A Night on the Beach

Inspiration comes from anywhere. In this case, it came from being at work and being offered overtime. I work night shifts, and because of the extra work offered to me, it meant that instead of having a weekend, I was having one night off work. One night, so not worth trying to stay away for a day before switching into night-mode again, it would be easier on my sleep pattern just to stay in night-mode.

So, I thought -what can I do if I am up all night?

I wanted to go out somewhere, I felt like I had been away from the great outdoors for ages. And I wanted a fire.

But we are in the middle of a heatwave, and the risk of setting fire to the great outdoors is high at the moment, so where could I do this safely? On a beach! And I had one night to do this.

So, having chosen 'a beach' I had to decide which beach, and I immediately came up with Morfa Dyffryn, although it is 2 hours away from where I live I stuck with this (and there are closer beaches) because I know where it is, I know the layout of the beach, I have been there drumming before, and I know it to be a safe beach in terms of being able to go in the water and not be swept away or get stuck in mud or quicksand when the tide turns.

I love the drive there, through the Denbigh moors, past Bala and Llyn Tegid, and around Cader Idris, across the Mawddach Estuary and up the coastline of west Wales. This feels like my sacred landscape, and sometimes, like I am driving through time itself.

I got to the beach just after sunset, it was almost full moon, and as I set foot on the beach, she was high in the sky and the sea was still and flat, reflecting her pale silver glow like a rippled mirror.

I decided to build my fire on the tidal part of the beach, that way, when the tide came in, after dawn, it would make sure that it was all put out. I had brought a bit of wood with me, and I easily found more as I went beach-combing, and I set it all out handy to make a fire, and I unpacked the few things I had brought with me around it to set up a base for the night, digging in the sand to make a fire-bowl around the wood, and getting everything ready for after my swim

I stripped off and headed off to the waters edge, carefully stepping in and wading out. In the moonlight I could see that if I looked down, I could see all the way down to the bottom, the water was very clear. All around me was darkness, other than from above  - I was under the Milky Way and the moon was directly ahead, and I was wading out into a silvery shimmer of reflected moonlight. There were small splashed all around me, and as I began to swim, I realised that I was swimming in a shoal of small fishes that were jumping out of the water and skimming the surface, dancing in the moonlight themselves. I looked back at the dunes where I had made my base. No lights, no sign of people even existing, other than me, and I called out to the gods of Land, Sea and Sky.

I swam for a while then floated on my back, gazing up to the moon and the stars, swimming through her silvery waters. I relaxed and just floated, and felt like I was being pulled and spun around.
I didn't want to end up all out at sea, so I stood on my feet again, and as I looked up, the stars were indeed spinning round and round me, it didn't feel so good, so I floated again, and they all stood still, which was better for me, but I still felt like I was spinning myself, just keeping in time with the circling stars.

Regaining my feet again, I stood still. The moon was still. The stars however were spinning in circles above me, faster and faster, round and round, and I felt very giddy and unsteady, and I needed to get ashore, so I staggered my way out, through the jumping fishes, through the moonlit water back to land, where I knew I wouldn't drown if I passed out! I started to feel sick, I was that giddy with the stars still spinning around me in circles.

Land. Safety. Must make it back to where my base is. I felt so entirely weak and drained. Like I was staggering back. I got back to where my travel rug was laid out, wondering what the tap-tap-tap noise was, but needing to be wrapped up before I got cold, and, pulling my blanket out of the bag, realised that the whole place was covered with sand - hoppers. And I mean - covered.

http://youtu.be/B4ZqZHpo0TE
(this is not my video)

Chucking everything onto the rug, I managed to pull it slowly up the beach, out of the firm tidal area, into soft sand. I could barely keep on my feet, I felt so week. Tipping everything onto the sand I wrapped myself in the blanket, laid down and closed my eyes so that the world wasn't spinning any more. I felt weak and hungry like I hadn't eaten for a week.

