Leaping The Fire

In an unbidden instant, a bright ember ignited a cascade of thought and action within me. In my imagination a mercurial figure with mighty and proud leporine ears turned to me and said “you cannot be my Consort, there are no games we can play together” with such drollness that I was immediately won over. Within a few short hours a story I’d struggled to write for several months seemed to flow as effortlessly as if I were copying it by rote. 

artist and source unknown

This was the point from which my Beltane Faerie Story seemed to blossom forth. I’d been struggling to write about experiencing queerness and Beltane for some time, from conversations that had started the previous Spring:   Deep and heartfelt sharing of the quiet hurt and exclusion felt when the menfolk and the womenfolk are separated to talk about their part in the “mysteries” that lead to the birth of a Divine Son then the digging of a symbolic feminine hole in which to plant an equally symbolic masculine Maypole.  Spirited debate on social media about some of the perceived heteronormativity present even in the writings of druids we admired, that lazy lack of thought beyond the pervasive norm of opposite binary-gender pairings which, while not actively discriminatory, did nothing to acknowledge the non-heterosexual, non-childbearing, non-fertile, non-binary gendered members of our community.  Out and out slanging matches based on the clear premise that these neo-traditions were entirely non-excluding so long as you just played along with them to maintain the status quo, on which more later, and that if one didn’t like them then one should bugger off to some other tradition and stop trying to mess up druidry by making it all politically correctness gone mad.

Amidst it all, a correspondence between myself, Penny Billington the editor of Touchstone and a young academic whose intellect and sense of social justice I greatly admire. I fondly imagine it as being akin to The White Council, although Penny assures me I’m no Cate Blanchett and that she certainly looks nothing like Christopher Lee. Their commentary was so insightful and had such depth I felt like I was running to keep up, but it did wonders to clarify my thoughts.

The White Council (c) New Line Cinema

The story was published in Touchstone and then featured on Druidcast Episode 84. I had that mix of feeling happy that work I had done was out in the world and fearful of having put myself out there quite so visibly. Brené Brown talks about keeping yourself small and under the radar to avoid feeling vulnerable, yet in vulnerability finding the birthplace of creativity and innovation, and I had stuck my head well and truly above the parapet.

There were reactions. People had opinions in my direction. Most were positive. Not all were kind. Some were downright personal. There emerged an idea that I was somehow trying to steer druidry into a new, non-traditional form. What was my end-game?  Why did I become a druid if I didn’t love The Goddess and The God? Why was I trying to change the nature of the Gods in order to fit my lifestyle?  If I felt so unwelcome, why didn’t I just leave? What would this gay-druidry look like and why didn’t I go off somewhere and do this gay-druidry with the other gay druids and leave everyone else in peace to do it the way it’s always been done? And so on…

It’s worth noting at this point that I usually choose ‘queer’ to describe myself. Gay is fine too, but I am wary of the androcentrism it conveys.  I worry that most people just read ‘gay’ as ‘gay man’, limiting advocacy of lesbians, bisexuals, genderqueer, *trans people, non-binary, androgenous, asexual and intersex people gathering under the rainbow banner of what Dan Savage wryly refers to as “our beloved acronym” of LGBTQIAA+

It took me a while to notice that due to the limitations of my talent, nearly everybody had missed a significant amount of what I was trying to convey: “Beltane Faerie Story” is a satire. It’s supposed to be faintly ridiculous, from the glorious Beltane Hare-spirit crowning a Champion with a pair of furr’d ears to the final Ceremony with added extra verses for the queers.  "Which version are we doing this year?" I imagine the Archdruids muttering. "The gay ritual or the normal one?"

If I did have an “end-game”, then my ulterior motive would be that it should seem ludicrous that a spiritual tradition should have to go to preposterous lengths to be accommodating. It should already be inclusive or it simply isn’t fit for purpose. That means we don’t need “gay druidry” any more than we need “gay tea” or “gay cars”, just tea that tastes good to anyone who wants to drink it and cars that anybody can learn to drive.

Many, many months later I was to hear Penny in conversation with Philip Carr-Gomm as recorded at the OBOD 50^th Anniversary Celebrations. I heard it on Druidcast as somehow I missed the actual interview. She interrupts Philip near the end of the conversation and changes the subject onto the contribution being made by gay OBOD members and in what she says I hear threads from our conversation and feel deeply moved.

Her summation is characteristically erudite, a passionate ally she dismisses heteronormativity stating simply that, “what we do want is a druid robe that everyone is able to shake their shoulders in and feel comfortable with”.

