Category Archives: pagan

Blessed Imbolc

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Of all the pagan feast days, Imbolc is close to my heart. Spring is coming– and Brigid presides over the new sun, the quickening sap in the trees, the buds preparing to flower.

Brigid’s presence is felt all over this island, with many places being named after her. Brid(e) is Brigid; t is thought that her blessing was sought by brides. She is also the goddess of blackberries and swans, poets and blacksmiths–  a perfect correspondence!  I feel her over my shoulder as I work.

I have quoted Emily Dickinson’s poem 365 here before, but it is perfect here:

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door –
Red — is the Fire’s common tint –
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame’s conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil’s even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs — within –
Refining these impatient Ores
With hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge –

To celebrate today, I’ve experimented with making some incense from dried herbs and flowers– basil, bay, camomile flowers, cinnamon, dill, nettle and rosemary.  All ground up with my mortar and pestle and burned over a charcoal disc.

Blessed Imbolc, dear reader!

Imbolc Bride, Necklace by Feral Strumpet on Etsy

Grey Mary Visits

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Who is that at the door?  A horse skull for a face, with green bottle-glass eyes, covered in a sheet, draped with motley ribbons.  Is there a man beneath? You almost recognize the shoes, the only human thing about him, as your neighbor’s, but not really.  And now, singing.  The spring hinged jaw opens and shuts.  The company he keeps is familiar, you know them from the village, they carry his jingling reins.  They had started out at dusk, you heard them farther out by the church, singing through the night, door-to-door. asking permission. And now it is midnight, and they are here.

In many UK folk traditions, the festival of Christmas carried on for 12 days after, and in Welsh tradition this is when Mari Lwyd, Grey Mary, Grey Mare or simply the Mare went wassailing.  Though today it may be seen as some kind of artifactual party-bringer, it is not hard to see in this strange being a skeletal, ghostly remnant of the “Great Mare” Epona, the ancient Roman-Celtic horse goddess once widely worshiped on this island.

The Laidley Wyrm

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Songs of Witchcraft and Magic CD, compiled by The Museum of Witchcraft

The Laily Worm ballad by Craig, Morgan, Robson

This track has haunted me for years.  It’s from the fascinating CD, Songs of Witchcraft and Magic compiled by the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall.  The delicate shifting harmonies of the two women’s voices seem to mimic the shimmering silver mackerel darting in the sea, or the twisting bulk of the worm or serpent that was once a boy.  In the Northumbrian version of the story,  the wyrm is a cursed girl named Margaret and she is saved by her brother’s kiss.  He has come to slay the serpent that has menaced his people when at the last minute he recognizes his sister as the creature and saves her with a kiss.

But in this version the serpent sings of his transformation and that of his mackerel sister Maisry– so close to misery, and strung out in the ballad as a three-pearl-syllable.  The mackerel consols the wyrm every Saturday at noon– in this verse they have knees and comb each other’s hair, suggesting at that one moment they may be human again.  The witch who has transformed them is as usual a wicked step mother.  Once caught, she calls the mackerel with a silver horn and all the fish in the sea come to her (what an image!).  But the mackerel refuses to obey, and stays a fish. “No more will I be changed by thee!” It cries.

The song closes with the terse couplet–the father goes to the “merry green wood” to gather hawthorn to build a “good bonfire to burn his lady in”.

I highly recommend this CD not only for its rousing strangeness but for the intelligently written booklet with lyrics and notes.

I have created a Grimoire bookmark inspired by the Laidly Wyrm, which is part of a series of grimoire bookmarks available in my Etsy shop.

The Laidly Wyrm Grimoire Bookmark

The Yggdrasil of Surrey

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The Crowhurst Yew

The Crowhurst Yew

Most places worth visiting in Britain you won’t find in a guidebook but through word of mouth.  Beverley Angel, a modern Tatiana, mentioned a hot woodland tip as we sat next to each other in the Elsinore pub in Whitby: there’s an ancient tree in Surrey where one could have a dinner party–inside–and it’s right off the M25.

The 4,000 year old Crowhurst yew, complete with fey door in the side, is the locale of many a childhood fantasy, a physical manifestation of the collective subconscious.  Despite arguments that most ancient yews in Britain are in fact medieval, the tree seems to live forever, its bark molten with anthropomorphic parts: the faces, arms and hands of creatures that are born and die, echoed in the graves which the poisonous branches shelter.

A yew-fairy/crone silhouetted in the trunk of the tree

A yew-fairy/crone silhouetted in the trunk of the tree

One would have to work hard to deny the suggestion of spirits, fairies and ancestors there.

The Yew is a symbol of the mythological world tree, rooting two worlds to each other. It’s the tree of the emigrant, the immigrant, the in-between-one.  It doesn’t matter how old the tree literally is, or whether the stories it suggests are factual.  It is doing  allegorical work in real time, in a real place.