After a while, I have no idea how long, I woke up, feeling better but thinking - if I don't get the fire going, I will surely die, so I struggled out of my blanket and made the fire and lit it, and I soon had a roaring fire going, throwing out plenty of light and heat, and again I wrapped myself up in my blanket, and curled up round the fire, keeping warm and feeling dozy and safe again.

After a while I opened my eyes again, feeling 100% better. As I lay there I could see the moon dipping towards the sea, turning orange on the horizon and sinking beneath the waves. I pulled out my drum and drummed as she sank. And then - it was pitch black.

I sat and stared at the stars for a while, watched a meteorite fall through the sky behind me and then wondered what to do. I had had ideas of rituals to do and had brought my kit - but I didn't feel like it, so I sat there and drummed, burned incense and drummed some more, did a bit of visualisation, and then just lay down by the fire and felt at one with the beach and the dunes, and I just stayed there til all the wood was gone and dawn was starting to creep into the sky behind me.

Covering the fire over, I made my way into the dunes where i would be able to see the sun  rise, but decided to look instead out to sea so that I would be able to see the dolphin... Nothing was happening in the sea, so I had a wander around and then came back to my vantage point, and as I was thinking to myself  "Hey -what dolphin?", I saw a black shape splash out of the water just off the beach. And again. And again... and I sat there watching as a Harbour Porpoise patrolled up and down the beach where I had been before, generally 'porpoising' but it did also breach the water and splash back down again. And then I realised that mosquitoes also come alive at dawn, not just at sunset, and I was being eaten alive, so i ran down to the beach again to be free of them.

The horizon to the East held the Snowdonia mountains, so the sun would take a while to reach over them, I stayed on the beach until it was really bright, and hoping that the mosquitoes would have gone by then, I ran back up to the dunes to get some photos and sit for a while. It must have been about 6am by then.

My ankle started to swell up by one of the bites, so I decided it was time to go while I could still walk and drive

I've just written about the physicality of being there and what the beach taught me.

Stay off the tidal zone - in the dark it becomes alive with sandhoppers. On my way back to the car I found the stripped body of a seagull, and I have no doubt in my mind that if I had fallen asleep on their part of the beach, I would have woken up missing an arm or some vital organs.

Midges and Mosquitoes are also active at dawn!

The soft sandy part of the beach is for people!

I don't know what happened with the spinning stars and feeling ill, I did feel like I was the only person alive then, like I had to rely on myself and my own resources. Through the night and on my journey to get to the beach I had a lot of my personal issues come up and confront me, and I sorted a lot of things out in my head.

It was a good night, and I went home feeling like I had stepped out of my life for a while, and had returned totally refreshed.

Talking With The Elder Mother

The elder is flowering later this year than it normally does round here, I usually pick flowers to make wine from as part of my solstice celebrations, but they weren't out in time this year, usually I just catch the end the end of the flowering, this time round I am near the beginning of it.

It began as usual with my walk round the fields, I had come prepared with 2 carrier bags and a lancet to bargain with. During my walk I used one of the bags to pick up litter on my way. I found the Elder Mother, a tree I have sat and talked with many times before, and carefully picked my way through her shield of nettles to sit beneath her branches, hidden from the rest of the world, and closed my eyes.

In my meditation I met her and re-introduced myself, and the reason I had come to the tree, to ask permission to pick flowers to make wine from. Last year's wine has all gone now, and was used solely for ritual purposes, a small glass or two for me and anyone else involved, the rest used to wash down stones at burial sites and other places I have been to in the past year.

Last year was a bad year for the flowers, so she had told me only to take a few flowers from each tree, and that the wine must only be used in rituals.

This year she was different. This years wine is to be about sharing. I was given permission to pick flowers
"If you can smell them you can pick them"
And the feeling I got from her was that this year was about gentleness. In the past I have given hair in return, this year I had brought a lancet to offer blood if she had wanted it. But with this years theme of 'gentleness'  she declined my offer and told me instead that I was to carry on collecting litter, and in the sharing of the wine, I was also to share the story of making the wine - of collecting with respect and permission and joint understanding.

