Autumn Cottage Diarist

A Strange Sort of Solstice

It's a strange year right to the end. Here are some thoughts on these particular 2020 Solstice days - and (as always!) a look around the garden as She rests and the year turns.

 

 

A Strange Samhain

Well - here we are again, on the threshold of Samhain 2020, and it's so different to any marking of the end of the Celtic/Pagan festival year than I have experienced before. It's normally a time of peaceful reflection, when I sit in the summer house, set up an Ofrenda for my beloved Ancestors and Loved Ones, light the candles, remember and honour them in tranquility.

Not this year - This year, the year of COVID-19, the year of confusion, of the unknown, of the unexpected, of the unwelcome - this year is different. From the death of my dear cat Pip back in February, to the alien world of Lockdown and then social distancing, mask wearing, vigilant sanitary precautions and a whole world of uncertainty about how to behave and how to relate to our fellow human beings, even for somebody such as myself who has not been personally touched with tragedy through the Covid virus, the world is a very different and strange place to what it appeared to be this time last year.

Samhain is the time when we move down into the dark days of the year, when the natural world up here in the Northern Hemisphere starts to go into a period of rest, decline, death and decomposition. As we observe the nonhuman world enter this period, then so we are reminded of our own material, corporeal beings, our own mortal existence and the fact that this will also reach a point of decline, death and decomposition.  But also - if we observe in the long term - it will become clear to us that the decomposition is a vital precursor to feeding what will come after - the new life that WILL burst forth from the earth and will continue the circle of life.

These concepts have been, I must admit, both a poetical and a theoretical idea for me up until now; but during the last few months, I have had health issues which have caused me to very literally look death - briefly - in the face. My own mortality is now a thing of reality, rather than just an academic concept. It's a tough one to start to face, no doubt about that, but it's a fact that will become only too real to us all one day. I guess it's a privilege to be given the time to get used to the idea (a LONG time I hope!) rather than having Sister Death turn up and tap me on the shoulder, out of the blue with no warning.

And now, this very evening, our Prime Minister has held a news conference to tell us that we will all be going back in to a form of lockdown for another month, in order to try to quell the upsurge in Coronavirus cases, an increase which is threatening to be larger and even more devastating than the first surge of the virus in the early part of this year. The leavening to this serious news is that we are (supposedly) better prepared - more protective equipment and staff numbers for the National Health Service, more systems in place to support the economy and a well prepared and fast (15 minute) form of personally administered testing that will be available, distributed and coordinated by the army, to be available nationwide within days. (Hmm - I'll believe it when I see it; like politicians of all colours, promises are more easily made than kept!)

But there is a little light at Autumn Cottage in all this darkness… a little cat has joined the Cawley family. We have acquired “Fluffy”, a 14 year old tortoiseshell and white little lass from the local cat rescue organisation, after we were told that her age and health problems (she has a cardiac issue) meant that little interest was being shown in her; the possibilities for her adoption did not look very bright. Since we are none too sturdy ourselves at the moment, we thought we would all make a good match and could be three old fogies together! So far, that is exactly how things have turned out to be 😊

She is, as we were warned, “extremely nervous”, though after three weeks she is a great deal less nervous than she was. She is more or less left to her own devices, spends a good part of the day sleeping and the rest of the time eating tasty morsels & little biscuit treats and getting numerous cuddles and pets. It seems to be working well and it is certainly lovely to have another little living creature in the house, though it goes without saying that she will never be a replacement for our darling Pip, nor would we ever want her to be.

So, my friends, down we go into the dark days together here; I will be calling on all my creative resources to keep me going through the next few months. I'm undertaking a memoir writing course with the University of  Oxford at the moment that is keeping me busy both with my own writing, but also in devouring lots of wonderful biographies and memoirs written by others. I also intend getting my sewing machine into action again - though this requires a certain amount of clear space in which to work, which may well be a little time in coming, according to how the energy levels go. They are slowly returning, but it may well be a long job, so stick around to keep me company in the meantime (and enjoy this little video walk around the garden this afternoon)

 

A Short Walk Through the Sea of Faith

The Anunciation Church of St Anthony, Lipscani, Bucharest

As a graduate of religious studies, founded on a lifelong fascination with comparative religions, I am always drawn with great interest to the religious practices and material culture of any place that I visit. This interest manifests itself in my compulsion, both here and abroad, to visit churches and cemeteries (my university studies were focussed on the rituals and rhetoric of death) - so it was with a great deal of delight that I approached my visit to Romania; I am particularly drawn to the theatricality of religious ritual - both in the actual practice of those rituals, and also the visual depictions of ritual and the religious texts upon which those rituals are founded. The Romanian Orthodox church has both in abundance; I was expecting this, getting excited over it and planning 'study visits' to several churches and cathedrals (one reason for my choice of hotel location - many old churches were within walking distance!)

What I did not quite expect, throughout the whole week, was to see so much 'faith in action'. A broad cross section of the population seemed to be actively practising their faith in a very matter of fact, en passant 'pop in and kiss an icon' way, integrated into their lives rather than set apart as a special event. Communism indeed laid its cold hand on this country in more ways than one, but it does not seem to have choked religious belief or  practice from at least a part of the body of the population.

