#dark months

By the next morning the sky was black and forbidding. The wind had got up again during the night and was roaring through the trees, and Algy could see that the weather in the wild west Highlands of Scotland was in a dark and fractious mood.

Hopping up onto the top of a tall tree stump, Algy endeavoured to keep his balance on the slippery surface while the angry south-westerly blasted his back and attempted to blow all his feathers out to sea… although without success, he was glad to say!

In the distance the clouds were descending upon the ridges that surrounded his home, gradually wiping out the view as though they held a giant eraser, and Algy guessed that before long he would be drenched once again. He knew that he ought to seek cover, and yet he felt strangely reluctant to leave his perch, for the dynamics of the tempestuous weather seemed to hold him spellbound. Although there was no longer any snow to be seen, and in fact it was supposedly the middle of the day, although he wouldn't have known it from the increasingly dim light, he was reminded of a poem by Emily Brontë, for he could not go…

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow. And the storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing drear can move me; I will not, cannot go.

“On a primal level, I want to have mastery over myself. I want to know things. I want to be able to sink into the ecstasy of my mind, the sorrow, the rage, and come back. I want to have control, I want to lose control. I want to have greater clarity on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level. I want to use witchcraft to be successful and influence my life. I want to know power and I want to have power.

I have to throw away everything I know and come back to the basics, starting over and addressing that raw barking madness lurking at the back of my mind. I have to look into it’s depths and make peace with it. I have to stop stumbling forwards in the dark and step back to see what lurks behind me.

How? How? How? Staring into mirrors until you’ve learnt something. Sitting with yourself and divining the messages of your own spirits. Going deeper into yourself than you ever have. Feel the self-loathing, the self-veneration. Experience completely objectivity of your soul.”

The wild west Highlands of Scotland were wrapped in dense Scotch mist once again, and the world beyond Algy's home had faded away into nothingness: no sea, no islands, no hills, no sky. Nothing but mist, and beyond that, just nothing at all…

Reclining in a camellia bush which had remained reassuringly green, although it had yet to show any sign of flower buds, Algy lay back in the mild, damp air and listened to the hooded crows cawing mournfully somewhere in the talll spruces nearby, where in spring they would build their nest.

Their calls were as muffled and altered as the appearance of the trees, for the mist ensnared both sight and sound, and Algy was reminded of a mystical mist poem by Carl Sandburg:

I am the mist, the impalpable mist, Back of the thing you seek. My arms are long, Long as the reach of time and space. Some toil and toil, believing, Looking now and again on my face, Catching a vital, olden glory. But no one passes me, I tangle and snare them all. I am the cause of the Sphinx, The voiceless, baffled, patient Sphinx. I was at the first of things, I will be at the last. I am the primal mist And no man passes me; My long impalpable arms Bar them all.

The weather had indeed changed, and once again everything was grey, grey, grey, grey, grey…

All through the night the wind had rushed and roared through the trees, bringing milder air from the great Atlantic Ocean to sweep all the frost and ice away, and depositing an abundance of water besides, as though the wild west Highlands of Scotland didn't already have enough and a great deal more to spare. Algy wished and wished that the skies could carry the water to his friends in southern California, where the world was actually burning for lack of it, instead of dumping endless quantities here, where there was already an abundant supply, to put it mildly…

But no, the weather had its own ideas, and what it really liked to do best was saturate the places that were already drenched, where the water could simply flow straight back into the sea, so that it could start the game all over again…

The weather birds had told Algy that it was set to rain all week, with the usual dense Scotch mist and plenty of wind, but despite the forecast there were moments when it seemed almost calm, and the rain more or less stopped, as though it had paused to enjoy ice cream or chocolates in an Interval before the next Act.

And in one of those brief intermissions, Algy took the opportunity to return to the pond, where only a few days before he had been able to walk to the middle and perch on the icy surface. That would certainly be a rash and foolhardy adventure for a fluffy bird in these conditions, however, so instead he perched on the damp, stony bank and gazed pensively at the reflections. Observing that his yellow hair seemed to be the brightest colour in the entire world on this dreich January day, Algy recalled a poem he had read long ago:

Smooth it slides upon its travel, Here a wimple, there a gleam— O the clean gravel! O the smooth stream! Sailing blossoms, silver fishes, Paven pools as clear as air— How a child wishes To live down there! We can see our coloured faces Floating on the shaken pool Down in cool places, Dim and very cool; Till a wind or water wrinkle, Dipping marten, plumping trout, Spreads in a twinkle And blots all out. See the rings pursue each other; All below grows black as night, Just as if mother Had blown out the light! Patience, children, just a minute— See the spreading circles die; The stream and all in it Will clear by-and-by.

The wind was rushing through the trees again, and although it felt distinctly chilly when it ruffled Algy's feathers, there was something in the air that whispered "spring is coming"… and there was something in the light which agreed. Massive black clouds still obscured the sun much of the time, but when the light did manage to break through it was quite definitely stronger and bolder than it had been of late.

There was no doubt about it: the dark months – those black and gloomy eight weeks surrounding the winter solstice – were over!

But it was Sunday, and despite the invigorating effect of the brighter light, Algy still felt weary and little inclined to exert himself, so he decided that it was time for all good folk and fluffy birds to have a well-earned rest – or perhaps even to take a rest if they had not exactly earned it…

Observing that there was a most inviting carpet of bamboo leaves in a particularly sheltered corner of his assistants' garden, Algy collected a volume of verse from his own personal poetry library and settled down happily beneath the mossy stump of an ancient elder bush. And on the very first page that he opened, Algy read a most apposite poem, for the light had indeed "won a fraction's strength", and the day "put on some moments' length", even though in fact the zodiac was not yet approching the Fishes, never mind the Ram!

How do you know that the pilgrim track Along the belting zodiac Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, And never as yet a tinct of spring Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling; O vespering bird, how do you know, How do you know? How do you know, deep underground, Hid in your bed from sight and sound, Without a turn in temperature, With weather life can scarce endure, That light has won a fraction’s strength, And day put on some moments’ length, Whereof in merest rote will come, Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; O crocus root, how do you know, How do you know?