Hence this post :-)

I soon found out the point of her saying "If you can smell them you can pick them". Thrusting my nose into each bloom before picking it, some flowers were rejected because I couldn't smell them.  I thanked her and moved to the next tree in the hedgerow, which is where I found my restriction - I could only pick flowers that I could reach with my yellow-pollen covered face. Normally I would pick from whatever was in reach of my hands, but this time round, if I couldn't reach the bloom with my nose, it was a no-go.
And this worked quite well to be honest - although my face was yellow when I left, I had picked enough to make my wine with, and I hadn't picked too many - there is always a tendency to fill whatever bag it is that I have taken with me.

She's a wise one, that Elder Mother.

At the moment the flowers have been removed from the stems and are soaking in water in a bucket, in four days time they will be strained and the brewing will start.

The Magical Mystery Tour

This is my second post inspired by Barry Pattersons book "The Art of Conversation with the Genius Loci" which I thoroughly recommend reading, but comes with a warning not to buy it from Amazon as they only have out of date 10 year old copies, you are advised to get the new version, updated with an extra 10 years experience and re-edited and jigged about, this a can be bought from the publisher here -

http://www.capallbann.co.uk/popup.cfm?p_n=24992&p_i=24992


Right back to my blog... In the book Barry suggests playing a game with the Genius Loci, which he calls the magical mystery tour, which is contained in his poem -

Whitley Grove 

The call of the woods

In the morning light!

Trees upon a hill - 

Its like coming home.

The green pool, the scarred birch

The weathered Lime,

Ramsons' garlicky stink

Upon the bank

And in the deep

The deep secrets of the earth

Emerge and are held in a dark hollow

Where broken tree limbs

Sandstone and tangled birdsong

Meet in the water

The slumber of summer

Stifles the sound

Of our voices in the leafy bower

Where we wait

For something to appear

A guide to show us the way.

The iron gate is warm from the sun

An emerald fly

sits upon one of its spikes

It can only see our shadows

When they fall

It flees, we follow

Bobbing eldern umbels

Mark the way

Stink of nettles and dark earth

A string of cloud is pulled

From across the sun

The door is open, 

The game's begun

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had a ritual to do, in the forest. I knew the forest was the right place to do it, and I had the right time coming up. What I needed to do was to find the right spot within the forest. I was sure I knew where this was, I had been there before but I wanted to go and check it out again before wandering there in the dark, so I took a day to visit the forest again with this intention. But having been reading Barrys book, I decided to play the magical mystery tour, certain that it would take me to the place I had already decided. I know this part of the forest and that was the best place.

I pulled up in the car park, unloaded and booted up, unpacked the dog and waited. I breathed, and I spoke my name, what I wanted to do in the forest, the reason for the ritual, and asked if it would guide me to an appropriate place to do it.

And I waited. 

Birdsong...... so I followed it, and it stopped. Again I waited.

Movement... a treecreeper on the trunk of a tree, flitting from one tree to another, always on my side of the tree, always in my sight, and it was following a path.... so I followed.

At a crossroads, the treecreeper left, so I waited. In the tree above me, a chaffinch started to sing, so I watched and waited. It flew to another tree, following the direction of one of the paths, so I followed, and on to another and another, I followed. then it went silent. Crossroads again.

Another chaffinch picked up the call of the one I was following, I couldn't see it so I followed the sound until it stopped. At a crossroads again. I waited. Voices could be heard ahead.

I wasnt sure if people were included in this, so I hesitated. I had a choice of 3 paths to take. A black dog came hurtling through the trees along one path and skidded to a halt in front of us, sniffed little Ruby and then ran off again back along the path back to its owners. So I followed.

Walking along a straight path now, with really dense birch saplings on the left, fields on the right. Following the path straight ahead, the branches of one tree on the edge of the field seemed to be swaying indicating to go into the birch saplings. They were so dense though, I would be squeezing through them, and there was no path... I was unsure, so I waited.

The sunlight picked out a swarm of midges on the path ahead, dancing on the breeze. I checked behind me, no midges. So I followed them until they werent there any more. No more signs... so I stopped.

