The Greenwood Tree

Image source: bbc.co.uk

This fantastical gold, ruby, mother-of-pearl and moonstone jewel was created by artist and writer Kit Williams for his stunningly illustrated children’s book ‘Masquerade’.

This spring sees the 40th anniversary of the book, which became a national obsession when it was first printed in 1979. As well as a story, the book was an amazing treasure hunt. Containing a series of riddles, when the puzzle was solved it lead the way to the location of the fabulous jewel. It was found buried in an English field - sadly under dubious circumstances - and later sold into a private collection.

adjective

“consisting of small disconnected or incomplete parts.”

image: [original source unknown] a broken bowl repaired with gold to preserve it’s flaws and its history, known in Japan as the art of ‘kintsugi’.

After the pull of that deep March full moon in Libra and the shadow’s push of the April new moon in Aries I’m feeling fairly fragmentary. Frag-ment-ary. It’s a pulled apart word.

There are fragments of me littered all over tumblr drafts and google drives and half-abandoned laptop folders, in notebooks and on post its and scrawled on scraps of paper.

I found two old half started poems: Lines cut through with shards of other lines. Old memories.

_ _ _

Fragment #01 (Nov 2016)

First to move into the space/ you understand that surrender is the blank point of death/ but I have worlds to keep/ What we started, you have ended/ Where we end, we have started/ I understand... [here it cuts off]

Fragment #02 (Mar? 2016)

Moving through warm silk air the spring rain announces empty spaces/ over a fence the flower cheered graves sit staunchly between a thousand voices bounded by the decaying scent of hawthorn flowers that should be a memory but isn’t known/ Spiralled snails in jewel colours adorn dark velvet rowan trunks a balance of raindrops on new oak leaves fading cherry blossoms soaked thin as worn muslin/ The nettles keep digging me: ‘Look at us! Look at us’. I see without looking and they wake me up/ A King Cup to hold in my hands Globus Floriger orb of water dense leaves bears a ball of golden sepals/ a universe inside not mine but all of ours/ ‘Strength in Nobility,’ whispers the Queen of Coins.

_ _ _

Should I repair them or let them decay? That’s a puzzle, isn’t it? To preserve our flaws and broken history as part of the self that makes us whole. Or to let go of what has gone.

Hello sunshine! Is it nearly spring? Is it? The sun was allowed out to play today just for a bit and the living room was filled with light and warmth and was just lovely.

Some of our happiest, most relaxed moments are feeling the sun warming our shoulders, the small of our backs. The soft radiant heat that slips silkily into our bones. And it’s not just humankind. Anyone who’s ever owned a cat knows how they luxuriate, legs stretched, in even the smallest square of sunshine.

It’s a kind of loneliness when the sun disappears, obscured by seemingly endless winter days and nights. How happy we are to see it again!

A Hymn to Eos, Ancient Greek Goddess of the Dawn

Here’s a lovely prayer to sunshine - to the dawn - from Patrick Dunn’s translation of The Orphic Hymns. Composed in Ancient Greece nearly 2,000-years-ago, the hymns are devotions to pagan deities, part of an ancient mystery cult dedicated to the god Dionysos.

What’s nicer than to start the day with a heartfelt and happy greeting to Eos, the sunny goddess of the dawn? Stand outside in the sunshine if you can, facing the east, head raised, bare feet on the ground.

For Eos

Hear, goddess, who leads the light-bringing day to mortals, bright-beaming Eos, making the world red, messenger of the mighty and noble god Titan. With your risings you send the dark and swift march of night down to the underworld. Leader of works, minister of mortal life, whom the race of mortal humanity hails. No one flees your face when it is above, and when you shake sweet sleep from your eyelids, then each mortal creature rejoices, all serpents and each of the species having four legs, or wings, or dwelling in the teeming sea, for you provide all working livelihood.

So blessed and holy one, magnify the sacred light for the initiates.

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Resources: ‘The Orphic Hymns - A New Translation for the Occult Practitioner’. Translation and commentary by Patrick Dunn (published by Llewellyn)

How often do we feel alone?

Coming together in unconditional love, friendship, or the sharing of a common bond is what makes us whole. A conscious choice, a mutual trust. If we seek it out, unity – with all our differences – holds within it the magic of transformation. A yin yang. Breathe softly and whisper this charm aloud. Who will you see? Where will the connection take you?

I was walking back from a gym class tonight and the sky was such a beautiful  soft velvety black you almost felt enfolded in it. It’s just before a new moon and the moon’s light has left us temporarily. It will return again as a sharp silver crescent.

