Finding The Corn Maiden

It's been an odd sort of week, one of those where it's either all or nothing. Work days seems to be very long and spread all over the county, added with early morning drop offs for the rest of the family and later pick ups -most of the week I've come home and crashed out - quite spectacularly on Wednesday - going to bed for an hour at ten to 6 and waking up nearly 13 hours later.....I must have needed it ! All of a sudden it's the weekend and apart from being Mum's taxi a few days of blissful chilling, I just wish I had some maiden energy that seems to be lacking a little at the moment, I'm just not feeling it at the minute - it's almost like the Crone energy has lingered, perhaps it's just the February blues!

Fit for a Fairy!

So today I found myself home alone with no car and decided to scoop myself up out of the armchair and pull my wellies on venture out to reconnect with the land and drag my inner maiden out of her cosy den to play whether she fancied it or not. Wellie-clad, armed with my camera and my phone defiantly on silent and tucked away in an inner pocket, I trotted up the road heading for my recently discovered new favourite place, splashing in the puddles and vowing to allow my senses to be overloaded. Less than a quarter of a mile from home I found this tree that looked to me like a perfect fairy home - see the Maiden was coaxed out to play after all, crouching to take a photo, I jumped like a naughty child when my neighbour a few doors down strolled past asking what I was doing, luckily she knows me well enough to smile at me indulgently and agree that yes it did look like a fairy house, before walking off very quickly! I headed off to my destination but was rather miffed to hear the sound of trials bikes as I approached - disgruntled was the word! 

New Spring Growth

(That's my word of the week - especially since I discovered that you could be the opposite and be "gruntled"! As a friend said- the word was indeed 'gruntle making' - Love it!)
Undeterred I reminded myself that it's not only my 
place and that the happy noise of the lads on the bikes was proof of this! Plodding on I decided to try a new path, admiring the fresh leaves unfurling and the new growth budding on the plants, listening to the noises of the woods the trees clacking their branches above me, the wind whistling through them and rustling the remaining leaves, it made me feel as though the woods were welcoming

Eye Spy....

me, the fanciful part of me imagined that they were talking to me - you wait I'll be talking to trees and plants next! All jokes aside the woods felt really alive, I can see how our ancestors looked at these woods, hills, rivers and found Goddesses and Gods in all that surrounded them. Many times I felt as though I was being watched or listened to by hidden creatures, birds and even the woods the trees themselves - this silver birch bark looked like eyes! 
I envisaged myself connecting myself to the land - arms outstretched in the middle of a woodland path, grounding myself through the connective thread between the land and stars - then had a bit of a spin round just because I

could! Viva La Maiden! Trailing through the wood land I was suddenly aware of the texture and feel of things - the smooth green velvety moss that carpets  the stunted coppiced trunks and the silky softness of the dusty catkins that dangled tantalisingly over head festooning the stark trees - having to jump up to catch them as I walked underneath.
I emerged onto the main road and found a stile I had driven past thousands of times and never even noticed, immediately opposite that led me through apple orchards that had the first signs of buds before turning a corner and finally throwing me out to my joy into the old corn field - the same one that became a bean field last

year! Well something has been planted already - I'm not sure quite what yet, but I'll definitely be back to see, maybe when it's been a bit drier - the pathway was a quagmire of boot, paw and hoof prints - which it must have been since time immemorial. I thought about some spinning through the fields but after nearly landing head first in the mud I changed my mind, so had a more sedate moment of arm outstretched contemplation soaking up the changing land. So a late arrival by the Corn Maiden and a bit of a timely reminder that it's time to get back down the allotment and get cracking again, the land needs to be rotivated, the crops decided on, seeds sown and tubers planted, it's a good job I've got a few days annual leave this week - I think I'm going to need them - and that's just to get over the digging ...

Have A Blessed Week x x