Breeze again. The tree next to me swayed its branches towards the birch saplings and this time there was a very vague twist path to go through the saplings. Climbing over branches and stumps and brambles, and squeezing in places, I followed, picking up the sound of a great tit. It stopped. I was in a very small space. The path had twisted and turned and actually wasnt far from the main path, it was hardly private enough for a ritual and there was not enough room. Ruby trotted off and made herself busy elsewhere. 

"Oh well. I may as well see what she is doing"... so went in her direction.

CLACK CLACK  in the breeze, 2 saplings were knocking against each other, so mi picked up that trail, and it stopped.

I was now hidden well amongst the birches in a small clearing in the root-space where a tree had fallen. It was peaceful and private, not big enough for my ritual, but it felt nice, so I sat down and just felt the place about me.

Peace. 

What do  do now? I'll sit and just be here for a while.

Across the clearing came a fly.A large brown fly, walking across the forest floor. Walking straight up to me. I sat still. It walked up to me and reached my leg. I sat and watched it. It climbed up onto my right knee, shifted itself out of the breeze and settled down. One of its wings as broken, and it couldnt fly. It was a Hover fly, just like this one, but with only one and a half wings.

I sat a while longer, closed my eyes, making certain that i didnt move my hands about in case I squashed the fly. When i opened my eyes again it was still on my knee. Warmed up a bit, it moved about and turned facing straight at me, and I sat there wondering what on earth was going to happen next. 

A family of great its came through the trees, searching for insects, all around me in the tips of the young birches. Among the was a siskin that paused for a second and tilted its head to see what i was doing. 

And then they left, and the space felt empty again. It was different, it was over. 

So I thanked the fly, picked it up and put it onto the trunk of a tree and it climbed up as I picked up my things and tried to work out how to get out of here back onto the path. When I next looked, the fly had gone.

I hadnt found anywhere new to do my ritual but I had felt something special. I got back onto the path and wandered about in the general direction of the place I had first thought of going. No agenda other than walk over there and see how it was. 

I picked up some litter that was there along the way as I walked, and just through general meandering, wandered into a part I had never been in before, through some mature beech trees.  There ahead of me was a clearing, a fallen tree to sit on, and the entrance to the clearing was through an arch where two trees had grown into each other. I walked into the space. It felt right. The arch was even in the west. It was perfect. I had found my new place.

Saying thank-you, I picked up the pile of litter I had collected and went back to the car. I will be back, when the time comes.

Cae Mabon and Afon Fachwen

I've not done this before with my blog, , but I think the next two pieces I will write are going to illustrate small incidents that maybe I wouldn't have written about normally, but I have been reading 'The Art of Conversation with the Genius Loci' by Barry Patterson. In this book, Barry explains how he works spiritually with spirits of the land, and as I've been reading it, as I go through each section, I've found myself saying "Oh.... that's like when I....." or "Oh, now I understand why I did such-and-such".. its such a good book for me, because it sets out a way of working almost exactly the way that I do it - except Barry has a couple of decades of experience on me, and he knows what he is doing and why, and has a really good way of getting it across, this book is really going to help me deepen my connection, and well, its just brought 2 little things to mind that I feel it is worth sharing...

A couple of notes taken from the book to be considered are
" See the genius Loci as a composite - imagine an ecosystem with feelings. Its many dimensions may be constellated within space -as energies, structures and  relationships, - in time as events, or in other ways" 
and
"it  is important to remember that in many cultures the spirits may be unseen for various reasons and that they may be considered capable of changing their shape and appearance in human, animal and plant forms in our eyes, our dreaming or imagination"

In April I stayed at Cae Mabon, in North Wales for the World drum weekend, which really is a fabulous place to stay, you can google it if you don't already know it.There is a small river/street that runs through the land, with all the buildings and eco-structures and roundhouse on one side, and woodland on the other.This is Afon Fachwen, and she runs down into Llyn Padarn, in the valley below.

Now, when I heard the name of the river, I knew from the -wen at the end that it signified something sacred. 

