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