~turning again~

here I am again, this time a few days home from Lammas Camp up in beautiful Derbyshire.

it was my first Lammas Camp and it took me some years worth of needling to get there (I drive but haven't for a while and so driving myself hasn't been an option) but I got there.

but first let me tell you of the oddest thing that happened when I was nearly there...

we were running two hours late, had been caught in traffic and then, suddenly, caught in slow moving traffic we noticed the road had been closed because of an accident while at the same time swampy mentioned to me (comfortably snuggled up in the back of the camper) that there was some 'nobber' either driving too close or trying to overtake. when the car drew up beside us there was a figure waving at us frantically and it was P who we had not seen for many years.

we took the detour road and stopped and had the most amazing reunion right there on the side of a tiny lane in deepest Derbyshire.

we have known P for many years through the vw scene, I have been counting back to when I first had my old vw bay window and the first camp I joined...on a really damp, chilly weekend here in the new forest...and I figure it was around 2000 or 2001.

our paths crossed many times over the years and then we stopped going to most vw events and his life took him in a different direction too and I honestly thought our paths would never cross again.

so in a truly serendipitous moment when we were running late, he was running late from work and we had been caught in traffic we finally connected on a roundabout in Derbyshire.

life is strange~he is my serendipity

Lammas Camp was a glorious event, a small gathering held on a small organic farm high on a hill

prudence all set up and cosy...

my tribe, my spiritual family were there with me. we camped together, set up our firepits in a small circle and lived our own idyllic life for a few precious days. no electric, no heat apart from the heat generated by our fires and glorious views and so much laughter I often ached from it. there was also much heart felt conversation, hugs and tears.

my friend nacht was there selling his beautiful copper wares from Emporium Nocturnum so I added to my Hecate's Wheel with a copper and silver Mjolnir...

next to the camp was a high hill that had the most amazing views and as a group we would walk up there every day to talk and explore. then each morning, waking early, I would hike up there in my pyjamas and sit and talk to any of the old goddesses and gods who happened to be listening. putting my thoughts and dreams into the passing breeze, hoping I would be heard...

my beautiful systers, I love them so very much...

on the last morning I was awake really early, the wind was blowing a gale, the canvas walls of prudence flapping like sails on a ship. all I could do was make coffee by lantern and listen...

 then I made my way up my hill...

 it was a wild, noisy time with the wind raging through the beech trees but I still put my voice to the wind where the words were carried off, tumbling to be heard by whoever.

then it was down to pack down prudence and pack everything into the camper, leaving me with my nest in the back, surrounded by rugs and wicker baskets holding the stuff of everyday life...tin mugs, an old camp cooker, a battered old Aga kettle and there was me, resplendent in my orange trousers and green mary jane's.
I felt sad, close to tears, I didn't want to leave this beautiful place, my beautiful tribe, my beautiful systers to who I shared my heart and soul, but home I had to travel

back home I maintain my routine of getting out as early as possible to send my thoughts, hopes and dreams into the sky surrounded in my garden by rowan, oak and birch...

I am going through a bout of insomnia at the moment, its lasted since Friday and finds me sleeping only a few hours and so getting into my garden at the liminal time of dawn has me feeling the shift that has taken place since Lammas.

its only small shift, most people are still enjoying what they call summer, but I see and feel deeper. I can smell it, see it, feel it. the great wheel has turned and we are closer to the darker months. in my garden I see the changes in the plants, while my lemon verbena is flourishing my lovage has gone over, while the birds foot trefoil runs rampant the leaves of the silver birch are slowly turning from green to brown and ripe berries hang heavy from the rowan.

I am feeling sad and teary today, the kind of sadness that makes me want to sit in the garden with a book and do nothing, not talk, eat or drink, just sit there and just be.

I know the source of this sadness but for now this must sit within my soul and wait out what may or may not occur. I know what I want to occur, something I want with all of my heart, with all of my soul, deep to the core of my very being.

I am in a limbo created out of serendipity and all I can do is wait...