The morning after my arrival we were generally milling around and enjoying the place, there is a jacuzzi on the side of the river and a group of us were standing round there, looking across to the other side, in the woods, where there is a goddess carved into one of the trees, and someone made a comment about the goddess, something like how beautiful it was, and my inner dialogue made a comment to myself how she wasn't a patch on MY goddess, who I am devoted to - more out of affection for her than anything else, but ArrrGGGhhhh! I felt I had dis-respected the spirit of the river, and although my companions carried on with their conversation, I walked off alone to go and see the river further upstream and to just see the beauty of it alone and be fully in that place rather than having my mind elsewhere and bringing that with me.

So, a little upstream, someone who was there for the weekend had a dog, and this dog was sitting there with a stick, just waiting and  wanting it thrown, and I, well, I decided to throw it and go into the woods on the other side, there were boulders than I could use to jump across into the woods, so I picked up the stick and threw it across first for the dog to fetch.....

And a split second later I was dumped on my arse in the river... I slipped and fell, rather gently as it happened and the way I fell amazed me more, initially, than finding myself sitting in the river - it was so gentle, it was like someone had picked me up and plonked me down. But there I was dumped in the river, and I knew what had happened. I said " Sorry, I have dis-respected you, and I apologise". It was then that I pulled myself up and found that far from being on my own, there were actually several people stood around me and I had actually been photographed, which, yeah ok, I sat back down in the river again, but it recorded my humiliation by Fachwen, and I laughed at myself for being pompous about her in the first place.

After we had all had a laugh, and I had taken my boots off, poured out the water and wrung my socks out, I squelched off barefoot to my lodging and collected my drum bag and came back to where I had fallen in.

At first I rattled to the river, but the rattle sound didn't seem right or really welcome, so I swapped it for the drum and I started to drum, quietly, matching the sound of the river, and the steady beats changed into a rhythm and I kept that up. Talking to the river over the drum and through the drum, I apologised  again and wanted to make amends. The drum got louder for a bit, then got quieter, but it kept up the same rhythm, and I focused on a particular bit where the water fell over some stones, wondering if I would see anything there, and I just sat and gazed until I was gazing into nothing, still drumming, then I shifted a little and on a boulder across the water, was a caddis fly, and it caught my attention as it walked around, flew a little distance, landed again, but never went out of sight.

And I recognised the moment. I remarked and watched at how beautiful the fly was, the gracefulness of how it flew, how the folded wings looked like a flowing dress when she walked, the gentle twitching of the antennae...

I looked away for a few moments, adjusting the drum, when I looked back, she was gone.

So I looked back towards my drum and wondered how long to carry on drumming for. There on the boulder where I was sitting, right next to me, was a caddis fly. It certainly looked like the same caddis fly from before, and I carried on drumming gently as it scurried about on the rock.

I stopped drumming, and held out my finger, gently resting it on the boulder. The fly scurrying around, bumped into it, and climbed aboard.  I lifted my finger up, with the caddis fly sitting on the tip, and held it in front of my face. We shared a minute of just being in that moment of feeling each others presence, and gently, I laid my finger back on the boulder, and the fly crawled off, and I said "Thank You"

It was done. I put my drum and beater back into my bag, and as I closed it, a call went out that Caryl had arrived and we were to go to the roundhouse.

__________________________________________________________________________

As a footnote, if you are interested, rather than have you just look it up on Amazon, the book is available from Capall Bann, here http://www.capallbann.co.uk/popup.cfm?p_n=24992&p_i=24992 

Dont buy it from Amazon, as this is an older version, the direct link is for an updated re-edited and added-to version, with an extra 10 years of experience driving the re-vamp.

Aquila, Hawk of Dawn

"Standing in a misty, frosty field, the half-moon directly West, behind me, still shedding so much light that I have a defined shadow lying before me as I watch the hawk of dawn rise from the Eastern horizon. Except the hawk is an eagle or a vulture, and is also known as Llew Llaw Gyffes..."

Finally I am getting to writing this up, its been a month but it is still fresh in my mind.