This time of the lunar cycle – the ‘dark’ moon – is inhabited by the goddess Hekate. She’s stepped into her other home - the underworld - untouched by the sun.

Since finishing my ‘Hekate’ mandala I’ve been putting a lot of work into getting acquainted with the classical view of Hekate. She’s a very ancient goddess with many, many layers of meaning attached to her. She can be traced back long before the Ancient Greeks. Hints of her are found in Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian myth.

In Ancient Greece, the gods and goddesses were known by many ‘epithets’. Invocations to the deities often took the form of a roll call of some of their many aspects. By putting it into written - or most potently spoken - form the intangible becomes tangible.

Here’s my own invocation to Hekate, a way to connect with her history and her meaning as an archetype.

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HEKATE

Brought forth from the stars with Titans Ancient Gods Rulers of the heavens, the earth and the sea

Reborn through the ages: Night Queen Divine Mother Spell-weaver

Inanna-Isis-Hekate

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Passing through the chthonic gates Persephone’s companion Guardian of the seasons

As the wheel turns: Maiden of spring Mother of harvest Winter’s fearsome crone

Kore-Demeter-Hekate

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Standing at the crossroads Torches that light the way A path beyond the veil

By the moon’s unending cycles: Huntress Bright One Shadow-worker

Artemis-Selene-Hekate

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Triple-formed

Mother of witches Preceptor of herbs and poisons

Midwife of souls Keeper of hearts’ desire

Night wanderer Breathing madness into your fiery-eyed dogs

Horse-Serpent-Hound

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My cup brims with honey An erotic libation

Images: Macrame Mandalas - ‘Hekate’, ‘Shakti’, ‘Medea’

[ “The mandala serves a conservative purpose – namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique… The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point”

- Marie-Louise von Franz, Jungian psychologist. ]

Some time ago I returned to one of my brief teenage craft passions - macramé - the art of knotting. Similar to knitting, crochet or weaving, macramé creates ‘fabric’ from yarn, string or cord, using two basic knots to create texture and pattern.

While my teenage attempts at macramé were about learning the basics and following other people’s patterns to make practical items, coming back to the craft I could see things differently. The knots lend themselves to abstract pattern and form and the process of knotting becomes a meditative – and magical – act.

Although the pieces I’ve created are not ‘mandalas’ as such – mandalas strictly speaking are circular – they’re aligned with a mandala’s spiritual principle. They embody my own spiritual journey and open the door to the liminal space of the higher self. The patterns take on meaning.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung was very interested in mandalas as he often found himself sketching circular shapes in his diaries. It’s something that all cultures in all times have been drawn to do.

I like the idea of the “ascending spiral”. Our lives often seem like great loops of time, bringing us back emotionally and psychologically to sticking points we’ve encountered before - perhaps many times.

There’s something awe-inspiring about this Queen - so strong, such a leader! Brandishing a weapon as her lion’s mane tresses flow free… An Amazon, a Boudicca Warrior Queen.

But look to her heart. There’s a scar where the warmth of her breast should be. A heart sewn up tight inside.

I’ve been living with the Queen of Batons (or Wands, or Rods - her weapon of choice goes by several names) for the past few days.  I’ve only just noticed this - not absence - of heart but instead a protection. Sewn up deep inside where nothing can harm it, nothing can make it suffer or bleed.

This suit in the tarot is all about the glory of the fight - action and reaction, inspiration, the forward momentum that comes from deep inside to get us to where we want to be.

Batons challenge us to be brilliantly brave, so the positive aspects of our Queen here teach us to own our lives and make things happen. To be fiery and alive.

But there’s something else too… ’Making things happen’ necessarily requires us to swallow our fears. But being overprotective about our emotions for too long can be damaging. Keeping a heart sewn up inside indefinitely ultimately leads to pain.

It’s in my Aries nature to hate to see myself as weak. I tell myself that despite any challenges I face I deal with it - and must deal with it - because it’s all on me. This can lead to a lot of underlying anger and resentment even if I don’t show it - to most people. It’s exhausting to consistently swallow the pain.

I’ve realised that allowing my heart to be open - to love, delight and pain - is what makes me really alive. And I’ve let it happen, although I occasionally slip back into my old ways. To be vulnerable is not the antithesis of being brave - both aspects are what makes a whole person.

