. The Oak King, the young king, brought us the up-rising of all that has grown. His union with the land has been fertile once again, the world continues to turn.

This solstice eve coincides with a full moon, one of those rare occasions when it is said that mortal men can watch the Faeries dance. Make sure you leave them an offering so that they don't take offence. Faeries don't really like to meet a human eye.

Let your eye rest instead on the glories that the sun brings us, as he pours himself down onto our Earth.

Wherever you are, you and everything you can see depends on the Sun's proximity to the Earth. We are indivisible from her and dependant on him.

Once the herbs are gathered, the fires lit and the faery-customs observed, tradition has it (hereabouts at least) that the day should continue with a swim.

A custom observed by all sorts of people.

When the day is done; gather some of the water (or midsummer morning dew) and mix is with the ashes from your fire and offer it in all the directions, that you may be protected and peaceful for the coming year.

So may it be.

Inside The Thurible

There was a gathering of magical women on Sunday, in the company of magical plants.

The relationship between people and plants is older than time, and plants have provided us with food for body and soul since before Eve ate the apple. We were being guinea pigs for Danielle Barlow while she tried out her Incense Making Workshop prior to running it at Green Hill Arts in Moretonhampstead on Saturday 2nd July. 

It was a day spent with the magical and aromatic native plants of this land; of here, now. The burning of plant parts, whether they be leaf, flower, fruit, seed, bark, resin or root, is known across the whole of Earth to be something of which the Spirits most heartily approve. It is, and ever has been, a way to help us change consciousness, focus attention and intention and dedicate and clear space. The space clearing part is literal as well as figurative as some plants have been proven in ethnopharmacological research to have a cleansing affect on air. This is St John's Wort, half ground in my mortar. (Above) 

The beautiful green and pink of Dartmoor Heather, so recognisable even as powder! 

We were in the hands of a woman possessed with both an incredible clarity and an exceptional connection to the work that she does. On the one hand she trained with the RHS and knows a very great deal about plants and their uses, on the other she has been riding and walking the land that she's living on for most of her life and she truly knows it. Questions that she can't answer immediately can be answered by the store of books that we were invited to browse through if we wanted to. 

There was a limitless supply of tea and cake and the company was superb. 

Mine was a 'Dreaming Incense'. I forgot to take photos once I'd turned it into little pastilles ready to put above a flame or on top of charcoal. It's drying at the moment and will be ready for use in about six weeks, I'm looking forward to that day hugely, if I could send you a waft over the internet I would, it smelled of magic and the richness and beauty of the bountiful land. 

If you're anywhere near Dartmoor on Saturday 2nd July at 10.30 for a couple of hours, come and take this workshop, I promise you beauty in abundance - not least because it is taking place within the context of the Widdershins exhibition. Danielle's art will be part of this exhibition alongside artists and makers from around Dartmoor all of whom work from that liminal place that a good incense may well be part of! My drums and rattles are also available, for the duration of this exhibition, in the shop there.   

Re-blogged from Terri Windling's beautiful blog - Myth and Moor.  

A Dartmoor Beltane

Since one of the underlying themes of Myth & Moor pertains to folklore in art and life, the folkloric celebration of winter's end here in Chagford seems right on topic. Last year, we held a public May Day Procession, and a  grand green time was had by all  -- but we haven't yet got enough volunteer organizers to run a public event every year, so the next one is scheduled for 2017. (If you're local, mark your calendars.)

In order to keep the thread of the ritual aspect of May Day unbroken during this inbetween year, a few of us gathered in a quieter way to call the Jack and the Obby Oss in from the wild -- marking the end of winter with pipe and drum, poetry and prayers, with mischief, mead, and merriment. Here is a taste of the day: a story in pictures, folklore come to life.

The Obby Oss emerges from the trees, to be welcomed and smudged, or blessed, by the smoke of white sage......and then the whole gathering is smudged as the Oss enters our circle.

The piper plays, a drumbeat sounds, and three women in green (representing the goddess of spring in her triple aspect: crone, maiden, and mother) lead a simple Beltane ceremony, addressing the human and more-than-human communities that share the land. I won't go into the ceremony itself, for mythic things are also private things in this and many other sacred traditions -- but it involves gratitude for life, re-balancing oneself with the rhythms of the natural world, music, and laughter. Always laughter -- for as the Hopi in Arizona say, no ceremony can properly begin until somebody has laughed. Joy and ribaldry are a part of life too.

The ceremony is simply, short, and includes everyone in the gathering, from the youngest, strapped to her mother's back, to the oldest of a family in which three generations are present.  Then the Piper breaks the circle...

