A Divine Harvest

What to make?

Happy Harvesting!

There was a phrased coined in the early 20th century - 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' this rang through my head earlier this week when after praying for fruitfulnesses and abundance in daily devotions to Ker, I was rewarded with a surprise surplus of ......marrows! Not quite what I was expecting and not what anyone in the house eats - apart from me, and that was a large mound of marrows - but ever the optimist, I  racked my brains and recipe books until I found a recipe for Marrow and Ginger wine - now that does sound like a plan! Just a few extra ingredients later, we were ready to go, I found a recipe

Additional Ingredients

that is simple and uses almost all natural ingredients only using shop bought brewing yeast and using oranges and lemons instead of bought citric acid. Lemonade for grown ups! 
Lots of chopping and zesting and grating later, we ended up with a bucket full of this... not very appetising looking now I grant you, but it smelt enticingly of citrus and once the yeast

Hmmm...appetising!

and the sugar have worked their alchemy, I'm sure I can change your minds! Whilst I was in wine making mode I bottled up some rather strong apple wine that has been maturing for at least a year, Mark was my official tester last night and ended up with rosy cheeks, deciding that it tasted like a cross between Scrumpy and a liqueur!  A spot of research suggests that wine was first made up to 8500* years ago and one of the earliest Goddesses of Wine* was Gestin a Sumerian Mother Goddess of the Grapevine, as well as Ninkasi - a later Sumerian Goddess of brewing and beer, Mbaba Mwana Waresi a Zulu Goddess who brought fertility and beer to South Africa and Rangutiene - a Baltic Goddess of beer. Whilst researching this, I've also literally just found several recipes for corn, barley and grain wines - which as you can 

Apple Wine - Bottled
and Dangerous

imagine grabbed my attention, I may have to explore that further... 
It's been suggested* that wine was 'discovered' by forgotten fruits fermenting in an urn or by stone age people noticing the effecting of rotting or fermenting fruit had on animals and birds. 
Either way - good call! 

Throughout the week I have been following via Facebook my friend and circle sister Naomi's tour of Scotland and pilgrimage to all things Cailleach (Crone/Old woman/Hag)* and the many sites where folklore and myth say that She is reputed to have lived or made. I have watched with a mixture of awe, amazement and if I'm honest a touch of envy! Inspired, I decided to look at place names and for clues for anything that could be connected with Ker or indeed other Corn/Grain Goddesses preferably locally but anywhere in Britain. I opened my atlas and to my delight I found a place in Devon called Kerswell, hurrah! Closer inspection found not even the tiniest hint of anything Goddess related so far, Abbots, Kings and Priors so there's a start maybe? Often Churches /Monasteries etc are built on pre christian sites. What I did discover however, via Ancestry is that the surname Kerswell originally in Old English meant someone who lived by or near

Loose Stream

a spring or stream ie a well where there was craese  ie water cress. Aha, cue firing synapses, very near to us is the village of Loose, where there is a beautiful stream that pops up and just above it a body of water known locally as the watercress beds. I haven't been there since I was a child so it was with a little trepidation that I set off to find it, would it still be there and as I remembered? There was a tunnel the water flowed through which you could walk up if you were wearing wellies and the 'waterfall' wasn't flowing too much,

The Fairy Tunnel

we called it the fairy tunnel. I think I actually squealed with delight when I found it, just up the road from the stream, not as big as I remembered it and not so much cress in the water cress beds as there used to be, but it was there! Exploration was slightly limited due to my lack of forward planning ie my wearing of jewelled strappy sandals, but I found houses with names like Spring Bank and Spring View with mini waterfalls and trickles of water running through their very green and lush gardens,which inspired me and my sandalled feet to walk a little further up the road to try and ascertain where the water was coming from at which point it disappeared into the ground. Back by the watercress beds there was information display that showed that the brook or stream ran towards the river Medway in town (Maidstone) via Tovil

