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In This House Made of Earth

10/12/2017

12 Comments

 
In the past two blog posts, here and here, I wrote about some of the things that have happened to me in the past year or so, and particularly about how using my oracle cards helped me through a rough time. This post isn't about the cards, but will fill in the ending of my time in Colorado, because there are things I really want to share.

So it was that I decided to remain at Springvalley Farm through the Autumn Equinox, and the new moon which preceded it by a couple of days. The hinge time. The liminal time. I decided that I wanted to use that time to sever my ties with the place. I knew that this was an important act.

I tend to sentimentality and homesickness, and although I had not been particularly happy there, and often desperately unhappy, still, I had come to love the land. How could I not? I had walked it, ridden it, driven a tractor over it, thousands of times. I knew it with such an intimacy. I loved the grass, the trees, the slight curves, and the different humours of the different, individual spots. There is nothing wrong with that love, of course! But, since I was leaving, and since I was sad enough already, I knew that it was important to cut these ties. To move toward thinking of this place as merely "a place that I am leaving". With that in mind, I tried to say the cord cutting prayer every day. But also to frequently just say to myself, "This is a place that I'm leaving".

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My shrine to Epona was in the adobe barn where I kept the feed and tack for the ponies. Over the years I went there every full moon to light incense and candles - also at other times. I did my best to keep that part of the barn clean, and always to honour Epona when I was in the feed room. Her presence was always there. Sweet and strong and firm.
Every morning I walked the land with the dog, Molly. We both had the need, physically, emotionally and spiritually, to do that daily. I took many photos of plants and of different views. With the state of my ankle being so variable, sometimes the walks were short, sometimes longer, but I felt a wonderful give and take between my spirit and the land's spirit on those walks, in the last months that I was there. Below is a little slideshow of a few photos.
I was so busy and tired, bone tired, with packing, with worrying about the future and mourning the things that had happened recently. I wondered how I would use that liminal time when it came. I am not good at planning rituals - they tend to unfold, though. In the end, I went out at night to the shrine in the barn with incense. I lit a candle. By this time the room was very clean and almost empty of things. I felt dead and empty when I went there most of the time now. No horses to feed. Stripping everything off to sell... But it was a beautiful evening, and I sat down on a chair and felt the beautiful presence of Epona. I began to sing my Hymn to Epona, and then to freely chant to her. Singing her praises from my heart. And I felt so strongly how she loved this place, too. The place where I made Her shrine. The phrase "In this house made of earth," came strongly to me. She delighted in Her house of earth.
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Later I went in and also lit a candle to Rhiannon, on my altar there, and spent time there meditating.

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The following morning I wanted to do something to leave a "spell" of protection on the land. I had strong feelings of wanting to help the land with the transition to what will come next. The grass and other plants, the wildlife, had become used to my ways. I had always sought to work with the land, to allow it to have sovereignty over itself as much as I could, and over the years I had delighted in seeing an increase in grass, birds and animals of all kinds.

I had thoughts of burying something at each of the four corners of the farm - but what? And how? I couldn't come up with a plan. I wasn't even sure that I could walk the two and a half miles around the place. I definitely didn't want to do it carrying very much. I thought about leaving some kind of carvings on the corner posts, instead. Carvings of horses or something, but realistically, I don't have the skill to do more than scratch the wood. What to do?

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In the end, I went to a collection of crockery shards that I have. These are not ordinary. They are pieces, mostly of blue willow-ware, which I collected many years ago from the beach at Port Charlotte, on Islay. Like sea glass, they have been tumbled smooth as pebbles, but with fragments of their patterns still visible. A stripe, part of a tree, or a leaf pattern. I have carried them with me for over thirty years, treating them as sacred, not really thinking about why. So I selected four of these, and started my walk.

At each corner, I managed to push one of these smooth, thin, pieces of china deep into the crevices of the corner posts, which are made from heavy wooden railway sleepers. Although they are weathered, they will last a long time yet. The walk was okay. I made it without being in agony, and as I put the fourth piece in place I felt a sense of some protective power surrounding the land, of four pulsing points reinforcing that power. And I felt ready to let go.
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12 Comments
Louise Epona Pell link
13/12/2017 04:53:01 am

Thank you for sharing your soul journey in letting go of the land you clearly love so much, I admired your honesty too about the fact you have not always been happy and concur with you completely about how you grow to love land you tend for, equally with your beloved animals to graze upon. Allowing sovereignty for the land herself also resonates with my own journey and my land. I was encouraged too by your willingness to allow spirit to guide your ending rituals. I particularly liked the pieces of willow porcelain placed reverently in an energetic protection prayer and have done something quite similar myself with stones for creating an invisible web of protection for the horses and the land when I am away from it! Deep gratitude to you Kris and may Epona & Rhiannon guide and hold you into 2018 with both Fire & Peace xxx

Reply
Kris Hughes
13/12/2017 02:37:29 pm

Thanks for your kind words, Louise! Yes, anywhere that my ponies have grazed has a special love connection for me. I wrote a poem awhile back which had the lines -
"I didn't love it here
But I loved you here"

("you" being the ponies") But it's more than that. It's knowing how the land, the grass, nurtured them, and how much they enjoyed that.

Thanks for your blessings. You are an inspiration to me, too!

Reply
Anna
13/12/2017 07:56:25 am

Thank you for sharing your story. I can relate to this. In 2013 my husband and I sold our country house to move further into town. We only had 2 acres but it was surrounded by woods, and we had done a lot of ritual there and really awakened the land spirits. We needed to move and were happy to do so, but leaving that land was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I still grieve.

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Kris Hughes
13/12/2017 02:30:30 pm

Yes, I am really beginning to understand how working with the land creates a strong connection - whether that is "work" in the mundane sense, like farming, or in the sense of knowingly working with deities and spirits. I have watched many older farmers give up, move into town, etc. and they are forever changed, and experience a kind of grief, even if they have a good life after. I have that, too, but I think that consciously saying good-bye and doing this protection ritual really helped. I wish that I had known to do it when I left other places.

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18/2/2025 05:44:35 pm

Your article, "In This House Made of Earth," offers a deeply personal and evocative narrative of your farewell to Springvalley Farm. Through vivid descriptions of the land and your rituals, you convey a profound connection to the place and its spiritual significance. Your reflections on the emotional process of severing ties, coupled with the honoring of deities like Epona and Rhiannon, provide readers with a heartfelt exploration of transition and reverence for the natural world. This piece stands as a poignant testament to the bonds we form with the spaces we inhabit and the meaningful rituals that help us navigate change.

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