Solstice Eve

This post contains extracts from the June Raven Newsletter:
     Although the Solstices (Winter and Summer) do fall on precise days of the year, our ancestors were not as obsessed with time as we are, and in general were happy to celebrate around the right time. They recognised that a day or two either way was ok. So it is that although the (Summer) Solstice actually falls on the 20th, 21st or even 22nd of June and does vary a little from year to year, for many centuries in the UK, Midsummer's Day was celebrated on the 24th of June.
     There are many traditional spells associated with Midsummer's Eve or Midsummer's Day, and these can also be worked on the Solstice Eve or Solstice Day, and as there are only a few days between the Solstice and Midsummer's Day, I reckon you could use any of the intervening days too.
     St John's Wort flowers around midsummer and it is picked either on the Solstice or Midsummer's Day. It's Latin name is Hypericum, which means 'Having Power Over Spirits' and this herb is a demonofuge, that is a herb which banishes demons, ghosts and other spirits. It can even be made into a tea to banish demons from the body ie for exorcism.
     There is a legend on the Isle of Man that if you step on a St John's Wort plant after sunset on Midsummer's Eve, a fairy horse will appear from the Underworld and will carry you off for a wonderful, wild night's ride. However as soon as the first rays of the sun light up the eastern sky on Midsummer morning, the fairy steed will vanish and you will be dropped wherever you happen to be at that moment.
     Another plant particularly associated with Midsummer is the Fern which is said to glow on Midsummer's Eve and if you approach it with a pewter plate at midnight, you may be able to catch some of its magical seeds. These seeds confer the power of invisibility on anyone who carries them.
     Fern leaves can also be used in love magic, so make sure to gather some in the afternoon of Midsummer's Day. If you want to keep someone in love with you, put a little of this leaf in your left shoe and speak their name three times.
     Any Ash wood cut on Midsummer's Day, particularly at midday, has strong magical powers and can be used to carve a healing charm. These charms are said to be good for stopping bleeding, especially nose bleeds. This would be a good time to cut an ash branch to make a magic wand too.
     You could also try this special divination: At midday on Midsummer's Day, dig a small hole in the earth, at a place where at least three paths meet (ie a T junction or crossroads). Lie down and put your ear to the hole and listen carefully as you will hear the whisper of a secret which will help you in the future.

What Tallulah Did Next

Tallulah is just about a year old now. And has grown into a sweet, loving, entertaining, enthusiastic, funny and friendly dog.
       When Graham takes her for a walk in the morning, she is liable to be hugged and petted by any number of people. Including the man who doesn't let his own dog jump up but seems to be reduced to a mumbling 'Ooose a widdle, cuddly wuddly girl den?' as he is Tallulah'd.
      Friends often ask 'What has Tallulah been up to?' because she finds many ways to entertain herself (and us). She loves digging holes - particularly when the ground is damp and muddy.
She has various favourite places in the garden, she likes to sit on the ivy, or hide behind the coal bunker. This is usually when she has taken something out into the garden, which maybe, perhaps she didn't ought to have done.
     She is friendly with the neighbours on all sides. Which is just as well as she has tried digging under the fence into the garden at the back, and spends much time peeping over the fence at the side wagging happily at the people next door.
     The only trouble is she can't tell the difference between what is a toy, and what is not a toy.
     And likes to transport items outside, and back in - often after having been dragged around the garden a few times. She is fond of shoes, and socks, and anything she can find in the clean washing basket.
     Now it is difficult to be cross with her, because when you say 'Oh no! What have you done?' ginger dog looks at you with her ears down and her big brown eyes, and you know full well that whatever it is, she won't be able to resist doing it again, because it was such good fun!
     The latest toy-which-is-not-a-toy is my crochet yarn.
   I have a big project on (which I shall be blogging about shortly so watch this space) which involves lots of big brightly coloured balls of wool. Up to now these have been kept in two large carrier bags in the living room, so I can just grab one when I want one.
     But, unfortunately Tallulah thinks these are large squashy balls of fun.
     Our 'office' is upstairs in the house, so I very often am upstairs working, leaving the downstairs a human-free zone - and therefore a doggy playground. Last Tuesday, while Graham was out helping our son dismantle a chicken shed, I went downstairs at lunch time to see a trail of blue wool leading across the bottom of the stairs. I found the start of it in the living room and followed the trail, winding it up like Theseus in the Minotaur's den, through the kitchen, under the open bathroom door, through the dog flap and outside. And there was an unattended ball of wool on the back doorstep.
     Not a culprit in sight.
     I wound the wool back up again and put it back in the carrier bag.
     Now you would think that that was a good enough hint for me that perhaps the carrier bags were now considered a 'play' toy. But no, I am a bit thick at times.
    So, last night I went downstairs after a game of WoW* to find SEVERAL strands of wool leading across the bottom of the stairs. And a tangle of multi-coloured wool in the kitchen, and half a ball of wool. And yet more strands leading out through the dog flap and into the back garden where it had been wound round the clothes prop, dragged through various greenery, moss and leaves and finally deposited in a large, happy tangle. It looked very like Tallulah had plunged her head into the bag of wool and tried to grab as many balls at once as she could get in her mouth, then galloped outside with them, giving them a good shake every so often, and chased around the garden with them before flopping in her favourite place to pull the balls apart.
     I sighed and gathered the damp and slightly muddy armfull up and took it inside where I could remove the garden and twigs from it, untangle it and wind it back into balls.

