The Cailleach's Stick Pile

She was out for quite a while then, that old crone The Cailleach. A-gathering sticks at Imbolc.

The snow has covered every single breath of spring in white silence.

At some points yesterday almost everything disappeared. The blizzard driving snow into every nook and cranny, breaking the silence and pulling branches from trees. The swirling, icy wind piling snow on hedgerows only to push it off again. Nothing moved that was not wind driven.

Now familiar territories seem strange.

Eerie. Ways are blocked, somehow a door has been shut.

And another has opened. The trees have become Goblin Trees, the gaps between them gateways into Faerie.

Not that this hasn't always been a Faerie Wood.

It's just that usually, you can't see the Fey.

It is considered very rude to look directly and I certainly wouldn't dream of photographing one, but looking at the people who are looking seemed OK.

Love Everything

Spring is springing; the flowers know it, the birds know it, the trees know it. Every living thing is starting to hum the beginnings of the song of Spring. The vital upthrust of LIFE is present in the unfurling of seed and twig, in the just perceptible swelling of buds. It is in the brighter light, the greening of the returning green and the blue of the great expansive blue and, as ever, in the coming of Yellow. How I love you Yellow!

 Witness the unfurling of the voices of the dawn, more and more birds performing ever more complex arias to the earlier rising of the golden sun. The air gloriously layered with the multiplicities of euphoric and vital sound as the tuneful battles for territories begin.

Not everyone is speaking all of the time. Some are listening.

Some are looking. Watching and wondering.

Some are busy with other things. You can never know what, exactly, when it comes to crows!

It feels as if were perched on a moment where anything could happen..... In traditional British weather lore, if Imbolc was a beautiful day then the Cailleach was out gathering sticks for her fire. If she has been gathering sticks then she can keep her fire going for another few months, and winter will drag on. If the day is rainy then spring will come early. Imbolc was an absolutely exquisite day, clear and radiant. But Spring does seem to have come early, it's bursting forth everywhere. Then again, it's still only February, and things can change fast up here.

If the Cailleach was out gathering sticks then she's not the only one who's been busy!

We, or rather more accurately - Fergus, have gathered an impressive log pile too! I love the feeling of having a store of wood. Like having a full larder it makes me feel safe. There's a safety also in the feeling that Spring will be uncurling and the tendrils of new life will be offering food to the many, and the many will be birthing new life.

Life supports life. Life nourishes life. Even in all the deaths that inevitably occur amongst the natural rhythms and cycles of All That Is, there is life implicit in each death. Death implicit in each life, for the only thing you can absolutely guarantee in this world is that everything will change, and the one change you can be most sure of, is that everything will die. Someday. Maybe even the Patriarchy.

The Ravens are nesting. They are usually the first, although I have also seen blackbirds gathering moss and wagtails with twigs in their beaks. I watch them as they gather what they need for a soft and warm place for their chicks to hatch and this too fills me with hope. Hope born of the knowledge that change doesn't have to be about death. Change at this time of year is surely predominantly about life - new life.

Woven into my acceptance that things are as they are, is the little green bud of what I see as a new time coming for us humans: More and more of us seem to be waking up to what it really means to be alive on our beautiful Earth at this time. I see more people giving up buying single use plastics, more trying to be waste free, more starting to think about what they eat (where does it comes from, did it get here on an aeroplane, is it full of chemicals?). I have more conversations about ideas like Gratitude, Reciprocity, Equality, Sustainability, Earth-Justice, Grief.

And I know that even if winter does come back, underneath the ice and the snow Spring will be resolutely calling herself into being, bringing change whether we're ready or not. And I know that there are questions that seem to be arriving on the wind at the moment, for the many, or at least for more than just the few: How would it be for us to know ourselves as diverse, as multiverse - like the many layers of song in a spring morning, how would that be? Could we begin to share with all the rest of the diversity of life? Could we even begin to see that other humans, different from ourselves, are just as beautiful, valuable, lovable, worthy of respect.. what about other mammals? Other animals, other Earth Dwellers? Could we extend these privileges of care to our food? To our Air? Our Water? Land, Trees.....How far can we go?

Can we change our minds and therefore our behaviours? 

May a good vision catch me
May a benevolent vision take hold of me, and move me
May a deep and full vision come over me, and burst open around me
May a luminous vision inform me, enfold me.
May I awaken into the story that surrounds,
May I awaken into the beautiful story.
May the wondrous story find me;
May the wildness that makes beauty arise between two lovers
arise beautifully between my body and the body of this land,
between my flesh and the flesh of this earth,
here and now,
on this day,
May I taste something sacred.
—David Abram

May that happen for you too. 