Often, I find it quite difficult to judge the source of my emotions, my outbursts of anger or flashes of simmering nihilism. I’ve had the Queen of Batons in my mind for the last week and that ‘sewn up heart’ image that occurred to me was a revelation.

I realise that often I blame mood swings on my ‘femaleness’ - literally - I largely put it down to hormones if anyone asks. Obviously, that plays a part but I think that for me, it’s a way to dismiss it and therefore avoid looking at what’s really an issue - that I’m hurting in some way.

So, the lesson the Queen of Batons has for us? Be brave and delight in it, be decisive, fight for what you want but allow yourself love, and to be vulnerable, and to hurt if you need to. In this way you can truly be ‘on fire’, and heal and renew.

“It is good to love many things for therein lies the true strength. And whosoever loves much performs much and can accomplish much and what is done in love is well done.”

Gorgeous loveliness…

Whenever I’m feeling melancholy I always turn to Sandy - so beautiful and so heartbreaking.

Moments was the last track to be completed for her 1977 album Rendezvous and it’s the last song she ever recorded, which makes it even more poignant.

This is the acoustic version, available on the 2016 album, I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn, which is a compilation of Sandy’s acoustic demos and live, radio and TV recordings.

Sandy Denny, British folk singer/ songwriter, 1947 - 1978.

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Resources

Sandy Denny ‘Rendezvous’, wikipedia.

Biography of Sandy Denny, sandydenny.org

“ I could feel the circlet around my head, the wide white-feathered wings, the Greek-style tunic girdled at the waist. And I held my hands askance, with the water/ energy that ran between them. The sense of ‘Temperance’ was absolute and unshaking ‘power’… Is that the right word? It was kind of otherworldly - angelic, I suppose. Then I was standing in water and it crept up past my knees, and waist, and head and then I was submerged in deep water, so deep that there was a confusion as to where was up and where was down. But I was completely still - like a submerged Ancient Greek statue. And the feeling that I could be there for thousands of years as the water evaporated into the sky and fell as rain and became the ocean again.“

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In honour of the rather mystical and dreamlike full moon in Pisces tonight, here’s another mystical post - an account from my travels ‘beyond the hedge’ in a meditation session - with a suitably watery theme.

‘Temperance’ here is the 14th card of the major arcana in the tarot and I’m very fond of her. It seems to me she embodies all four elements as she has angel’s wings and pours water between her hands as she stands solidly on the ground. Where’s the fire? It burns brightly inside her. Angels are made from the sun, after all...

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Resources

Temperance Card Meanings, tarotteachings.com

Image 1: (no credit) A submerged statue at the sunken Roman city of Baia in Italy.

[bells] [incense] [candlelight]

Now breathe in…

Mouth filling with Salt sea air from a dream’s binding. Over wind-whipped waves A discus light drowns Stars and beneath the Teal blue crests the fish, massing, Trace silver nets.

[Outside the glass-panelled door, in the dark at the end of the garden, a fox tips a fallen apple by the tangle of brambles. A thin streak of cloud slips across the moon. There are no sounds.]

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It’s a full moon in watery Pisces tonight, a time for magic when the veil between the worlds becomes thin. In dream-time, we can move fluidly between the past and the future, and hear the whisper of wishes and our heart’s desire.

It will be okay. There is no need to worry. What is right will endure in the right way and what is wrong will transform or fall away. Just let go and let it in.

Happy dreaming.

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Resources:

Full Moon in Pisces, September 2017, mysticmamma.com

This space is so strange isn’t it? The ‘blogosphere’. It’s one of those liminal spaces that I like so much: ‘between here and there’. Something waiting to happen.

It gives us a voice for hopes and fears - often hidden in an aphorism or a photograph; to passing flashes of anger, joy and love; to the things we think about deeply; and the things we only half-understand.

Sometimes the loudest voices are the things that we do not say. Even here. Where our words and images fall largely silently onto this vast scintillating digital land.

When I started this blog, I had an idea that the Greenwood Tree (although it was called something else at the beginning - a name I’ve long since forgotten) would present my ‘something’ to the world... Look at me! Look at the things I will gather together and present to you fully formed! And I will look at my ‘followers’, my ‘likes’ and my ‘shares’. An imaginary validation.

But my words have been sitting quietly on Tumblr now for six years, nine weeks and three days. And each post is just a grain, sometimes washed away with the rain, or else destined to grow into something new inside of me.

Lammas

The annual pagan feast of Lammas celebrates the first fruits of the summer harvest. Symbolically, it’s a time to see how far we’ve come over the year, what has come into fruition and what has fallen by the wayside. What have we learnt, what have we gained. What has been lost, and what still sits somewhere in the dark, waiting to come to life.