...leading the way over a stream...and through a gate...

...and up the slope of a field full of sheep. Lambs frolic on the hill, or chase their mothers bleating for drinks of milk, reminders of spring's fertility, new life, and new beginnings.

The Obby Oss leaps and frolics too,  jaws a-clacking and bells a-jingling. The sheep and lambs give him wide berth. Sometimes he's a frightening creature, and sometimes comical and rather endearing.

We crest the hill and turn on to a village street, the pipes leading the way. The street is quiet and only a few come to their doors to watch the Oss dance by, spreading the "luck of the May" from house to house with every jingling step. At the outskirts of the village is an old stone barn. The Horned Man stops, opens the door, and the raggle-taggle parade goes through...and out another door into a field, where the Beltane fire stands ready.

But first, before the evening festivities begin, the ceremony must be properly closed off: with prayers,  the ritual passing of the mead, and the formal thanking of the Oss. He disappears into the trees and won't be seen again until next year.

And then the Beltane "need fire" is lit.

Now the merry-making begins! Shared food is spread over tables decorated with jars of flowers from the woods. Beer, wine, and homemade mead flow freely (May Eve is a drunken affair by longtradition), while friends and neighbors catch up on village news, children play on an outdoor trampoline, dogs chase balls through the grass and stormclouds threaten but never break.

Howard returns from the Otherworld where he'd been transformed into the spirit of the Oss. He is wide-eyed, exhausted and sweat-soaked, his faced still blackened by masking chalk; the transition takes time, and while he's in it, he's a creature of the In-Between.

The willow frame worn by the Jack in the Green sits empty by the fire, crowned with leaves. Last year a frame like this, worn by our Jack, was entirely covered in greenery, then burned in the fire at the end of the event. This year, the frame acquires its greenery and flowers bit by bit. All are invited to decorate the Jack; all are invited to be the Jack. A bare winter wreath hangs on the frame, and each of us ties scrolls of paper to it with green ribbon and string, containing all the things we wish to leave behind as the old season turns into the new. The wreath will be burned at the tail end of the night, and all our old troubles with it.

A group of drummers gathers by the fire to play for all who dare to dance the Jack. Howard is one of those drummers but he's also eager to to dance the Jack himself -- so he passes the drum, enters the frame, lifts it up (it's heavy!), and tap-dances his way around the fire like a leafy Fred Astaire.

Jason removes his horns to have a go. He was the Jack for the public parade last year, strong enough to carry the frame with ease...

...but women too are dancing this year. Here's Sarah, dancing with joy...

And Rowan...

And Susie...

And even Susie's daughter. Too small to lift the frame by herself, but fiercely independent, she sits inside the Jack for a spell and then crawls out, satisfied.

Andy, our piper, takes a turn, and when he's halfway around the fire he brings his wife, Nomi, and their child into the Jack and the three of them dance together.

Alan Lee takes a turn around the fire...

....and then his daughter Virginia does as well. One by one, throughout the evening, everyone who wants to dance the Jack takes part, helped into the frame by Sarah and Ruth, spurred on by the drumbeat and our cheers.

I'm still convalescing from a serious illness, and I know I cannot lift the Jack; I content myself with watching and cheering, though I really want to dance. Howard can tell (he knows me well), so he pulls me up to take a turn. "We'll do it together," he says. "I'll be your strength."  And so I dance too.

And now the story must end, for although the celebration carried long into the night, I didn't last much past dusk, and those starlight tales are not mine to tell.

Today, the sun is bright and it's warm at last. It finally feels like spring. Did we really drum up this glorious weather? Magic isn't as direct as that. Magic is the warmth that binds friends, neighbors, and the living earth together...and that's the luck of the May.

        Drumming Winter Away
         by Jane Yolen

        Boom, da-boom
         the brrr of the year,
         the burring of skin
         stretched ear to ear.
         The grin of spring,
         the ground of spite,
         the rise of fern,
         the shortened night.

         The well-ruled month,
         the lengthened day,
         less time for sleep
         more time for play.
         The pearling buds,
         the shafts of green,
         the fuzz on trees,
         as twigs all preen.

        The waft of perfume
         in the air,
         the warp and weft
         of spring weave there.
         Boom, da-boom,
         we beat the drum
         for spring to come.
         For spring to come.

The photographs here were taken by David Wyatt, Susie Violette, Jason of England, Suzi Crockford (the hawthorn tree) and me. The poem by Jane Yolen is copyright © 2016. All rights reserved.