After extinguishing the flame at sunset, I wanted to go out. It was dark, and cold because of the clear cloudless sky, I wanted to go out and see the moon. So I did.

I drove off into North Wales, wanting to be away from the light pollution in Chester, and I wanted to be somewhere open, where I could have a good view of the night sky. I ended up driving along lanes looking for a place to stop, passing signs for public footpaths, but they all seemed to be going alongside peoples gardens, and I didn't really want to be traipsing through gardens in the dark at midnight.

I kept on going until I came back to the main road, and there, on the junction was a verge I could park on, and a farm gate into an open field. Not exactly where I had planned, but it was where I had ended up, so I pulled in and climbed over the gate, making sure that the field was empty.

Now, at this point I hadn't actually thought about what I was going to do, I had been pre-occupied with finding somewhere to get out of the car. So, without thinking, I walked into the field, until I came to a halt, and with my arms open, turned round to survey the landscape and  the horizon. I hailed the moon, and called to the directions, inviting the landscape from every direction to hear me and accompany me. To the north the neolithic burial site that I have spent a year working with and have connection with. To the East the River I have had several years working and relationship with. South was all the places I have lived, in this area, West are the bronze age hill forts where I tend to do ritual and have relationship with. I called each one in to me, and I don't know why, but as I turned again, I spat onto the ground in the four directions, and then stopped to gaze at the moon.

And then, words came, from out of nowhere they just seemed to be flowing out of my mouth, proclaiming my love for this land, the magic of being in the here-and-now, my love for the spirits of this place, for the places in the directions that I had called to....

But I wasn't quite comfortable facing the moon, directly West. My attention was drawn too much to the field, so I turned and gazed into the field, the moon directly behind me, so I was facing East, just into an empty field, in the darkness. I watched my shadow for a while, black and defined on the ground, which had started to turn white with frost, and a mist had risen from the ground, making a circle around me.

My eyes were drawn to the stars above me, and over to the eastern horizon, nothing special there, a couple of stars and a line of trees - but between us was this mist... as I watched I felt certain that I could sense it moving, twisting and shaping into something - something... that I never was able to make out the form of...

And so I called to the spirit of place, this place, this field, could it show itself in a form that I could see and understand? The more I gazed into the swirling mists, the more they swirled and shifted, and the more I became convinced that *something* was going to take shape and step forward , but it didn't  And the more I stared and tried to visualise, the more distracted I got and ended up looking at the line of trees on the horizon.

I did note that the stars had risen from the east a little, and that there were two of them one directly above the other, in a vertical line. Nothing was happening with the mist, it was cold and I was getting too distracted anyway, the more I tried to concentrate on the mist, the more my eyes moved onto those two stars. Maybe it  was time to go home. I made a mental note to find out what the stars were called, see if they were part of something familiar, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on Google sky map.

Thats when I really discovered that the directions were lined up exactly. These stars were part of a constellation rising exactly in the east, and they were called Aquila. I'd never heard of Aquila, so I googled it.

Aquila is a constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for 'eagle' and it represents the bird who carried Zeus's/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology.

Oh, ok, I like Jupiter, so it caught my interest and I read on. Also known to the Babylonians as The Eagle, and  the flying vulture to the Romans. Hindus know it as the half-eagle/half-human deity Garuda. So why was I so drawn to it? Oh..... I know an Eagle/vulture figure in welsh mythology... a dead and rotting eagle to be precise...

Is this the hawk of dawn? If not, what is the hawk of dawn? This became important to me - this constellation actually is a representation of and eagle/vulture/hawk, and it rises exactly in the east, in this land.

So I'm checking timings...
On December 21st it rises 08:30 GMT    <== sun rises at 08:03 GMT
On January 21st it rises 06:30 GMT
On February 21st it rises 04:30 GMT
On March 21st it rises 02.30 GMT
On April 21st it rises at 01:40 GMT+1
On May 21st it rises at 23:30 GMT+1
On June 21st it rises at 21:30 GMT+1   <== sun sets at 21:20 GMT+1
On July 21st it rises at 19:30 GMT+1
On August 21st it rises at 17.30 GMT+1
On September 21st it rises at 15:30 GMT+1
On October 21st it rises at 13.30 GMT+1
On November 21st it rises 10.30 GMT

All figures taken from Google sky map, and are for 2013, they are approximately when the entire constellation clears the horizon.