Lammas in the pagan canon is presided over by the Celtic god Lugh, the god of light and the sun (who gave his name to the festival), along with several other deities including the classical harvest goddesses Demeter and Ceres.

The Egyptian serpent goddess of the Delta, Renenutet also has an association with Lammas festivities. Amongst other things, Renenutet is the goddess of the ‘soul’s true name’. Is that what I’m trying to find here? My own soul’s ‘name’, its truth? Maybe. It’s an interesting thought.

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Resources

Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Swaḥ Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ Bhargo Devasya Dhīmahi Dhiyo Yonaḥ Prachodayāt

I came across another version of this ancient Hindu devotional chant on the meditation app I use and I was instantly taken with it.

As well as being one of the most loved of the mantras, it really is very ancient... It first appeared in the Indian Rig Veda text between 1800 and 1500 BCE.

“The universe is said to be a divine play not in the sense that it is always fun (obviously) but rather in the strict sense of the word “play”, that is anything done for its own sake rather than for an after-the-fact result. And it is a play in another sense, in that there exists the possibility for joy (ananda) in any and every experience, though some yield up that potential more easily than others. By joy here I do not mean “extreme happiness”, but rather a kind of loving acceptance of any given present-moment reality. The Heart has an innate capacity to grant a deep affirmation of whatever is going on in this moment, to envelop the whole of each experience in loving awareness (even experiences that the mind might despise). When the heart exercises that capacity, it is called ananda.”

- Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History and Practice of a Timeless Tradition, Christopher D Wallis.

I’m still working my way through this excellent book on Non-Dual Saiva Tantra - an ancient Buddhist and yogic discipline - as it’s so dense, but also very amazing.

I like this idea - that everything is here now. That there is no heaven, or saviour, or better place to go to one day, only available after we’ve lived out our often difficult and disordered lives. That, instead, the universe is built on the joy of experience now. And we can find love and delight in any given moment, even the small things.

Sometimes, when other aspects of our lives are tough, it’s the small things that soften and sweeten circumstance the most: watering the garden, rearranging a bookshelf, fussing the cat, sending a cheery text; lighting a tea light in a holder picked up in a charity shop, burning incense, playing a singing bowl... and seeing where it takes you.

On a side - but related - note I’ve had the word ‘namaste’ in my head the last few days. It’s a greeting from the heart. Because ‘I bow to the Divine in you’.

I love writing these tarot posts. The tarot is such a wonderful tool for learning - about ourselves, and others and what it is to live this life.

The trump cards or the majors - all those cards that have pictorial names - naturally lend themselves to interpretation beyond their meaning in divination spreads as they are archetypes. Each of the 22 trump cards have layers of universal wisdom common to all cultures around the world, that is as ancient as humankind itself.

The minors, or the ‘suit’ cards are often relegated simply to their meanings in a spread. But each card can stand alone with it’s own fascinating lesson to impart to bring into our daily lives.

Take the Two of Swords. Since writing that post I’ve had the concept in my head about how we often unconsciously dodge saying what we really think and feel when we’re talking to others. It’s a sort of safety mechanism.

I revisited a couple of the things I said today. How did I answer that question - or avoid answering it? Did I really mean what I said? How many times did I outright lie? Not a lot, but it’s more often than you think - and we ALL do it. What did I say that were truths?

The point of the exercise was not about being negative and self-critical, but more about starting to feel my way to understanding what my real ‘truth’ is. And, fuck, it works. And it’s so interesting.

I don’t think you can do this with every conversation. It’s only with friends who, as I pointed out in my post on The Sun card, somehow manage to drag out your own bullshit, like lancing a wound. It’s very healing.

It’s also important to point out that you have to let your words flow, not monitor yourself whilst speaking. Or else, what can you learn?

Two of Swords - Tarot Illuminati

Tarot reflections: The Two of Swords

I always imagine she should have binding across her mouth and not just her eyes. Those swords make an ‘X’, a stop sign: Do not pass ‘Go’ do not collect £100.

How simple it is to still the truth on our tongues when we can’t perceive the future that would flood in. Instead, words spill out, but they are the old words, the old way of doing things, the familiar and the safe. Static and spent.

But the tide of change is approaching from behind her. She feels the chill and anticipation in her bones.

That is the essence of all things... That there is no constant, only change. And that is where the magic is - in truth and love and transformation.