Our group of seven gathered at Sam’s where we sat in the garden, in beautiful May sunshine, sharing a birthday breakfast with Beth.
Such a lovely space. We were tempted to chuck our plans away and stay there all day, but the high moors were calling and so we set off towards Merrivale which was the first point on our little pilgrimage.
When we arrived at the Bronze Age site of Merrivale, we gathered our thoughts and turned them, with love, towards the members of our Wild Wisdom community who were not present with us. Then we allowed our thoughts and feelings to roam back in time to a wider community: our forebears and the ancestors of the land around us.
Stone row at Merrivale
As we walked quietly along the stone rows, I wondered what they had been created for, what rituals and ceremonies had taken place there, and I saw myself walking beside one of the women of pre-history in silent contemplation of the land around and the mystery of the eternal cycles of life of which the land speaks to us.
We offered a libation and brief meditation to honour the place then walked slowly back via the stone circle towards our cars.
The next point in our pilgrimage was to return fully to the here and now, acknowledge the rumbling tums and find a suitable spot for a picnic lunch. This was a glorious spot by the river near Hexworthy and, as ever, our bring and share efforts turned into a perfect feast. Over lunch, Clare told us a short but intriguing local story about a midwife whose encounter with the faerie folk leaves her with only one eye – but an eye that sees with faerie vision. It had echoes of the previous day’s story of The Loathly Lady who in Sam’s wonderful telling also had one eye. We had an interesting conversation about this: the one eyed hag who sees everything as one……….
Restored by our rest and repast we carried on up the road to the beautiful little chapel of St. Raphael. We had decided over lunch to make this the last point in our pilgrimage, so that we could spend some spacious time there, and what a good decision that turned out to be!
Believed to be the only church or chapel in the country to be dedicated to St. Raphael, it is a very special place. I felt that the simplicity and stillness allowed for something much bigger to be present there and also that we were very welcome. The few “decorations” were beautifully appropriate, including a rich icon of Raphael and two beautiful arrangements of fresh wild flowers.
We sat in a circle, lit some incense and listened to the story of Raphael and Tobias, told by Helen. It is a wonderful mini-novella from the book of Tobit and it touches on many themes including companionship, trust, protection and healing – all very resonant for our community and our pilgrimage. Then we sang a gentle Jewish chant which invoked four of the archangels, and it was a lovely ending to our day.
The places we visited all had their own magic, but I am reminded yet again how much more potent it can be when shared in community. Images and feelings are with me even now; I am glad that I was able to be part of the day and I look forward to future community days. It is, for me, a crucial and enriching part of the Wild Widsom we are exploring.
Our day started in glorious Spring sunshine and we spent some time sitting in the garden exploring our response to the season. Together, we created a wonderful word portrait which reflected all the many facets of Spring’s energy; we found ourselves full of laughter and mischief, and our word portrait concluded with a big, joyful “YES” to the returning life force in the land around us and in ourselves.
As I reflect on our conversations I am aware how this work is helping me tune in to the rhythms of the turning wheel of the year, and how that awareness enriches my spiritual practice. At Ostara, we reached a point where light and dark were in equal balance and we could feel the stirrings of new life in the earth. In the Easter story, we contemplated that new life as resurrection and transformation. And now, as we move towards Beltane and Pentecost the light of the sun strengthens and I know we have reached the place on the wheel where the sun is bright enough to reach into all the dark corners of my life, encouraging an expansiveness which allows the seeds planted in the dark to grow and flourish.
Opening up the dark corners, doing some spring-cleaning, is not always a comfortable experience. In fact, it is sometimes deeply UNcomfortable. So I walk outside and spend some time simply being in nature, and it gives me comfort and courage. The plants and the birds and the creatures in my little corner of Devon respond to the growing light with instinct, with purpose and with what feels to me like joy. They don’t fear the light just as they do not fear the dark: they live in harmony with the rhythm of the turning wheel and do what needs to be done with the changing seasonal energies. The garden is a wise mentor!
And, sitting in Juliette’s lovely garden on Sunday, I was aware of something else that was burgeoning with as much energy as the rising sap – a growing sense of our community. The group, held beautifully but gently by Sam, has deepened in trust and mutual intimacy; in response to that I feel myself changing and I see others being affected too. I am finding the experience wonderful and moving, and I realize how much I need to be part of a spiritual community to grow as an individual; there are many times when I need and want to be alone, but I do not have to be lonely. Ecclesiastes has some lovely words about about friendship:
“Two are better than one…….For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.”
It is good to know that although I may fall, there will be another to help. If I were painting a word portrait it would include “honesty, acceptance, humour, simplicity, help, compassion, witness….and cake”.