~re-treading the path~

finding a path is never easy, keeping to a path is never easy and its easy to become distracted.

like anything in this world finding and remaining on a sacred path is one that constantly needs work, these things take time, take dedication and do not come easy.

anything can interfere with your path, even the smallest of thing, problems with family, a busy life, work, illness...anything.

but here's the thing...your path will never entirely desert you.

you might drift from the path but your path will never desert you.

it will sit snug deep within you like a fox cosy in it its den while your life gently meanders on its way, sitting there all cosy just waiting for you to remember it and to slowly find your way back.

this has been my life for a year now, the gentle meandering from my path. this has happened before but never for this long and never in such a complete way. a lot of this has been to do with my depression, the black dog drags you away from everything that is special in your life, isolates you from it, makes you think that nothing is important anymore. and that's how it was for months, I felt nothing, I had lost all connection, I felt nothing...absolutely nothing. the times of sacred celebrations passed me by without any sense of recognition or feeling. my altar space just sat there gathering dust and my shaman drum hung on it place above my altar un-touched.

as I wrote in my last post the magic of the moongazy gathering helped me find my way back onto my path and since then I have bene making those tentative first steps in re-treading my spiritual path, finding myself back on my soul journey.

the most important part was celebrating the summer solstice in my little wild, sacred garden, for once I was not too unwell or too pulled down by the 'don't care' vibe of depression to go and light a fire in my little cauldron...

I burned some of my star child 'moon' incense to celebrate the joining of the full moon on the summer solstice...

and drummed...

until the full moon slowly rose over the edge of the hollow we live in...

and I started to read my cards again. yesterday I did a four card reading of my shaman oracle cards...

 I feel better, the black dog and the anxiety is still there, but being back on my path and having a sense of connection makes me feel better, I feel almost whole once again.

~getting on~

here I am again and again weeks have passed with nothing from me.

I am trying hard to have some kind of consistency in my writing here, in my life but find it so difficult.

I have the odd day where I will feel as if I am gaining some form of control but it doesn't last and I find myself back to square one.

as the weeks have passed we have lost the grip of winter and spring has come to my corner of this ancient forest and my garden is looking better now we have some colour.

I had swampy move my bench against the fence under the boughs of oak and rowan so that in the spring and summer I will be able to sit under the green leaves and have a different view of our garden. because we are unable to grow grass (we think that when this little area of land was changed from a farm to houses the builders left something under the ground that makes it impossible for grass to grow) we have put down bark chippings at the top of the garden, however this isn't well because flynt enjoys chewing it up and having already paid many hundreds of pounds having a piece of tennis ball from his tummy we don't fancy another such incident so we will be buying some slabs and paving the area and making another two flower beds instead. we would love grass but having spent 8 years and a lot of money trying we have finally admitted defeat.

~hello again~

here i am again, dropping in to see what is going on and bring you some pictures of life here in this ancient forest since my last post.

i would like to say i have been busy but i haven't really.

in my guise as the wylde apothecary i had a commission to work on that happily arrived at its new home in canada last week and i have a pile of wood painted pendants that need finishing to be listed on my etsy shop.

i have been having a lot of bruxism induced migraines that seems to have been lasting forever~in reality about two weeks and a few days of semi-hibernation where i lay on the sofa reading and channel surfing.

however the sun and blue sky that has covered the land over the last two weeks has been utterly glorious...

the temperatures in the sun-trap of our garden has been high and because we had to trim back my canopy of rose and jasmine in my nook (asbestos removal) i have no shady bower to shelter under. so i had to improvise with a cheerful throw...

 as you can see Merlin found it to be the perfect play hammock!

i have had a few walks with swampy and flynt and all the animals are enjoying the sunshine too...

our garden is becoming glorious with the help of the sun. we had to make the decision to stop trying to grow grass on the bottom level of the garden. i don't know what the problem is but grass just wont grow into a nice lawn and so after 5 years of trying decided to pave the area and hopefully small, creeping plants might take to the gaps

fungi growing on a birch log 

   

solar water feature kindly given us by swampys parents

i am a total fiend for a hellebore, fern, aquiligia and fritillaria especially the fritillaria meleagris and have them dotted about all over the garden

swampy and i have totally different ideas about gardening and as a result we have spilt our garden to make us both happy. swampy has the front garden where he has the more showy flowers he loves, where he keeps the edges of the beds clipped and weeded. i have the back garden which in spring and summer bursts into a wonderful wild garden. i have planted many of the sacred trees~oak, rowan, silver birch, elder, holly, hazel, hawthorn. there are herbs growing between the favourites i listed above as well as primroses, primula, creeping jenny, sweet woodruff, ransoms, forget me nots, honeysuckle, poppies,...the list goes on and on. i have my small pond with waterfall and the solar water feature to give me the sound of flowing water.