Image from 1875

Image from 1875

Many Christian churches in England have been built on sacred pagan sites.  Some say the church intended to siphon the energy of these places or contradict their power.  The 12th Century St. George’s church and surrounding graveyard belongs to the yew now, and serves as a metaphor for this island as I’ve found it: the Christian history dominating a pagan past that is so strong it can’t be subsumed, and in many ways the two live side by side in a mysterious alliance.  The sprouted staff of the pilgrim saint is also the neo-pagan ogham wand.

No one can prove the age of this tree yet–written records don’t go back far enough and the insides of yews fall alway as the tree ages, leaving no rings to cout.  The wooden eyes of this giant, older than history, will keep its secrets.

Ash Wednesday

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…according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

I’ve never been a good Christian. Even as an adult, going willingly to church every Sunday, I could not bring myself to be baptized. I was always a wild creature, resisting the tether of faith or name, and have wanted to be free above all else.

In the end I rejected the Christian church because it had no place for my ecstacies. But even after this decision, I went to church every Ash Wednesday to be anointed with ash and oil, and I would have a good cry. For years I would cry for being outside of the church– the whore/witch who refused repentance.

Strange then that I would find the one ritual associated with repentance the most moving– or perhaps not so strange in that as a “sinner” in the eyes of the church, it would be the open door. Or perhaps it’s just easier to be among Christians when they have assumed a position of humility, if even for a day, wearing on their foreheads a momento mori. The church I went to was full of lapsed Catholics, many gay men and women who’d found themselves outside of the church but not outside of their own faith. It was easier to kneel in such company.

After moving to the UK, I found more comfort in the green spaces and the ancient stones: wild affirmations surrounded me with an immediacy the church never held.

One Easter I found myself in Canterbury and out of curiousity I’d gone into the church during the service, all godly and somber, full of pensioners and wailing babies, families going through the motions of the good news. At one point we turned and shook hands and, according to my partner, I’d done it wrong, said the wrong thing, used two hands instead of one, turned to the wrong person– I can’t even remember now, but I took this news hard. It was as if he’d let out a secret, outed me as the spy I was. I felt dizzy and almost fainted with a rush of history, of consciousness that was unbearable. A stark realization: I was not singular at all, but from a long line of the cunning that had been shut out, humiliated, burnt.

Ashes to ashes– it’s in this spirit that I still celebrate the Wednesday so, remembering my sisters at stake.

Happy Christmas, Dearest Reader

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Christmas in London is a serious affair simply because everything closes. No tube, no buses. No shops or restaurants. The bustling, crowded city turns into a kind of ghost town. Other Americans have said to me, “I always dreamed of a London Christmas” and I’ve often wondered what exactly they meant– surely not the apocalyptic stillness I’ve encountered, having no one to see and no where to go on that day.

There is the argument that Dickens invented Christmas. Perhaps these Americans are thinking of A Christmas Carol– ragmuffins in the snow, conscience-pricking ghosts? Or is it something quaint, mulled and jolly– a received protestant memory? I suppose it’s where the archaic “Merry” comes from in the American “Merry Christmas”– this throwback of an idea. London is the Victorian city celebrating in ye olde stylie. Except it’s not. The only truth in these fantasies is that London at Christmas is a heap of juxtapositions, and maybe that’s why it’s amazing. It’s the one time of year you might have a Londoner smile at you for no reason, and that shopkeeper who you’ve seen twice weekly for years now might just let on that he remembers you. Of course, after the New Year things go back to brisk, slightly hostile anonymity.

Yule has always been my favourite time of year. I love the long nights and in London the nights are even longer. It’s harder to forget the pagan roots of the holiday– the lights and decorations are consolation in the darkness and the bitter cold. There’s less “Happy Birthday Jesus” and more puddings, ales, mistletoe and holly.

It’s easier to avoid the consumer cataclysm in London. I’m sure it exists on Oxford Street, the King’s Road and Carnaby Street, but if you don’t go there you don’t have to deal with it. If you do have to go to a store you’re more likely to hear a bizarre (to my American ears anyway), new-wave take on Christmas: Wham, Band Aid or even the Plastic Ono Band and Wizzard instead of the same schmaltz you’d hear in American retail establishments. Less Chipmunks and more Fairytale of New York.

And there’s something modest about the celebrations. As far as I can tell the big festivity here is the office party, and barring that, the coach ride to see relatives. Last night I was at our local pub and there was a table of celebrants having roast dinner. They all wore paper crowns (save two killjoys who took themselves too seriously. I believe you can judge the character of a person based on whether they are willing to wear the paper crown.). They read each other the stupid jokes out of the crackers which they pulled with childish glee, even though the lot were middle aged.