Looking at this right now, what strikes me is that the constellation is visible for the waxing half of the year, and invisible for the waning half of the year. It actually becomes the 'hawk of dawn' around the winter solstice, at the start of the solar year.

Llew Llaw Gyffes is taken to be a solar deity in the mabinogion, when he is ritually killed he becomes through death, an eagle - a dead, rotting eagle to be precise and is eventually found and brought back to life. This matches the timings here - after the summer solstice, as the sun is dying, the rising of the constellation of Aquila as it rises, is invisible in the daytime sky -dead or vanished into the underworld. So, in the case of Aquila it is when the sun is at his maximum strength , when he 'has it all' that Aquila dies (although what we think of as summer is really only just starting, temperature wise) and this ties in with Llew Llaw Gyffes, it is when he has his name, arms and a wife and castle/land that he dies and vanishes into the land of the dead.

His life, in this world is when he is a young boy, growing and acquiring his name, arms and bride - which is when Aquila is visible rising in the night sky between the winter and summer solstices.

Probably putting it better, in the mabinogion, Llew is the solar deity, and Blodeuwedd is the land, she is literally made out of the land itself. So, particularly in his early life, when Aquila can be seen rising from the horizon, having contact with the land, this is Llew in his physical manifestation in a physical body, in this world. When he reaches his peak of power, Llew and Blodeuwedd lose interest in each other, and she arranges for him to be ritually killed and sent into the other world. After the summer solstice, when the sun is at its peak, the length of daylight and the earlier rising time of Aquila mean that Aquila can only be seen well after it has risen, it exists quite separately from the land in the black sky. The connection between Aquila and the land are no longer visible. So Aquila exists only in the other world, not in the material world.




So now I have questions - Is the story of  Llew an explanation for Aquila? Is Aquila Llew? Pre-Bronze Age, when the skies here were clearer of clouds, before the sun and day length became more important, the stars were the main focus... was the observance of  Aquila actually the marker for the solstices? - Each month shows a time difference of 2 hours, so that is half an hour a week. If the 2 stars that I noticed were observed from the same location at regular intervals, say, an observatory of some kind, if 2 stones were aligned to the point on the horizon where they should rise - because this stays constant - very close to the solstices, the stars would either vanish from sight or come back into sight rising from the earth. A week is 30 minutes difference, so I am surmising that this could be accurate to within a day or so of the date taken to be the solstice.

And guess what - the ritual killing of Llew, there was only one way that he could die. At the summer solstice, when Aquila dies/becomes invisible, do you know what constellations are beneath him? And I mean, literally beneath him in our sky, so when his rising vanishes,as the evenings draw out, he will be visible later at night, when he is already high in the sky, there will be 2 constellations underneath him, under his feet... capricorn and aquarius. A goat and a water carrier. They are positioned rather similar to the 3 dots on the awen symbol, with Aquila as the top, and Aquarius and Capricorn side by side underneath, like feet.

More of the killing - this was to be on a river bank... could the river here be the milky way?Aquila lies in the milky way, and maybe this ties in with recent findings at stonehenge and a possible alignment with the milky way? http://digitaldigging.net/features/stonehenge-avenue/stonehenge-durrington-walls-avenue-alignment.html

Now we have a question about using eagles, capricorn and aquarius, surely they are just our accepted representations from the greek/roman astrologers. Yes. I agree. BUT if this is pre/bronze age and never written down... this astrology encoded as a story that explains how to calculate the solstices... by the time of the iron age druids, maybe it still had its scientific meaning understood as well as the story, maybe it was told using the british equivalents of aquarius and capricorn. But think on... when was it actually written down, and who wrote it down. And what astrological nomenclature did they use?