swampy has been given the strictest instructions not to remove any of these...

sunshine & showers

its been a long time again

i have been finding it hard to gather my mojo for anything much

and my words have refused to flow here, although i have managed to fill quite a few pages in my moleskine~mostly connected to my card readings from either my shamans oracle or wild unknown tarot.

i have been having the black dog lurk within my peripheral vision~feels of 'i just cant be bothered', wanting to go to bed at an unnaturally early hour, not eating as i cant be bothered to cook, waking with a feeling of dread even if i am not doing anything that day and more recently random feelings of 'teary'

i know the signs, i have had cyclical depression since my teens (with anxiety and social phobia long before that...goddess i sound a mess!) but i refuse to go to my gp. i have an irrational fear of seeing any doctor, the fear of being told there is nothing wrong with me...the whole 'you dont look sick' thing. 

so i shall bumble along and see how things go. 

the good thing is the weather is slowly, oh so very slowly, getting better. today we have another blue sky day, although it is a little chilly still.

even better the workmen we have had here for weeks and weeks have finally finished which means we can restore our garden back to the beautiful space it was before they arrived and we had to move everything, dismantle the pergola, move the ferret cage...all this has meant that i have not been able to sit in the garden in any way shape or form. 

arghhh its just been awful!

now they have gone, swampy has put up the pergola, the ferret palace is back in place, my chairs, bench, pots are all back in their places as are my assorted green men and woven wreaths hanging with hag stones. 

even better i can now see all the new life springing back to life, pushing up from the damp earth towards the ever growing heat of our brother sun...goddess it feels so good, i cannot tell you how good. the black dog is still lurking though, i don't know when he will decide to trot off...even today with blue sky, sunshine and being able to sit in the garden he sits, very still, deep inside of me and i cannot shake off the little kernel of fear that is sitting with him. 

i wish i knew why...

*****

i bought myself something i have been wanting for a long time...

a red deer skin shaman drum from shamanic drums and rattles

i have been looking at their etsy shop for ages and finally managed to pool enough gifted money...

as soon as i held 'her' in my hands i felt the most amazing connection and looking closely at the markings on the skin had the feeling of the duality of light and dark with what could almost be an image taken from my shamans oracle cards standing between the two.

she sounds beautiful and i have already started to use her when doing a guided visualisation.

i have yet to properly dedicate her as my journeys are being done to find out more about those who have reached out to me over the years...

one day i went through some old photos and found a load of me at glastonbury and the festival c,1990-2, i look so young!

resting my feet with friends katie and jake

the top of the tor~short hair and cape over black leather

i have been exploring elen of the ways for a while now~it feels right living here in this ancient forest where seeing deer is not an impossibility. i have quite a few single antlers and a partial skull with antlers still attached. this i am sure is why i felt so connected to my shaman drum.

last week i went out on a sunny day for a walk with swampy and as we got out of the camper a large herd of deer bounded across the trackway and through the woods in front of us. a few stopped to stare at us before bounding away and they all crossed the nearby stream and vanished from sight.

then as we were walking back we ended up following the tracks of a few deer who had crossed the open land overnight leaving only their tracks, which vanished into the woods where the herd had been a short time earlier...

~long & hard winter~

my but its been a long hard winter

i have had a lot of flare ups with my bruxism and fibro and my body is coming to terms with the osteo arthritis.

so i have spent many days just sitting on the sofa or sitting in bed.

mostly reading or journalling

i have had no inspiration for anything at all.

just literally nothing

i am slowly coming out of it now, my room has been tided up and the clear desk is giving me some inclination to sit and create.

i think the full moon energies helped and i did a reading with the wild unknown tarot while snuggled up in bed. it was cloudy here and so we could not see her but i certainly was buzzing with life

we have had some gloriously frosty mornings here in this ancient forest

i love getting out in the garden early on frosty mornings, listening to the crows chattering away in the oak.

we have had a bit of excitement here with the grounding of the hoegh osaka between southampton water and the isle of wight.
we we drove down to calshot which is about a half hour drive from us and it was so busy~like a hot summers day~with people going down to see it

we took flynt and had a lovely walk along the beach hunting down fossils and hag stones

i have been moving music onto my ipod...

watching Vikings again before season three starts in march...

and loving this...

leveret has been sulking because we moved the sofa and armchair and so chose to sleep on my boots

and loving the new earth pathways diary