So I'm still here, still in a comfortable robe, but more often in jeans and a hoodie. Still working on actually feeling comfortable in my own skin, but still celebrating Beltane.  I celebrate passion, I celebrate the greening of the land, the physical sensuality to be found out there in the world. I leap the Bel Fire, the fortunate fires that bless our endeavours as we emerge from the dark half of the year. I pass through two pillars of flame, the Gateway of Summer, hoping to burn away the old parasites that cling to me.

Clearing

In a clearing in the middle of the deep greenwood sits a man in a patch of dappled sunlight, careless of his simple robe, cross-legged and barefoot on the forest floor. Around him are arrayed books and journals, alongside a burlap satchel containing an assortment of curious items he has gathered along his way.

 

From time to time he looks up, reaches out to select a new journal, swimming through the lines and words, bathing in the pools and currents of these memories.  In each handwritten page experiences are relived:  insights, joys, frustrations, barriers, contemplations and explorations of one sort or another. Next a book or two are chosen, in those chapters he soars from concept to concept, held aloft by the updrafts of intellect, research and imagination to soar above the tangled path, perch on some airy belvedere or seek nourishment in a reaching bough. Then a pause for an object picked up and turned over in his scarred hands, feeling its wholeness and its beauty. Each unique thing has its purpose, a lesson or some significance, not just relating to why it was carried on the journey but in the story of how it was found, made or sought out. 

The man is a traveller, he has been on a long journey, but he has not come to this familiar clearing to rest, nor is his journey yet over. There is a quiet industry about him, like that of the bees that float around the clearing and with a similar purpose. To go forth, to range far and wide, to gather in and, in returning, to create golden nourishment.  After lifting his face to the light and feeling the radiance through closed eyes, the man again delves into the recesses of his bag, bringing out crisp new leaves of paper and his favourite pen. It fits in his had like the hilt of a blade, held the way a musician gently and firmly holds their instrument.  After three deep breaths, he begins to write…

… the light begins to dim as he reaches the end of his final page. The setting rays catch the smoke rising from his small fire and gently wreathe the clearing, holding the moment in amber.  Satisfied with his work the man carefully rolls the paper and binds it with a length of thin blue cord, placing it reverently on a low stone that rests near the fire at the centre of the clearing.  He repacks his pen, journals, books and all but three of the objects into his burlap satchel.

Those three objects are offerings, gratitude to the Gods and Spirits and Guides that have been his company on the journey so far.  First incense, offered to the coals to rise in aromatic wisps, each herb, wood and resin adding their own counterpoint to the woodsmoke.  Next mead, the brew of sunshine and sweetness transformed by patient tending, the first three shining drops given as libation. The third offering is placed upon the stone, a carved post of pale willow wood with a face peering from it. The face of a serene man, wide eyes staring into the unknown and a brow crowned with antlers and leaves. All three are things the man has made with his own hands, expressions of his creativity and symbols of the things he has gathered.

Leaving the way he arrived, he pauses briefly in the entwined archway formed by an oak and a beech tree and places a hand on each trunk, standing on the threshold between the clearing and the path that leads onwards into the wildwood. The way ahead will soon be crowded with shadows, he will need a lantern to light his way, a staff to steady him and a cloak to keep out the night-time cold.

Moments later he steps forward, journeying on.

Beltane Faerie Story

In a land far from this land in a time far from this time there was a great gathering of all the people of the land to celebrate the Festival of Beltane.

The clans and families and tribes all met together.  In their midst were many great Bards, honeyed of voice and true of song; many powerful Ovates, skilled of hand and sure of vision; and many learn’d Druids, wise of thought and just of deed. It was they who led the revels and rites and rituals that would celebrate the Festival of Beltane, light the Fortunate Fires and open the Gateway of Summer.

uncredited on www.andybaggott.com

Each year the men and the women of the tribes gathered with each other to call forth the Spirits of the Land and the Season.  Games were played, contests fought and mysteries sought to determine who would be crowned the Queen of the May and the Lord of the Hunt.

Each year they separated. Menfolk with men and womenfolk with women, they set about their sacred tasks.  There was great merriment and passion and lust when the menfolk and the womenfolk were reunited to crown the fertile Queen of the May with a garland of white hawthorn blossoms and the potent horn’d Lord of the Hunt with a pair of stag antlers. When the champion of the menfolk was crowned, he embodied the Spirit of the Lord of the Hunt, just as the champion of the womenfolk embodied the Spirit of the Queen of the May.