The Watercress Bed Today

which had once been famous for it's mills, latterly for paper, but yep, you guessed it - some had originally been for grinding corn and parts of which are supposedly still standing albeit in ruins, even including a very helpful map from there to the river, listing mills and ponds along the way. Hugging this information to myself with glee and practically skipping back down the road as fast as my sandals would let me, it occurred to me that it was either the spring there or it had to rise somewhere locally. On the way home I dropped into to see my lovely Mum and Dad and told them about my morning's mission and the questions it posed

Lavender by the
Stream

. "Langley" said my Dad whilst throwing a ball up the garden for the dog and without a nano second of hesitation, "it rises behind the church there, flows through Boughton Quarries and so on." I really think we should rename him Google, love him! So now I have a plan to walk the length of the stream to the source where it rises, which you can do apparently and to see what remains of the mills, it's about 5 miles long. Dad even said he'll come with me, just not yesterday as it was about 27 degrees and of course there were my sandals to consider.... Talk about Divine Inspiration - which leads me to one more question to muse over - how come as an adjective Divine is pertaining to a Goddess, God, a heavenly or celestial object but the verb is connected to prophesy, intuition, insight or discovery of water or metal? Suggests to me that we have a little bit of The Divine in all of us...

Have a Divine and Fruitful Week x x 

References:

* http://winetravelstories.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/wine-goddesses-around-world.html
* http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0721_040721_ancientwine.html
* http://www.suppressedhistories.net/secrethistory/crones.html

A Patchwork Harvest

Bean Field

If you could describe a week as a patch work quilt, this would be that week! Bits of this and bits of that, up and downs, celebration mixed with mundane. If you could sew it all together it would definitely resemble patchwork, just like the fields around me - green, orange, yellow, brown, rough, smooth, bursting with crops or silent and stripped. Just about sums up life really now I think of it, those empty fields will fill many fridges or larders and will regrow next year as part of the cycle, just like my empty nest I've had this week - our son has been away on holiday and our daughter house sitting with her boyfriend so it's been suddenly very quiet for a change - on the up side though at least Mark and myself have had some peace and quiet and some time for just us - particularly well timed as it was our wedding anniversary yesterday. 
Out came the 'special' bubbly glasses, a wedding

A little treat!

 present from friends and our treat was cava and strawberries, a custom  that has quickly grown into a yearly ritual. Another very recent addition to our own family tradition is the little Fruitful Blessings Ceremony that I created for the four of us at Lammas. After we shared a lovely family dinner, I asked everyone to take a thin shred of gold material (the same that covers both altars) that I had blessed with moonlight and sage, and then to tie it onto the Olive tree on my outside altar asking Ker for a blessing of fruitfulness for some project they were working on themselves and also a blessing for someone else. The olive tree was, among other things, a symbol of

Olive Clootie Tree

fertility and fecundity, particularly in Ancient Greece so I mixed this idea with that of the traditional Clootie Tree to create something unique to us, to ask Goddess for success in our endeavours. This has got me thinking about customs, ceremonies, traditions and rituals and their importance both personal and shared ones......yet another thing to add to my research/to do list!

Bean Field Selfie

This week if it involved wheels or technology, it really hasn't been my friend, hence I found myself having to walk the two miles to pilates this Wednesday. I decided to take the scenic route and was instantly rewarded with a multitude of sensory delights from the heart of Ker Herself. The foals were playfully cantering round the field and racing each other so quickly that I couldn't catch a decent photo of them. The bean field will surely be harvested any day now, hopefully the large numbers of butterflies that were flying past me for nearly every step of the way will find a new home first. The hedgerows are humming with busy insects and are already full of ripening blackberries and damsons, I'll need to get

Plumping up nicely...

down there again next week to start to collect them for my jam, jelly and wine making that has unconsciously become a yearly kitchen ritual of smell and taste since we moved up here nearly 6 years ago. Friends and neighbours are well accustomed to bravely volunteering to be testers for my latest concoction or recipe following the hedgerow harvest! I did make it to my pilates class - eventually!

