How can we hold the knowledge we gain?

I will not dream another's sweet musings
when the truth is only partly known
the fruit is so sweet but of another knowledge

but face my own full on
naked in the darkness
and recognise that which has never been shown before
and dream it as my own

I will not share you with another
I cannot
for their knowledge would lack the spice of experience

I am the silver salmon driving out of the peat black water into the
daylight
Rising rising
Timeless and heavy 
Falling backwards into the darkness

    ~ from the poem Leaping Salmon by Anthony Dalby

This is part one of a two-part piece which I originally published as facebook notes in April of 2012. To the right, you can see one of the "prayer posters" I put on my bedroom wall at the time. Right next to a mirror by the door, where I couldn't miss it! It worked really well for me -- so much so that it became the inspiration for the meditation and prayer cards I now sell in my webshop. (They are quite a bit nicer than this poster, but I still hate to take it down.) Part two coming soon!

Honouring Manannán at Midsummer

...and the rent is due

I would bring him bundles of rushes from the waters edge.
Carry them by hand to the high place, stony Barrule, overlooking the sea.
For Midsummer Eve has come and Manannán awaits his payment.

Only, I am far from those shores.
Arid winds bend prairie grass like waves on an earthen sea,
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

Standing on the very brink of thundering wave and stone,
I have opened my arms, buoyed by winds sweeping from far Emain Ablach.
Lifted a moment, from the rocky cliff, like the Heron King taking flight.

I cling to memories of a rugged coast,
As I choke on the fumes of engines going nowhere.
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

As the rising tide sends plumes of white foam into the air,
The sea god’s wife approaches, her soothing kiss, lingering upon my cheek.
They call her Fand, which means “teardrop”, and she tastes like the sea.

We carry the ocean, like a memory, flowing within us.
Weeping, we give it back again, carried home on the Summer breeze.
I am stranded here, landlocked — and the rent is due.

                  - Shaun Paul

The two short items here were a bit of synchronicity from my life yesterday. In the evening, I wrote the poem below. Then a little later, I happened upon this very interesting article about Dodola and Peperuda, a Slavic rain dancing tradition I'd never heard of. If you are fascinated by folk traditions, as I am, you might enjoy it. Here's a quote:

During a period of spring or summer drought, it was the custom in many Balkan villages for a group of local girls to undress and then put on various combinations of leaves, sprigs, blossoms, flowers and herbs to perform the rainmaking ceremony. Early reports, made mostly if not entirely by male observers, describe these girls as ‘naked’ under their clothing of greenery: although what precise degree of undress this ‘nakedness’ really constituted is a moot point, since none of the commentators is likely to have witnessed the actual disrobing, let alone the training, preparation or rehearsal of the girls for the ceremony – roles which seem to have been reserved exclusively for mature and sometimes elderly women. At any rate, led by an older girl or young woman who had also been dressed or decorated in this way, the girls then went in procession through their village, and stopped in front of houses to perform dances and sing songs, which included formulaic refrains, all the while calling upon the heavens to send down rain. The housewives poured water over the leader of the troupe, and sometimes the girls themselves sprinkled water over the courtyards, using bundles of sprigs and leaves. They were then rewarded by the householders with flour or food and sometimes money.

Meditating on the spirits of nature

So when I sat down to meditate today, with this card in my hand, and read the phrase "Bring your thoughts to an image in nature which moves you." I decided it was an opportunity to listen. So rather than think of images from Scotland, I remembered a really great sunset I saw about a week ago as I was driving home from a nearby town. It was one of those sunsets which is outlined and defined by the silhouettes of many bare winter trees. It covered the whole palette, from reds and oranges, through to pinks and finally streaks of yellow and blue. A sunset is an interesting entity. Could it be said to have its own spirit? I doesn't feel so to me. It is created from the contributions of many different aspects of nature (the sun, clouds, moisture, dust, the season), but on reflection, so is a songbird, or a bluebell wood.

Set of four cards - Set 1

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Solitude and loneliness

O do you see yon high hills Covered o'er wi snaw They hae pairted mony's the true love And they'll soon pairt us twa Busk, busk, bonnie lassie Aye, and come awa wi me And Ah'll tak ye tae Glenisla Near bonnie Glen Shee ~ lyrics of a traditional Scots song

An excellent likeness of Hannah in her forties, painted by Caroline McClung.

I'm attached to the place because my family have lived here since my great-grandfather's time - no-one else has lived in this house since it was built, but our family. And the lovely countryside through the iron gate down the new road. I've often thought... It's my favourite walk, and I've stopped and looked, and I've thought that it's one thing - if I haven't money in my pocket, it's one thing nobody can rob me of. It's mine. It's mine for the taking. The beauty - to me there's nowhere like it, never will be. And whatever I am, wherever I am, this is me. This is my life. And if there's a funny old person in years to come - a ghost walking up and down here - it'll be me. A big part of me, wherever I am, will be left here. That's me. There's nowhere else. There's nowhere like it. - Hannah Hauxwell

View of Baldersdale

Hannah's Meadow

Hannah Hauxwell died in January 2018, aged 91. Part of the land she farmed has been designated a nature reserve, called Hannah's Meadow, due to the species rich grassland created by generations of natural, chemical-free farming practices. You can also read her autiobiography called Seasons of my Life.

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What if I am taken from the land?
And what if I am taken from my Gods?
Am I not a candle that burns?
Am I not blood and salt water?
Am I not a living root?

Some Gods may follow still
Others will not
Salt water in my blood will never ebb
My soul will still shine forth if so I will
The root is mine to nurture
Be it so

I am the living root
I am the flame
Blood and salt water
Carries me home again

                    Kris Hughes 2013