Each year there was a group of folk who were apart from the rest. They had a desire for different games, a heart for different contests and a spirit turned towards different mysteries. The contests of the others did not bring them the same joys or the same thrills, so they could only take part for the sake of belonging, knowing they did not, or stand disconsolate to one side and wish for the same merriment and passion and lust the others felt.

Then one year everything changed.  The stars and planets were arrayed in new alignments; the ancestors dreamt new dreams in their barrows; and the Old Gods of the hollow hills sang new songs to the Land and the Season. The stars and the dreams and the songs lit a new spark in the souls of the druids and ovates and bards of those folk who had not the same passions as the others.

“We must seek out our Spirit of Beltane,” they said. A fellowship of those folk, with wise ones, seers and singers amongst them,  gathered upon a mist shrouded dawn and set off, following an old straight trackway across the land.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the bards singing songs of their ancestors around the hearthfire.  So they continued their quest and by noon on the third day they had travelled far and reached a place they knew to be the oldest of woods, within which lay an ancient grove of trees sacred to the Goddess of the Land. At the heart of that grove stood a hawthorn, with bright green leaves and countless pale white blossoms. The seekers approached the hawthorn.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The hawthorn answered “Not I, not I.” They knew they must travel on.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the seers interpreting signs and portents around the hearthfire.  So they continued their quest and by dusk on the third day they had travelled far and reached a place they knew to be the oldest of valleys, within which lay an ancient glen sacred to the Horned God. At the heart of that glen stood a stag, with great wide antlers and countless mossy tines. The seekers approached the stag.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The stag answered “Not I, not I.” They knew they must travel on.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the wise ones telling the tales of the old gods around the hearthfire.   So they continued their quest and by nightfall on the third day they had travelled far, the old straight trackway had thinned and vanished but they journeyed on into the night, turning their hearts towards the bright full moon and striking out along a shining new starlit path.

By midnight they had reached a place they knew to be unexplored by the clans and families and tribes. They saw it was a rolling land of meadows, within which they found a labyrinth, sacred to the Moon, spiralling through the grass. At the heart of the labyrinth stood a hare, with bright eyes and a pair of lustrous ears.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The hare answered, “I am, I am.”  They knew that they had found what they had quested for.

Moonlight Hares by Vikki Yeates http://vikkki.deviantart.com

In the heart of the Labyrinth of the Hare of Beltane, the fellowship made revelry that gladdened their hearts. The games were played, the contests fought and the mysteries sought to determine who would be crowned champion and embody the Spirit of Beltane.  They felt great joy when the champion was found and crowned with a pair of proud furr’d ears.

“Am I to have a consort?” asked the newly crowned Spirit of Beltane. “Only if you wish it to be so,” answered the Hare.

“I wish it to be so,” said the Spirit of Beltane. So, the Hare brought forth three fellow seekers.

The Spirit of Beltane approached the first.

“You cannot be my Consort,” said the Spirit of Beltane to the First. “There are no games we can play together.”

The Spirit of Beltane approached the second.

“I cannot be your Consort,” said the Second to the Spirit of Beltane. “There are no contests for us to fight together.”

The Spirit of Beltane approached the third and final potential Consort.

“You can be my Consort,” said the Spirit of Beltane to the Third. “But only if you wish it to be so.”

“I shall be your Consort,” said the Third. “There are mysteries we can seek out together.”

And so the Spirit of Beltane, the Consort and the rest of the weary but elated fellowship travelled back to the gathering, arriving back at the time between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun.

There were great shouts of joy from the clans and families and tribes when the fellowship returned to the great gathering.  The seekers were reunited with those they had left behind and to them told their tales of the quest to bring forth their own Spirit of Beltane.  Although they had journeyed for three times three days and nights, they had returned in time for the Festival of Beltane.

Together, the Queen of the May, the Lord of the Hunt and the Spirit of Beltane led the Festival, blessed the Fortunate Fires and opened the Gateway of Summer. 

And so the Wheel of the Year turned, the stars danced merrily in the skies, the ancestors dreamed sweetly in their barrows and the Old Gods sang joyfully in the hollow hills.

This story was published in Touchstone, the Journal of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids Issue 208 and a recording of me storytelling features on Druidcast Episode 84.

out of darkness and into light

The sun has set on the last day of this calendar year, barely piercing the grey gloom and drizzle that had settled over the city. For so many reasons it is entirely appropriate that even when I’m looking for it, I can barely find the low, pale sun. Sunsets in this complex and marvelous city can be magical… blazing off the towers of steel and glass as those bright new spirits seem to dance furiously and proclaim their might; setting the sky ablaze in seductive hues that make old stones blush; or illuminating a sight you don’t normally see in your day to day goings-on with a brief and secret spotlight. There are as many sunsets as there are those who perceive them, each one different because they reflect off a different spirit and resonate in a different chamber of the heart.