Icon of the Theotokos, Church of St Paraskeva, Brasov

We were extremely fortunate to arrive in Bucharest the day before a major festival of the Orthodox Church. The Protection of the Theotokos (The Mother of God) commemorates and celebrates an apparition of Mary at a church in Blachernae (Constantinople) in the 10th century, at which, it is told, She removed her veil (the festival is also known as 'The Feast of the Protecting Veil') and placed it over the attending congregation. The festival celebrates the protection offered both by the Mother of God in her acts of intercession between Humanity and her Son, and the protection of the Christian Church.

Icons of this event often depict Mary with her cloak/veil held out with many people sheltering beneath it. (A convert to Orthodox Christianity, Sir John Tavener wrote one of his best known pieces 'The Protecting Veil' in honour of the belief).

Thus we ventured forth on Tuesday 1st October, intending a quiet wander around a few churches before a more active week got underway. Instead we were met, at every church we visited, by choral services attended by worshippers filling each interior, and in one church (The Annunciation church of St Anthony), streaming out of the doors, down steps and queuing in the surrounding passageways to light handfuls of votive candles in the twinkling shadows of the Pangaria (candle stations), to both the beloved living and the dead. Even many of those who were just passing by did not omit to vigorously cross themselves as they entered the environs of the church.

Candles - and prayers - for the Beloved Dead

Orthodox worship is a full-on experience. Even when no services are in progress, I am always drawn in to the vividly coloured events depicted in the frescoes and the glittering images on the icons (which are not in themselves intended to be worshipped, as is sometimes thought, but are seen as a 'channel' between the Human and the Divine - a 'focussing' mechanism  to aid the possibility of a moment of transcendence). Add to this background imagery the shimmer of candlelight on precious metals & stones, the smell of incense, the chant of the priest (and possibly choir) - it can be - and was - quite mesmerising.

The Interior of the church, following day

I rarely enter a place of worship when services are in progress - though it seemed acceptable to do so if one stood right at the back of the church (just inside the door, in the narthex) and behaved respectfully. On the 1st October, it was not possible so to do. Participants  were queuing to get in , and were pouring out in equal measure. The doors were blocked and it would have been impertinent to push through.

I did not need to - instead, I sat on a step and just looked…and listened.

Take just a minute to do so alongside me.

 

Root and Branch, Rock and Pot

It's been quite a week for parts of the Western World, hasn't it? and not one I have relished. Polarised opinions, anger and anxiety and that feeling - as I look into the future - of wondering what exactly will happen next?

When the pressures of the world weigh heavily on my shoulders, I turn to the natural world, and so it was today; I turned my back on the whole gamut of social media and the world of so many words which seem to ricochet around and sting right now, and took off - with my camera - to one of the places which truly does restore my soul.

The ancient ceremonial pathways and stone circle of Avebury henge have received humans for thousands of years - all seeking their own spiritual restoration and affirmation in one way or another. Today I walked those paths of the ancestors and they received me - on a dark, drizzling day with few other people around.

The stones were massive, lowering and grey - quite different to walking with them on a sunny summer's day - but they were good company. They just stood and listened - and I was restored, ready to face forward again, towards February 1st and Imbolc, the first festival of the Celtic year, a celebration of the first hopeful signs of spring.

Bring on the milk and fire of Brigid - the stones have got my back!

Exquisite decoration on a clay beaker - which may have been made like this....

In life...the tools used by Neolithic housekeepers

In death - fragmented bone cremains in a decorated urn

3000 years between them - two foci of spiritual sustenance - the Stone Circle and the Church

Facing forward towards Springtime - the lovely volunteers of the National Trust, grubbing out blighted Box Balls in preparation for the Mid-February re-opening of Avebury Manor. Doesn't that lovely smile cheer up the dreariest day?

 

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Fragments of Life as 'Small Stones'

Silhouettes
in pale sun through mist -
Blue-tits, suspended,
intently mining seedballs.

I've made a new, very simple, very gratifying discovery over the last couple of weeks - 'Small Stones' - the term given by Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita Thompson to the recording of one, intimately engaged and closely observed moment of your life and your interaction with the (inner or outer) world.

I've been enamoured with reading Haiku for a while now, but never felt that I get their creation quite 'right' - that I don't 'follow the rules' accurately enough, get the syllable arrangements all wrong...they just don't seem to come out well. (Who's got a vocal inner critic in this matter, then?!).

'Small Stones', it seems to me, don't have 'rules' as such - therefore freeing me from requirements of form and allowing me to just capture a moment in time. Being an avid journal-keeper myself and encouraging others to do so as well, I cannot think of anything more encouraging than to be able to say 'for just a minute - Stop. Look, listen, think... write'. A minute a day - we can all afford that, can't we?

We can spend many more minutes, afterwards, playing with the words, re-arranging them on the page, but capturing the essence, the fleeting moments of our lives (and what are all our lives but millions of present moments, linked together?) can be done in a minute.

The grave of Oscar Schindler

In Judaism, a stone is often left on a grave as a mark of remembrance, to show that the grave has been visited and that the incumbent is not forgotten. (I can't think that anyone who has seen the last scenes of 'Schindler's List' could be unmoved by this ritual). Having run my own memoir writing workshops, I can see 'Small Stones' utilised in future sessions in the same way. I will be encouraging participants to use them, beautifully employed to capture 'small stones of memory' which can later be further built upon.

Capture in a moment, savour forever. Sounds like a wonderful deal to me.

Thank you for formulating this concept of 'Small Stones', Fiona Robyn, and bringing the gift to my notice, Debora Palmer. I am grateful to you both.