May Recapitulation

The May Queen is crowned and Bel, Celtic god of Fire, the Sun and of Summer has arrived, at least temporarily! It's from his name that we get the word Beltaine. 

By his side walks Bridgit, Bride; she has reclaimed the year from The Winter Hag, The Cailleach, and will rule over the light half of the year. She's here, in the flowers, and the smiles of the bearers of those flowers. 

Perhaps it's him in particular that we honour with this symbol of the masculine. Also symbolic of The World Tree, the Axis Mundi, central pole between the three lands of the Otherworld.

May's blossoms have been spectacular, the orchard has been drenched with the smell of fruit trees in blossom, it makes my heart sing and a small corner of my busy little human mind has already started plotting all the delicious things that can be made with fruit and stored for winter, whilst another corner of that same mind mutters about counting chickens and hatching. 

And speaking of singing and hatching; there have been some strange and beautiful and sometimes sad sights here recently. The strangest has perhaps been this young female blackbird who took up residence on the bench and was not to be moved. She was there for some of every day for a week, standing her ground. She's gone now, hopefully having found less obvious places to sit. There are plenty of cats here, each of my three neighbours has three cats, so sitting on a bench in broad daylight is probably not the wisest course of action for any avian. 

There has also been one VERY successful male blackbird strutting about the garden; every time I've seen him he's had his mouth full. I'm pretty sure that he's been one among many, but perhaps they've all been successful at different times and I only notice each of them when they are emanating pride and 'look at me I'm a savage hunter feeding my babies with my trophies' vibes. 

There have clearly been some nests that will not be producing any more birds this year; always a poignant reminder of the tiny tendril of light that is life, so easily extinguished.

As are empty eggs with yolk marks in them, a sure sign that they were emptied by a predator, rather than the emergence of a fledgling. Although obviously if this was a blog read by badgers and foxes this would be a delightful sight telling tales of happy full bellies and a good night's endeavours.

I found a blackbird fledgling by the side of a wall, a bit discombobulated after his first flight. Luckily the cat's hereabouts didn't find him before he remembered he could fly. 

Perhaps this was his egg? It's broken open on the side you can't see and as clean as a whistle inside. 

All month the hedgerows have been full to bursting with good things to eat for everyone. 

Sorrel (above) and Wild Garlic (below) being two of my absolute favourites. 

They make a wonderful addition with Pansies, primrose flowers and Violas to a really beautiful and delicious salad. 

 At the end of May Day's celebrations here, when everyone has gone home and the quiet comes back to the valley

After the hilarious duck race, 

Fergus and I bimble home, up thought the woods. 

past the Wray brook on it's way to join the River Bovey, 

along a well worn path, by bluebells, taking care not to offend the fairies by picking any. 

Under the roof bosses of the cathedrals of trees. 

 Past the unspiraling of Spring in all her glory. 

Out into the yellow and green fields of summer. 

And then home. 

Where there always seems to be a reminder - that there is so much to love in the world, so much worth protecting, so much worth taking into consideration with every choice we make. 

May Day Fire Festival

Beltane blessings to you, and "Up The May!" - the cry goes out across the land, the fires are lit, the flames are jumped and the wheel of the  year turns.

I brought cakes

and managed to get in quickly enough to actually eat one before the many children saw them, at first feeling slightly triumphant but that was followed by feeling just-plain-mean as it was clear that I hadn't made enough to fill every belly that had a cake-shaped hole in it.

It poured with rain, hailed, and nearly put the fire out. The word Beltane means 'bright fire', so it was a close run thing, but the day was saved!

I've been thinking about fire a lot lately.

To the Celts the clearest way to convey the 'shaman's map' was (is) to say that our world is made of three realms; Land, Sea and Sky.  These are often expressed (all over the world) as being like a tree: the Trunk is this world, the Middle World, The Land. The branches spread out into the Upper World, The Sky, and the roots delve down into the Lower World, The Sea.

This idea is also very beautifully expressed in the Triskele. This potent ancient symbol carries many meanings simultaneously, but more than anything else it expresses the Triple Nature of all of reality as the Celts saw it and continue to see it.

In fact the image of the triskele is far older than the culture that we call the Celts. One of the earliest examples of it in the west is carved into the stone at the entrance of the passage tomb at New Grange in Ireland - about which I have many stories, but I think I'd better save them for another time, as I've already somehow strayed from the point.