So for my battered soul, that the last sunset of this year should be indistinct and muted could not be more welcome.  A peaceful graduation through gentle shades of grey.  There have been so many trials this year and it is only as I begin to find closure that I can see that so much of it has been spent in shock, almost numb to the howling pain that threatened to devour me. Hasty walls of protection that would crumble or be breached and then need repair, an overabundance of the toxic fight or flight hormones coursing through my system for far too long. Of thinking that nothing else which I loved could be taken away from me and of finding out that I was wrong.

As I began to release into the dark of the year I hoped for healing, I felt optimistic in a way. But healing is not always comfortable or gentle and the very act of consciously facing all of that pain is not something to be taken lightly. My gods and guides have gone with me, by times sternly making me look at my own place in my wounding; pushing me to accept which of the things I thought I wanted are actually the things I really need; or allowing me to rest and dream of my future and forget for a while the work that is to come in building it.  The dark is not just a place of dreaming and forgetting, to only use it in this way would be to refuse its true power.  For within the dark there are no distractions, only the stillness needed to truly confront my past and my future.

“Proserpina” was the last song Kate McGarrigle ever wrote and ever performed.  A beautiful re-telling of that descent into the darkness of the Underworld, it is heavy with a feeling of loss and contains all of the sorrow of a parent losing her child, but really it is about a mother who knows she will lose her children because it is she who is about to die.  On the 9^th of December 2009 I heard that unique performance and it made me weep, just as it does to this day.  I was in the audience for “A Not So Silent Night” at the Royal Albert Hall… an untypical Christmas concert thrown by the sprawling folk dynasty of the McGarrigles and Wainwrights.  At the heart of the clan are Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Kate’s children Rufus and Martha Wainwright.  Only those close to her knew at the time how seriously ill she was. Kate McGarrigle would finally lose her battle with cancer in early 2010.

But the song was not a sole melancholy note in a night of frivolity.  It was a powerful proclamation of one woman, her art and her love for her family.  It was a song from a woman who was able to face her own death and create a lasting piece of shining beauty that told the world who she was and what she stood for.  A reminder that the darkness can never be permanent.

From a deep point in this descent into the dark I have found an unexpected new awareness: the returning of the light manifesting in my own life, not just in the natural world around me. Throughout this Yuletide season pagans will find themselves talking about the rebirth of the light, the coming of the Mabon or divine child, the astronomical process of the days lightening. Within my fortress of intellect I know all of these things, for years I have stood in ritual in the dark and lit a symbolic flame, or in bright frosty day turned to face the Sun to eagerly strain for the feeling of warmth on my face. Yet this year it is within the pool of my soul that I feel this light returning through the people who carry it into my life. 

They have brought in the light in as many different ways as they are themselves individual.  The gentle lantern which sheds new light on what was already there, the stalwart lighthouse who helps me plot a new onward course, the bright new beacon who insistently draws my gaze away from the dark. With each connection I can feel my own light begin to glow ever brighter and I am so grateful for the inspiration and optimism that they each bring into my life. So at the closing of the year, I reach for the water of life and toast these wonderful bright spirits, these people I am so lucky to call my friends.

Sláinte.

I'm chanting as we speak

Imbolc

By no other agency than my own incompetence, I missed my Grove’s Imbolc ceremony today as I had written into my diary that it was tomorrow. I felt more than a little disappointed as I always enjoy our meetings and last year the ritual was beautiful, a small nemeton created in one of the city's remaining pockets of ancient woodland and a gentle yet powerful ceremony which crossed dusk leaving us praying in only the light of a ring of candles we had placed around our altar of natural and found objects. My soul needed the nourishment that my friends in the Grove provide and I have been too long out of their company this year.


I had a good long walk across the heath to the Observatory this morning, feeling and smelling the first fecund hints of spring and, mindful that I had felt strangely disjointed last year when I hadn’t made time for my seasonal observances, looking forward to feeling that connection. In the early years of my pagan path, Imbolc was a festival I didn’t really ‘get’: it seemed strange and dare I say it, only there to make up the numbers. As the years have passed and I have shared a deeper connection with certain aspects of the dark half of the year, Imbolc marks an important midway point in this season. It is full of contradictions, as is the Goddess with whom I now associate this time. It is the first glimmerings of light and growth and warmth, yet within that comfort is the sure knowledge of the brightest days of brittle cold and the darkest days of bleak lethargy that are still to come before Proserpina fully re-ascends.