Magic For Imbolc

The boundary between this world and the other usually stands pretty firm, it's crossable if you know the way but most of us are unlikely to stray there by accident. There are clearly doorways, and there are clearly those who know how to open them, or perhaps just to make their way around their closed-ness.

 
Unless of course it's "one of those days" when the veil is very thin, and who knows when and where you might fall through it.

Imbolc is one of those days. One of the four fire celebrations, called Cross Quarter Days, that mark the turning of the year. It is usually said to fall on the 1st of February but to us Celts the day begins at dusk, and therefore all celebrations fall across two days of a modern calendar. This is why the celebrations at Samhuin are at night on the 31st October - that is All Hallows EVE and it is then that the day begins. So Imbolc begins with the setting of the sun of the 31st of January.

It marks the moment when that wonderful old hag of winter, the Cailleach, makes her way to the magical isle wherein lies the Well of Youth and drinks from it. She turns from Cailleach to Brigit, or Bride/Brid, the Goddess of Spring and Summer. In both Ireland and Scotland there were (and in some places likely still are) ritual processions involving a 'Bride' doll, she represents both Bride herself, either in her incarnation as St Brigit or as The Goddess Bride/Bridey/Brid, and the Sacred Feminine. She processed round the town giving out 'luck' (a way of describing protection) - often in the shape of a Brigit's Cross. This night is the traditional one upon which to make a Brigit's cross and in so doing to ask for her protection.

She is patroness of poetry, healing and smithing. She is potent and magical beyond words, her allies are the Raven - first to nest among the birds of these isles, so first to really acknowledge that Spring is here - and Swan, who is white like Brid herself. The white of milk, or purity, of the novice or apprentice. She works with fire and water; the fire or inspiration, purification and of the hearth. The water of healing, of cleansing, and of the holy wells - famous for their oracular maidens as much as for their capacity to quench a thirst of any kind. Her name is the source of the name of Britain. She is Brigantia, Goddess of The Land and therefore of Sovereignty. Her mantle (cloak) is the lush green surface of the land. Her's is the fierce path forwards, the path of the seer.

Once the procession is over and everyone has payed their respects the Bride doll is placed in a specially prepared woven 'bed' with a wand. She is the feminine, the wand represents the masculine. Their union in the basket, which is laid in front of the freshly kindled hearth fire, will give birth to all that the household asks for, or it will provide them with omens for how the coming year will be.  You can see my own family's version of this ceremony here.

For me, this year, Imbolc is the time to gather sticks. These sticks will be part of what carry my intentions around what will grow this year. Imbolc is the time for planting seeds, not just what we want to grow in the garden, but the seeds of hope for the future, of new adventures. I'm making a new witches broom. Along with the celebration of the coming of spring, of the returning light, of new births in the fields; this is the time for spring cleaning, clearing out all the 'stuff' that has accumulated over winter.

These are not just any old sticks, each stick is gathered to mark my love and respect for one of my 'Allies'. These allies might be in this world or the other; they might be teachers, trusted wise friends, animals, insects, birds, trees, plants, stones, bodies of water, ancestors, dragons, faeries, elves, stories, elemental beings. The list goes on and on - because everything is interwoven in a web of reciprocity, everything is connected. They might have bodies or they might not. You might believe in them or you might not. Each stick is marked in some way so that I know what, or rather whom, it represents.

Then I gather a much larger handle stick. There are various traditions around what the length of the stick needs to be, the one I follow is that it must be the same length as your spine - from the tip of your tailbone to the top of your head. If there are any pedants reading this then - yes I know that strictly speaking the spine ends before the head but we're not doing biology here, this is magic. The handle represents not only the spine of the person working with it but also the masculine element. The phallic handle is in balance with the feminine bush (I know, I'm sorry). Where there is no balance there can be no power, so this aspect is important. It is this 'sacred marriage' aspect of the broom that makes it the 'thing that you jump' at a pagan wedding. That and it's associations with fertility because of this very same union.

Once all the sticks are gathered then the making can begin. There is much more to it than simply making a 'broom stick'. It is a deeply potent magical act that unites the maker and the made. In it's essence it is both a magical act of protection and a powerful tool. Think of all the things you can do with a broom in this reality - sweeping away that which you do not want, or sweeping in that which you do want being the most obvious! It is a potent carrier of 'intention'.  Placed symbolically into the heart of the broom will be a little bundle of 'me'. This bundle might contain some of my hair, or the saliva from my gypsy's promise to myself (or to The Otherworld). There are one thousand ways in which I might represent myself. Whatever these may be, they are wrapped into the middle of the bundle of sticks, thus symbolically and actually I am surrounded by my allies, my helpers and protectors and on this occasion I am asking them to help me hold a particular intention.