I have to mention the cake. On the previous day, we had looked at the myth of Isis and Osiris who are two of the Ennead – a group of nine deities in Egyptian mythology. On Sunday, I brought a cake to share which was made (quite coincidentally) with nine different fruits. I don’t know whether it was the fact that it was an Ennead cake, but we certainly tucked into it with childlike delight and Spring’s youthful appetite.
The Ennead Cake
Yes, there was definitely a lot of fun in the air. After lunch Clare led us through a gloriously energizing exercise in which we created a soundscape to welcome and honour the energy of water. After that, in the quiet afternoon time, people were invited to use lace and fabric and sequins to make watery art work and we ended up with our usual variety of creative offerings, including a beautiful Bridie doll.
We ended the day with a simple, happy ceremony.
Writing this journal entry a few days later, I am watching the busy busy birds securing their territories through song, building their nests and finding food for the early chicks. I am aware that there is a still place inside me witnessing it all, and that the still place was deeply nourished by the weekend. Gratitude.
Wild Wisdom Two, Saturday 21st November “Ancient Greece & Rome”
Written by Clare
On Saturday 21st of November, in a bright room in Dartington, we entered into a world of lemon groves and thyme scented air. The Greek mountains of the story were buzzing with bees and the sound of goat bells clattered in a gentle, harsh calling. In the murmer of the azure blue seas there was a remembering from long ago; these were ancient mysteries that originated on the island of Crete. In around 1490BCE the mysteries moved across to mainland Greece.
What is so enticing about the ancient mysteries of Eleusis is that we don’t really know what went on. We have tantalising records of the preparation that initiates, known as mysti, undertook. But the initiates themselves wrote nothing. All we have are the observations of outsiders, some pieces of art…and a story. Yet even from the edges of a tradition that was enacted three and a half thousand years ago, the story offers us a way in….we followed the tiny crack in the ancient rock of history and there was a thrill that ran, somewhere deep in the channels of blood that course through the subterranean veins of my body…something that I know, yet can’t quite remember, like a dream just on the edge of consciousness.
And the mysteries of ancient Greece were dreamlike; nine days of fasting, consuming intoxicating drinks, dancing, costume, mask, an entrance into the darkness of a cave, the profound and fully embodied entering into a story. And the story is of a woman, a mother and her daughter.
Right here in the ‘cradle of civilisation’ in ancient Greece, at the very core of our modern culture, is a mother with her beloved daughter. How could we have moved so far away from this?
The mother is Demeter, earth and grain mother, and her daughter is the one who is called into the shadows, taken or enticed down into the underworld where she becomes Queen. There are so many layers to this story and we began, as a group, to fold back just a few of the red petals, but like the seeds of the poppy, there were just too many!
We left the thinking behind after lunch and created our own embodiment of the mysteries. On a dark November afternoon, the lights and the candles gradually went out as our ceremony moved on. Finally we sat, six women and one man, in silent darkness. The darkness of a cave. The darkness that cannot have changed so very much in all the thousands of years. Darkness is darkness.
And I was surprised to find a warm softness there. A part of me expected to feel the presence of the underworld, of death like a cold hard slab, but no. If it was death who was present, if it was Persephone, daughter of Demeter, who I met in the darkness, she welcomed me. Her body was warm and she comforted me. I could have stayed like a lover with her, whispering and giggling and feeling in the darkness a luminosity where self and other merge and there is no differentiation.
But there was a need to wake up. Once again the story brought us clues; the deep earthy humour of the Goddess Baubo, music, poetry and sunshine. Like staying in bed all day with my lover, keeping the curtains closed so we can make love. But the sunshine creeps in. The sunshine calls so invitingly, “Come to the beach! It’s a beautiful day!” So together my lover and I rose up, like the barley corn pushing its way up from under the ground called by the sunshine.
This was a day full of sensation and intrigue. The story, which appears so simple, combined with the history and our combined courage to step into imagination in a sacred way created something totally unique. Our experiencing of this myth, like the poppy seed, was multiple; imaginative, factual, emotional, intellectual, embodied and spiritual. It’s not possible to write this down – I can see why the mysti didn’t try! If you weren’t there, you need to come next year!
This was a glorious spot by the river near Hexworthy and, as ever, our bring and share efforts turned into a perfect feast. 
Over lunch, Clare told us a short but intriguing local story about a midwife whose encounter with the faerie folk leaves her with only one eye – but an eye that sees with faerie vision. It had echoes of the previous day’s story of The Loathly Lady who in Sam’s wonderful telling also had one eye. We had an interesting conversation about this: the one eyed hag who sees everything as one……….