In thinking of how I would mark the day instead, I turned to the pages of my journal and found my account of my solitary experiences of Imbolc two years ago:

With muffled drum I beat and dance a sacred path, a line consecrated in fire and smoke. Carried by the tempo of the drum around the circle, making nemeton, a temple in the dark, calling to rock and tree, frost and storm – the spirits that surround me and have showed their control of the land today.

I did not expect the city to be thrown into upheaval and disorder. The bright, white snow had started the day before and gathered momentum in the night, gaining strength and depth with every hour. I had woken before dawn, my head full of the day’s important tasks and the schedule I was to keep. So organised, so precise and, ultimately, so fragile. It became clear that I was going nowhere and resorted to leaving a series of messages for people who would probably be as stuck as I and fielding calls from those who most definitely were. Schools were closed, buses and trains cancelled, even airports grounded their traffic. It seems few are in any actual danger; most will wake today and know they aren’t going anywhere and shouldn’t even try. With any luck, for them at least, the day will pass huddled under a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate after sledging or snowballing.


In my sanctuary, I speak the name of my gods. Witness me, guide me, strengthen me. The last name thrums on my lips, over and over I sound it with the beating of the drum. Softer, louder, softer, louder until I know that I stand in Her presence. Today has been Her day – she has ridden the Siberian storms and swept deep white drifts over us all, snow and ice and wind, smothering our land and making mockery of the hubris of man. Hers is the deep cut of winter’s icy knife, She is the one who will use her staff to blast away the first shoots of spring.


Bringer of the White.

Bringer of death.

Veiled Lady.


I stand before her and she before me, swathed in white and wreathed in snow I know Her. But She knows me better.


“That which is weak must die.

You must be the man you know you can be.”


Her harsh words scythe through me. Again I think of Her blasting away fragile green shoots. Those were the shoots that were not strong enough, then better that the winter takes them. There will be other, stronger shoots to follow, for Springtime has never not come. Something falls away as I beat my drum again, dying back so I can leap forward. Whatever is now gone was not strong enough to survive. I remember that in the midst of the white this morning I saw a space had been cleared and a strong green shoot was growing through the snow.


Looking back, that year Imbolc was surely what it should have been: a day of snow and chaos; rules upturned and giddy excitement – a festival! I had a journey through the harsh and unforgiving white but I came out stronger the other side. For alongside the heady joys of that unexpected snow-day, there had been disappointments and, for me, the light and bitter taste of a betrayal revealed.

mists of time

This blog now consists of 25% recycled material.

I found an article I wrote in 2002 when I was a member of Caer Clud, a druidry group full of mirth and companionship that inspired me and was a cruicible for many things. But everything has its season and Caer Clud has now, in the words of one of the co-founders,"faded into the mists".

It’s much more fun to do it outside.

I’m talking, of course, about ritual. Ritual can be performed almost anywhere, at any time and for many different reasons. However, many Druids, myself included, prefer to work ritual out of doors whenever possible. I am, perhaps, inspired by romantic and mysterious images of cloaked figures meeting in secluded wooded groves to gather mistletoe from oak with golden sickles. Or by magnificent white robed Druids with staffs and horns assembling at Stonehenge to welcome the rising sun at Midsummer? Or maybe I just enjoy going out and getting myself muddy from time to time.

Being outside has become an integral part of how I express my spirituality. Experiencing first hand the turning of the wheel of the year and the ebb and flow of nature’s tides is, for me, the most immediate and most visceral route to connecting with the spirits of the land and the seasons. Returning to the same space as the season changes, I see the cycle played out before me. Trees are clad in bright leaves, which fade, fall and bud again. The ground is sodden, or hard and lacy with frost, or a riot of spring bulbs. I gain an emotional sense of what the festival means, not just in the stories it evokes, but in the experience of being out of doors during that season. Of raising my voice to be heard above the wind, of the warmth of mulled wine on a cold night and, on one occasion, of hoping that torrential rain would stop long enough to actually perform a midsummer ritual. Of course, ritual is not only for the seasonal festivals, but for any time you want or need it. Increasingly, because I can, because I want to has become a sufficient reason for me to perform an outdoor ritual.