In the days when a woman could be burned for setting a magical intention, what more obvious place to put this work than hidden in plain sight; in a tool that would most likely not be touched by anyone else, not be suspected of being anything other than something to sweep the floor with. Hidden in plain sight has the added advantage of the bundle being able to be a mnemonic device. Each time I look at it I remember that I am surrounded by my allies and that they bring me wisdom and protection. If this was tucked away in a drawer somewhere perhaps I might forget - and magic or not, if we do not give our intention our attention then we are unlikely to carry it out.

There are traditions around which sticks need to go into a broom. The very word 'broom' comes from a brush being made of the sticks of the Broom bush, which are straight and bouncily resilient.  In Devon this bush is is still called Besom and that kind of sweeping brush is called a besom and a woman who is being witchy (or if I'm being cynical, a woman who is being anything other than subservient to the masculine) is called a besom - usually fondly these days, but I'm very sure it was not always so.  Birch twigs are another traditional brush stick and it's still usual to find brushes made in this style with birch twigs for sweeping outdoors. The handle is traditionally Hazel.

I will be up to greet the dawn at Imbolc. Because I only gather fallen wood my broom will be made from the twigs of many different trees. I will step outside of time and into deep relationship with place and be gifted all the sticks I need from the patch of land within which I live. When I have made my new besom I will treat it with the utmost respect. I will keep it always head up unless I'm using it. I will oil it's handle and speak to it and listen to what it wants. In time it will perhaps become a wise and powerful ally in it's own right. Until then - it will be holding me amongst those I love, and we will be working together to mend the broken relationship between people and planet.

May you live under the protection of Brigit's mantle.

A Wild Day

Today is one of those days when the wind rips at your wingtips 

and the icy flay of the wind tears your skin and it cries "take me inside, sit me by the fire" and for a moment you remember the kind of day you spend indoors feeding the burner, asking the fire if  it's belly is full and becoming aware once again how completely the giant black cast iron stove in the kitchen is your absolutely Most Favourite Thing and the big basket of logs next to it is your second Most Favourite Thing in all the world.

but your soul, screetching and crawking, thrashes her legs against your flanks and drives you higher and higher until at the top she lets out one more blood curdling yell and throws you into the arms of the blasting air. 

And you cry - Hold me. 

Throw me around the sky until you are tired of me and then set me gently down on the moor. 

 Put me under a rock, 

to sleep til spring comes. 

A Winter Solstice Prayer

The solstice is nearly upon us, the time when the worlds of dark and light hold their breath, waiting for that moment when the balance shifts and the light begins to return. The sun herself stands still, rising and setting in the same place on three consecutive days. Sol - the sun. Stice - standing still.

When the tide turns and ingress and egress of night and day change places once again.

And it's time to celebrate! It's easy to think that it's only the light returning that we're celebrating - something very akin to the Christian story; something about the birthing of a new hope, a new year, a new opportunity for new things to grow.

We will rise before dawn on the morning of the solstice - to greet the sun, rising again for another year. That's Hay Tor on the horizon in the picture above, and Hound Tor four pictures below - both wonderful places for the greeting of the sun on any day. And as almost everything on our planet relies on the sun for it's life - why would you not greet the sun - on this and every day!

We'll most likely be at Scorhill Stone Circle again to drum the dawn, as we were last year.

But along with the celebrating of the new, I'd like to celebrate the old; the darkness, the cold, the opportunity to rest, the potential spaciousness of the short days and long nights - if we just let them be spacious.

I'd like to honour with my gratitude what dies in order that life may continue; all the composting leaves making next year's soil, the things with which we fill our bellies, the endless (so far - luckily for us!) interwoven, interdependent cycle of life-death-life.

To take the opportunity that holidays bring to be quiet and appreciate, as well as party and participate.

To remember The Sacred In All Things.

The lives other than our own, going on around us (perhaps seemingly unrelated) which are part of a web of relationship and reciprocity which we need to remember if we are to survive as a species. If our planet is to survive our new ways of being, our constant clamouring for more.

May we remember who we are in a world  made up of that which was created by The Divine - and that which was created by us. 

So may it be.