Village Sign

I took advice from the lovely poem Leisure  I mentioned about a month or so ago and took time to stop and stare. For the first time I noticed the picture on the village sign I passed, a farmer by a field full of harvest hay stacks, declaring the history and culture of the area, as well as stopping and staring up at old trees, their trunks splitting and dividing, increasing and diversifying, new generations of growth, passing their silent and secret knowledge on. Motherline, they whispered to me.... this to do list is getting longer daily!

Matryoshka Dolls

Today has been a busy day, getting dinner prepped, then Mark had a hospital appointment about an ongoing problem with his knee (hopefully a clootie blessing will be bestowed soon and he can return to work) and then a frantic but ultimately timely drive to Gatwick to pick up Dan and friend from their return flight from a holiday in Russia. So glad to have him home safely - one hard earned trip and project successfully and safely completed, thank you! Of course, he bought his Mum a present back - and of course it was a Russian Matryoshka doll, the traditional nesting dolls that are also known as Babushka Dolls, Babushka meaning Grandmother or elderly woman and synonymous with Matriarchal families ...... 
I don't think I could get a greater visual symbol for mother line if I tried! 


                                Have a Fruitful Week In All You Do x x 

Lammas Journeys

Kentish Wheat

Continued Lammas blessings from sunny Kent!

We've had another beautiful week of lovely weather here that magically hasn't turned to rain the minute the weekend arrived. My journey to work takes me through the country lanes that zig zag across an area known as the Weald, an old English name meaning forest which it once was, now villages and farmland both agriculture and live stock. 

Local Hay Bales at Linton with
Oast Houses in the background 

Every day this week I have seen reminders of the start of Lammas harvests as the earthly gifts from the Mother come to fruition, and yes I mean tractors and combine harvesters everywhere! Some are heading off to harvest and some are piled high with hay bales, whilst I drive past busy fields where balers are at work or silent empty fields where huge log like bales wait silently like vast draught pieces waiting to be put away for the winter. This year as I have been walking with Ker, I have sat behind them as they chug along slowly with greater patience and interest than before, watching and anticipating the changes in the fields I have seen all my life with fresh eyes and a greater familiarity. What a beautiful county I live in!
As I have been calling Ker in at my altar I have been consciously asking for Her strength and blessings to bring all my projects successfully to fruition

An Unexpected
Harvest

or completion so that I can enjoy the harvest of my own personal labours as well as a literal harvest from the allotment. This includes an ongoing Diploma I am studying for at work which has been a bit of a slog, renewed with fresh determination I've managed to crack on with it and am making headway with it again, at last. I also had an unexpected but very welcome harvest - some Danish Schnapps and Beer given to us by our lovely neighbours Naomi and Gary for feeding their cat whilst they were away and ten minutes later another neighbour popped round with some strawberries and cherries a thank you for a long forgotten favour - how blessed are we? The schnapps is called Akvavit made from either potatoes or grain and flavoured with herbs (how perfect a gift for me is that?) which is traditionally drunk on festive occasions after a meal - that's a perfect excuse for us to get together for

Ker - Gold Woman

some kind of celebration! 
I've also felt a bit more artistic this week and stopped procrastinating and finally decided to draw an image I had in my head of Ker as a Gold Woman (as opposed to the Green Man) and started sketching, not even giving up when I found that all my water colours were dried up beyond redemption and finished the work in coloured pencils. Not bad for a first effort! Time to dust off the brushes and buy more paints maybe.....