So - Fire - first out of the Void I'm told; the creative spark, the beginning of everything. Our world is a place between two great fires - the Sun herself and the fire at the centre of the earth. Why is it not present in this map? Where is fire in the world which is Land, Sea and Sky?  It seems to me that it's everywhere, because it is inherent within everything - it is the heart of the matter. Strike flints or crystals together and you will get a spark, turn a hard wood inside a soft wood and you will soon kindle a flame. Fire is perhaps the clearest metaphor we have for Spirit. When we want to invoke the sacred we light a flame. So when we light the fires at Beltane, we are bringing the Fire that is inherent within everything, bringing The Spirits, right into the heart of what we are doing.


May heart and heart align and bring forth the Spirit Fires, may these enlighten the bright half of the year for you. Happy Summer, Happy Beltane.
Up the May!

Sprung Springing

What a year it's been so far; its as if I've been on some crazy circus ride that's had me spinning round whilst jumping up and down, whilst juggling, twirling a hoop on my left ankle and breathing fire! At least no-one's made me wear a sparkly spandex suit - yet.  Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be that I feel like one of these lambs, dashing about the field; jumping, leaping, prancing, skittering, whizzing around for no good reason other than that the sun is shining, their bellies are full and it's fun!

Really what I've been doing is making, making, making. Beautiful things for people who describe exactly and precisely what they would like,

or things for people who let the Spirits decide what's right for them. I love this one - it was an epic, a Green Man on the face of the drum and Celtic knot-work all around the side. Fergus really excelled himself, The Green Man was an image he'd been wanting to put on a drum for a long time and although this is the best picture I've got of it, it in no way conveys the power of the image or the gravitas of this particular drum when you are in a room with it. It was made for a man who, it turned out, is a true Kelt.

I have also sometimes made beautiful things just because they need to be made, or at least I need to make them. This is the shed skin of an grass snake I think, although I'm ashamed to say that I can't actually remember, it was a gift given many years ago and the details have faded.

I've been running workshops too, where participants have made some extraordinarily beautiful things; like this little hand, burned into the inside of the wooden hoop of a drum with a pyrography tool,

And this rattle; the creator amazed by how proud she was of what she had made. I love it's simplicity.

I've been teaching workshops in a new venue, which I also love. Green Hill Arts in Moretonhampstead is a great place to work; lovely room, lovely people, lovely location. The room I use is beside and above the actual gallery (which is well worth a visit). To get there you walk through the church yard, lovely in it's own right, which is next to The Sentry, which is a field belonging to the people of Moretonhampstead. It's for playing and fairs and story tellings and whatever else you want to do in a field, and it's adjoined by other fields and a labyrinth of footpaths and bridleways that lead all around the beautiful green-that-is-getting-greener of Dartmoor.

And at the end of the day, I've been gardening in every spare second - outside each night until it gets completely dark.  If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that this (and every other) season, is my favourite season of the year.

All the tidying and planting has been overseen by my faithful old helper.

I rediscovered some old steps, they only lead up to a hedge, but I've cleared away years of fallen leaves and transplanted a rose (which I'm happy to say has survived the experience and seems really happy in it's new home) and we can now sit on the bench in the morning sun. This is the first part of the garden that the sun greets as she rises and I have had a few blissful morning cups of coffee surveying the newly tidied and planted scene below me before I get to work.

The windmills are there to keep the marauding crows and pigeons and probably a few others off my peas! And yes, if you are a proper gardener, you will have noticed that my pea sticks are too fat, but they were what I could find last night at about 7.30, so they'll have to do!

Among the many who flitter among the hedgerows at dusk, my heart is a blackbird; singing. For the purposes of blog-continuity I should be saying that it is a starling - just because it's been a starling who's been filling the garden with his effervescent cadences for the last few days; this fine fellow has been standing in the branches of the maple tree, puffing out his chest and positively hollering out his repertoire of strange bird folk songs, hurling hymns of joy and courtly hankerings into the warming air, morning and evening, sounding as if he is attempting to seduce the sun herself - "stay a moment longer, stay that I may sing to you, stay" - but I can't be a starling, because I am a blackbird.

I have loved every kind of black bird my whole life and have felt their presence always; it was no surprise when we moved here to discover that our house shelters a little way down a hill, most of the way up which stands Raven's Tor.  Named so because it looks like a raven's head, but also it is the site of a raven's nest. The ravens fly around the valley kronking and kraaking, their wings making a rushing-of-feather-in-wind noise as they fly past. I know no other sound like it, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my singing blackbird heart erupt into a joyful cacophony.

This morning as I sat on my newly positioned bench I heard the first cuckoo far off in the distance. Yay, it's official, the swallows are here, the cuckoos are calling and summer is a-comein' in. Which means that when it snowed this afternoon, turning all that I could see of the high moor white, it felt a little disconcerting. Here in Britain we're on about the same latitude as New Foundland, it's only the Gulf Stream that keeps us so warm usually. As the ice melts in the Arctic the Gulf Stream is cooling. Sad and Strange times.