But there is the bizarro mirror, of course– being an expat here I see the British indulge in a Yank-style Christmas with I kind of sardonic guilt– it’s full on Hollywood romantic comedy, credits rolling over Louis Armstrongs’ It’s a Wonderful World. (The film Love, Actually kind of sums up this adaptation in a horrifying way.) Today two Radio 6 DJ’s I love to hate– Russel and John– played christmas music as they got drunk on cider and rose petal vodka this morning. And they played typical Yank Christmas songs, snarking all the way but still loving it, probably because they were opening gifts that contained even more alcohol. Damn if I didn’t get all warm and fuzzy, too. Especially when they played the atypical Ramone’s Merry Christmas, I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight. *sniffle*

But then, this time of year, almost anything sets me off, a song, a string of lights, a commercial for an ipod, even.

So today, after listening to Christina’s brilliant Xmas song, Things Fall Apart, I went for an astringent walk down the canal near my flat– frost-speckled webs drawn across the skeletal vegetation, only the thorns were left clinging to the frozen bank. The fog was so thick and ghostly, it blanked everything out– every tinselled sentimentality.

All I ask is a tall stone and a star to steer her by…

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M and I have returned from the Orkneys, and now that I have internet access, I can write about it.

We spent 10 days traveling around Aberdeenshire, visiting standing stones and traveling around the Orkney Islands. There, we ate the local bread called bere bannock with mild Orcadian cheese and lots of amazing local beer. We also crawled around a lot of neolithic tombs.

Once you get the hang of finding neolithic sites on OS maps, there is a danger of being a sort of trainspotter about it. Traveling by car, one can easily forget these ancient places are part of the local imagination– living, distinct and fantastical sites.

But on occasion there will be a stone circle that will remind you of this– one such circle was outside an abandoned farmhouse in Aberdeenshire. There were the usual territorial bulls about, but what bothered me was something else. Once, while I was climbing a hill fort in the South of England, I had the strangest sensation of something riding on my shoulders– an odd little gleeful being, only slightly malevolent. It was a disturbing feeling, and I didn’t shake it until I’d reached the roadside.

This circle had a similarly sinister, fey aspect. In the long wet grass surrounding the circles– which were now in wild disarray– no flowers grew, but inside the ring flowers bloomed in nodding white and yellow bunches. Charming, if there weren’t such a forlorn feeling pervading the place. I think often when Neopagans visit sites they infuse them with something, new folklore, new stories and hopes. And I think these things linger. But some circles are hardly visited at all, except by the things we can’t see or know. This circle belonged to such things. Approaching it I felt a cold pull inside, and a dizzy feeling. I decided to hurry back to the car, my skin all gooseflesh, but M went on without me to the recumbent stone circle, climbing over barbed wire to get to the next circle beside it, and I watched him go, uneasy.

Of course nothing happened. Except that while I waited cows called pathetically into the wind. This is beef country and I find it difficult to reconcile the sufferings of these animals, even if they are not being factory farmed.

Some stones are visited by too many people– overly husbanded by the National Trust. Stonehenge is the worst example of this. Other stones are visited mostly by creatures, and still others are kept company by the alien and “conquering” faithful. Christians. This recumbent stone circle, pictured above, had a churchyard built around it, despite or perhaps because of its horned stones flanking the altar. In Julian Cope’s book The Modern Antiquarian, he describes this circle as looking like the horned good surfacing from the earth, and that’s no lie. It makes the the brittle headstones around it look like chessmen lost on the board of a forgotten game.

I’m sure this is why I keep coming to these places and why they haunt me– that sly feeling of triumph. Everyone wants to be affirmed by an iconographic landscape, something that codes your beliefs into the land and makes them bigger than the notion of the self or even of time.

All around this country, lichen covered blood-red stones count the stars, and they have marked our travels.

And, tomorrow, it’s on your knees, pilgrim…

 

Donuts, is there anything they can’t do?

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If we needed more proof that some pagans are humorless, we now have it. The temporary chalk Homer on the hilside next to the Cerne Abbas giant has some pagans claiming they will do a rain ritual to erase this bit of advertising for the upcoming Simpsons movie.

As someone who spends most of her free time hiking to neolithic sites and researching them with a great deal of reverence, why does this not bug me? I’m not really a big Simpsons fan. I usually hate advertising’s pirating of public space. So what is it?

Maybe it’s so funny to me it actually transcends its function as an ad. It becomes almost Banksy-esque in its irreverence (think of the port-o-let Stonehenge at Glastonbury this year). Maybe it’s because to me the Cerne Abbas giant is not a sacred site. There are no records of this site before the 17th century, and it is more akin to some public toilet graffiti than a symbol of the divine. When I visited it, I found it muddy, macho and underwhelming. Unlike the chalk figure of the prehistoric Uffington horse which rises up, ghost-like and fragmented from the dramatic landscape, constantly obscured, increasingly fragmented as one draws closer, adding to its mystery. It’s set for the eyes of a God, not some human chest beating exercise. Had homer raised his yonic donut to the white horse, well, it wouldn’t be funny, just odd.

That Homer has appeared overnight in his y-fronts like a crop circle– if we pagans can’t laugh at that, we don’t really deserve our cakes and ale.

To quote Homer, “God bless those pagans.”