Folkestone Beach

Yesterday I was heading to Folkestone for a belated Lammas ceremony with the Folkestone Pagan Circle, I decided rather than take the car, I'd take a train and have a different kind of  journey for a change. I took a book to read en route and managed to buy 4 more books that were calling out to me in a charity shop I wouldn't have passed had I been driving. With titles such as Native American Myth and and Mythology and The Ancestral Continuum, how could I resist? I also had time for a stroll round the harbour to eat some

Old High Street

lunch and people watch, before climbing back up the Old High Street in the Artist's Quarter to find the Pop Up Temple hidden below the Cauldron of Inspiration - literally! After a warm welcome, Laura our lovely priestess told us how she was inspired by workshops on honouring our ancestors and cave art at last week's Goddess Conference in Glastonbury and that our own mini workshop pre ceremony was indeed Cave Art. I don't know how many people have seen cave art of red or ochre hand prints? It's been suggested that they are hand prints of blood following childbirth, either form the mother or the grandmother or elder women presiding as midwives, or even hand prints made during birth with the wall as a support

Beautiful Altars

for the mother, ouch! I've also always wondered how they managed to get the effect of a hand outline in silhouette - hollowed out bones acting as paint blow pipes don't you know! After this we grounded or centred ourselves in front of these beautiful altars before a chanting ceremony to honour  the Mother and the Ancestors. As I've said before I'm really not much of a singer but I was happy to join in warbling away out of tune not even deterred by Jenny's wonderful voice next to me! As we decided many centuries ago everyone would have sung or chanted practically daily and with no way to record it, no one was really aware how they sounded, which was probably a good thing! Either that or our egos were less fragile........ 

I particularly enjoyed this simple chant:

A Gift of Gleaned Grain

 Ancient Mother by Robert Gass*

Ancient Mother, I hear you calling,
Ancient Mother I hear you song,
Ancient Mother, I hear your laughter,
Ancient Mother, I taste your tears

After a wonderful afternoon filled with chanting, art and laughter with people who once were strangers and are now becoming friends, complete with an altar gift of grain 'gleaned' by the highly resourceful Jason, I took the train home surrounded by cheerful American families and tourists who were remarking how beautiful our county was - watching out of the window as the train devoured the miles of track home, not for the first time this week I agreed with them, new treasures in paperback forgotten whilst I watched familiar fields and hills unfold before me. 

                           Thank you for sharing my journeys with me.

Have a Blessed and Fruitful Week x x 

         

     Naomi's Lammas Basket

Folkestone Harbour

If you haven't already please feel free to join me or contact me at  https://www.facebook.com/walkingwithmygoddess  

*http://thepaganjourney.weebly.com/chants-and-songs.html

A Laid Back Lammas

Mother Goddess
 By Wendy Andrew

Happy Lammas!  
Or Lughnasadh or Lughnasa - depending on where, when and how you celebrate..... 
Most customs involve celebrating yesterday, however I've discovered that for some groups it was traditional to celebrate after the first harvest, so the date was changeable, or you could be like me and celebrate today as nothing went to plan yesterday, again! 
I love this picture by the talented Wendy Andrew, it's her work and  my photo of a card that's on my altar - It just completely depicts Ker as I see Her. When we started our journeys with our individual Goddesses in a Discovery session, many moons ago, after a meditation journey we sketched what we had seen. Apologies that it's not very clear, but below is what I saw, I thought it would be Bridie

A Hasty Sketch of My
Meditation Journey

and had heard very little about Ker, so was totally confused about what I had envisaged. After I had researched the symbols and meanings I came across Wendy's art complete with corn, poppies, deer and mice and knew I had found what I was looking for. 
So, here we are - Lammas, 'home' of the Mother Goddess and the archetype I generally feel most comfortable with, so that probably means I need to fasten my seat belt and be ready for the unexpected! Even as July closed, it was becoming apparent that the plans were about to change. By now that just means I am prepared to go with the flow and see what opportunities present themselves! This meant that the planned Friday Moon Lodge and preparing something for my daughters birthday didn't happen as planned, but hey there's plenty of time for that! Instead as it happened other projects were started and other questions answered.