My first outdoor, solitary ritual was just before dawn on the morning of the first of May. I had been up all night, cavorting around in the firelight at the Beltane Fire Festival atop Calton Hill in Edinburgh. I was cold and tired, I smelt of bonfire, my bum was damp and my clothes were stained with mud and grass and wax. And I felt bloody fantastic.

My tools were simple, a candle in a jar and some incense burning on a charcoal block in a fellow reveller’s discarded beer can. My circle, a quiet spot beneath a little tree just far enough away from the main party not to be disturbed. I sang, chanted awens and offered a goodly portion of my cider, which I had already drunk more than a little of, back to the earth. There were thanks to be given and healing energies to be offered for an ailing friend and, beneath it all, the knowledge of what was stirring in the land and within myself and the scantest of glimpses of the year ahead. It was at the edge of my perception, like the merriment and drumming all around me and just as contagious. No immense insights, instead a gentle perception of the movement of all things, progressing within and without my influence. A sense of place, not just a connection to where I was but to where I have been and will be.

The sky was paling, fading from deep indigo to grey, as I finished my impromptu ritual. Already there was a crowd regrouping on the hillside to welcome the rising sun. The horizon grew bloody as I trudged over to join them, handing the last of my cider into the crowd. As the sun crept higher the drumming redoubled. So too did the singing and chanting and stamping and dancing and sheer primitive, spirit born joy of seeing the sun rising again above the trees. From darkness into light. On any given night most sensible people slumber through this transition, when each of us pass through the cauldron of night and are reborn with the waking of the day. Just occasionally, some of us dance through that womb with our eyes wide open. There is freedom to be had in the darkness, contemplation and reinvention of ourselves without the harsh glare of the rational sun. There we can play and ponder the possibilities of self, for there is time yet before the darkness leaves us. At that Beltane festival there were fires blazing all night, an anchor to the daylight world I had left behind and a signpost towards my destination. And of course a powerful symbol: the fire on top of a hill clearly shouting, “Come to us! We are here! This is where the celebration is. When you get here, should you choose to, you can stay warm all night as you dance in the fire’s halo. You have a whole night to do with what you will.” Dawn then comes gradually, the fires burn down to embers, the night subtly fades and we follow it easily: not the oh so usual, bolt upright, alarm ringing, eyes snapping open and blinking against unwelcome light awakening. The darkest hour may be just before the dawn, but it makes the clarity of that coming light so much sweeter.

Dawn in a city is always slightly surreal, this one was even more so as I descended from the hillside and made my way to the railway station. A city needs people, without them it seems so lifeless, so in the dawn hours the city is quiet and almost ghostly until the occasional passing bus or early riser breaks the illusion of abandonment and desertion. This too is a transition; the empty streets seem unfamiliar and new, pregnant and bright with all the opportunities of a new day. Without the disguise of its citizens, I discover the city with fresh eyes. Stalwart old townhouses; bars and shops sulking behind shutters and grills; brash and confidant office blocks. I am told that cities are full of angular and sharp spirits, youthful and often turbulent, some newly realised and some centuries old and all mere children compared to the land spirits that have dwelt there since before our memory. The spirits of the land are, for me, harder to hear when masked by bustling crowds, traffic and noise. It is only when I see the city in an unusual way, like on a still and clear dawn where I could easily believe that all the people had vanished overnight, that I can remember to look and listen beyond what I am used to. Beneath the concrete, steel and pavement and indeed within it we will find not only the whisper of what has always been there, a land worked and lived by our ancestors, but also the voice of the now.

Stepping off the hill and onto the pavement I felt a subtle shift. I was leaving behind my night of partying where, for just a few hours, I had felt as if I was on an older, wilder hillside quite separate from the urban sprawl laid out before me. Now I returned to my other world, filled with trains and computers and meetings and books and customers and hospitals.

I have taken part in many rituals since then, both alone and as part of Caer Clud. To be honest, my favourites have been those that have been outside. In the middle of a wood with sunlight streaming through trees that stretch upwards forever; on a freezing hillside at midwinter to the light of a single lantern; on a beach at dawn or simply sitting for a few moments beneath a tree or staring into the river. They all remind me of my connection to the land and its seasons, of being a part of nature rather than living apart from it.

So should you too feel the call of those wild spaces, I urge you to answer and seek them out. Take what you think you will need, make sure that you will be safe wherever you roam, then set off. Wildwoods, moorland, beaches or hillsides. Parks, gardens or riverbanks. Discover those special places between the land and the sky and let the spirits of those places welcome you.