*I havent finished with this yet!* please, if you have read this, dont publicise it just yet until I've finished wrestling with it in my head. If you've read it, you probably know me, by all means talk to me about it. Its not top-secret,  but its not ready for public consumption just yet.

Resuming Flame-Keeping

One of my first ever posts on this blog was about flame keeping, such a lot has changed since then. The first year was spent with the flame lit on the waxing moon, and I really did get so much from the experience.

In the second year, the flame was lit on the last quarter of each moon, and this became a real struggle. All the stuff I got from it was about loss and isolation, it became draining and hard work. I kept up with it though for a long time, through the bad dreams and messages, until illness and death came to my family, and I just didn't have the time any more, through my fathers illness and death, the bereavement and the funeral, and I just got out of the habit.

This year I have decided to take it up again, but on my terms, I'm not going to follow the schedule set by the Goddess Temple.

What I found without the flame, was that I lost track eventually  of the moons cycle and knowing where and when I am in the grand scheme of things, and in March this year I decided to take it up again, following this simple schedule - during the light half of the year I intend to light the flame on the first quarter of each moon, and in the second quarter I shall keep it on the last quarter. So I'm not just picking the easy part, but at least I feel it is in synch with the solar cycle as well, and if things get hard again, I know that it will end, and when.

The spring equinox came, just after first quarter, so my first run was that there was no flame in the switch over from dark to light - this I found interesting in itself and I hadnt thought about that. So, April was the first lighting of the flame, and I picked up a routine again. The first time round, it took a few months to settle in with the routine until things started to kick in, so I didnt expect much from the first one, and basically it is aimed at getting me into the flow of the lunar cycle again, not as a tool for anything else.

So, my first time was just a peaceful and relaxing time, spent in ritual and meditation, the closing evening came, with more meditation, and I sat with it as the sun set, watching the colour of the sunset  through the window match the colour of the flame, until it was over.

It was the end of my working week, and a beautiful clear sky, so after the flame keeping was over i decided to go out and gaze at the night sky, somewhere seclude, not really knowing where - and that will be my next post :-)

bit more about Alder

There was some practical work I did with Alder as well, Different parts of the tree can be used to extract different coloured dyes.... if you want to dye cloth with it, then you need to look at how to dye cloth, because you need to add something to the dye, and something to the cloth to make it stick, I just wanted to extract the colours to make paints with, so I made watercolour paints from the tree and in the end painted a picture with them.

What I want to share is the processing of fresh bark to create a red paint. You need a piece of alder wood with fresh living bark on it, and to take that respectfully. What I did was to check all the trees until I found one with a damaged branch, and after connecting, I sawed the damaged part to give it a clean cut that would heal better for the tree and be less likely to cause infection. I also gave an offering to the tree.
At home, to process the bark, first lightly shave the outside of the bark to remove a slight layer and with it all the bird shit and lichen etc, and then strip the full layer of bark from the wood, in small strips is ideal if you cant get it off in one go. What you need access to is the inner surface of the bark.
Then, you simply chew it for as long as you can. Your mouth will fill up with saliva, and then spit it out into a bowl. Use this as your paint, or dye substance. It will look like a bowl full of bloody vomit.
If you dont want to paint, this is the side effect I wanted to share really - when I did this I was full of cold, feeling really bad, but wanted to get this paint made so I ended up chewing 3 mouthfuls of the prepared bark. It worked a miracle actually, I felt right as rain very quickly, and my cold was completely gone - until the next day when it had worn off and the cold came back as bad as before.
Alder is a member of the birch family, and the bark is full of aspirin -BEAR THIS IN MIND IF YOU HAVE AN ALLERGY! So I had been dosing myself up with natural aspirin. Probably not a good idea to do this every day, but it worked extremely well for about 18 hours :-)
I eventually made paints with the bark, catkins and cones - leaves were not out to make dye from, but I painted a picture with the paints -

In addition to the painting, I used the piece of wood I had taken as incense, I found that the wood, shaved and burnt on charcoal had a really lovely smell to it, very much like raspberry.