Kitchen Altar

On Saturday morning I cleansed the space around my kitchen altar and redecorated it for Lammas and the Great Mother. I chose yellow roses and put them in a vase that had been my Nan's, what I forgot to say the week before last, is that when I visited my Nan's grave there was one single and somewhat random yellow silk flower that had made it's way to her headstone, so we left it there with flowers we had taken. Also on my altar is an orange candle that smelt 'summery', a  corn dolly that I made from raffia, a Mother Goddess Card, a beautiful yellow stone candle holder that my circle sister Michaela gave me and a precious knitted doll to represent me in all the earth colours- yellow, orange, green and brown that another dear circle

Garden Altar

sister, Tina made and gave me at the end of the first discovery course. As well as this I reorganised my garden altar, added yellow candles and  today as managed to get round to making another larger corn dolly and found some beautiful fabric that screamed Ker, Lammas  and Harvest to me to make it feel more special and homely.
As I said, this was going to be finished yesterday so that after a busy afternoon at my drumming circle I could find a quite moment to make a flower circlet for my hair before picking up my daughter and her boyfriend from work to go out for my lovely Dad's birthday meal or at worst case scenario have a moonlight ceremony and meditation afterwards...... Like that was all going to go to plan!

My drumming circle was a revelation in itself. The lovely lady who leads it, Theresa works very closely with Native Indian Spirits and all sorts of positive Earth, Angel and Goddess energies. If you live in Kent and are interested in shamanism, she really is your woman! After a beautiful and powerful drumming session, followed by a deep meditation, Theresa passed a message to me from her spirit guide. Now let me explain here, this lovely lady is not medium or a clairvoyant, nor does she pretend  to be, and yes when I first experienced these energies, I was open minded but sceptical and prepared to question everything I was told. However after now knowing her for sometime, when she told me my message was that it was time to share the wisdom I had learned and that it was in my bones and that she had been told by her guide that there is an ancient woman with me who carries a basket of herbs and that she was showering me with yellow rose petals, for once even I was, as they say 'gob-smacked'!  No one knew about the yellow rose in the church yard apart from my husband, no one else knew that I had bought yellow roses for my altar and silk ones for my hair circlet. Add this to the fact that I have started reading and researching about the Motherline with a view to one day writing a book/celebration/workshop and am just about to sign up for a herbalism course, which no one at all knew, apart from Ker herself and I think you'll agree that's a pretty cosmic 'go for it!' 

I do love a flower circlet
- bless me!

When I finally got to sit down in the garden last night, after a delicious meal and fun filled evening full of laughter with my family, a pretty simple yet fitting Lammas Celebration of it's own, as hard as I tried I couldn't block out the loud but rocking music drifting up from a party at one of the local farms I think (how appropriate!) and then also from a neighbours dog who had taken a long and sustained umbrage at someone or something, probably one of my cats! Undeterred, I left my celebrations to the unhurried peace  and quiet of  this morning. I cleansed the whole house and garden with white sage, before grounding and calling Ker in at my outside altar, which felt more appropriate,  I enjoyed a 

Altar Corn Dolly

tranquil, yet intimate and powerful  unhurried noon ceremony with just the sun and sleepy cats as my circle.  After this I went indoors and blessed my kitchen altar, both thanking Ker and asking for Her blessings in all aspects of our lives. I also managed to find time for a meditation in the sun/snooze on a blanket in the garden, where I either journeyed or dreamed but either way there were distant noises and voices and the light was filtered, I could hear and feel a curiously strong rhythmic heart beat that made me feel safe and very loved, before I awoke or drifted back to the now, I'm really not sure which and found I was curled up in the foetal position with a cat (what a surprise) staring at me, before she yawned, rolled over and started snoring - thank you feline guardians!
A weekend of beautiful and simple celebrations, minimal planning and just being at one with Ker, myself and the world - pretty perfect!

I hope you all had a beautiful Lammas,

 - however and whenever you celebrated

 and wish you all a fruitful and blessed week x x