     Today we have been out and bought two very large plastic storage boxes - with lids!

*World of Warcraft

Things that go Pop in the Night!

Actually that is a little misleading
     The TV actually went 'Pop!' in the middle of 'Eight Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown' last night.
     Now yesterday had been a day of buying (or trying to buy) electrical goodies.
     On Sunday the Microwave decided it didn't like having a turntable and became a stationary table instead. Which meant having to open the door every few seconds to manually twizzle round the dish you are trying to heat up. So we decided, first thing Monday morning we would pop out and get a new one.
     We decided to go to ASDA at the end of Hessle Road in Hull as they seemed to have a good selection.
     And seeing as we were going to be on Hessle Road, we had an excursion to Boyes to buy some household bits and bobs: washing up bowl, scrubbing brushes, pyrex tureen, several meters of fabric and a new skirt.
     Then we went to ASDA - this one is a Beast of a store, it is HUGE! Anyway we found the microwave section and tried to decide which would be the best one for us. There it was, sleek, black and shiny - and under £25! Bargain! Buy It!.

     We also needed a new cooker.
     Now we don't have room in our kitchen for a conventional cooker, so for years we have had a table top version. It has an oven and two hot plates on top, but as it plugs into a normal socket, you can't have the oven and both rings on without blowing up the house.
     For a number of years this hasn't been a problem since only one of the rings works anyway. Then the oven door handle fell off last year. And the cooker really needed cleaning and why clean a cooker when you can buy a new one?
     So we thought while we were spending money, let's get a new (table top) cooker too!
     We bought the last one in Curry's, which is also near the end of Hessle Road, so after a lively discussion went there.
     The discussion was 'lively' as the last thing we bought from Curry's was a washer which we paid extra for delivery, then extra to be fitted, and even more extra for the old washer to be taken away.
     The washer was delivered ok, but the delivery chap said he couldn't fit it because there was a drip from the water pipe intake. So it wasn't fitted, and as it wasn't fitted, the old washer wasn't taken away either!
     Happily the nice plumber who came to fix the drip, fitted the new washer for us while he was there, free of charge, but said 'Why didn't he just turn off the water at the stop cock?' which is under the sink, right next to the washer.
     Anyway, after a tour of the store it appears that Curry's no longer stocks table top cookers.
     So that would have to wait.
    But No!
     When I was looking at the website of the people we buy our office paper and envelopes from, Viking, they had a table top cooker with two hot plates in stock!
     From a stationery supplier?
     Well obviously!
     Why didn't I think of that straight away!
     So paper, envelopes and a cooker were ordered.

     Last night we were feeling pretty smug. We have a new larger yet cheaper microwave, plugged in in the kitchen, a new cooker is on the way,   And still have money left over from our budget!
     Then 'Pop!' said the TV and died.
      After checking the wires, and unplugging it and plugging it back in again it is clear that we now have a TV that is of ornamental value only. Actually I should have known as things usually seem to pack up in threes, and we had replaced two electrical bits, so we should have been ready for the third one to go.
     Which is why we were in Sainsbury's at ten to eight this morning buying a new TV.
      And Graham demanded comfort food (noodles) for breakfast.





   






   

Bagging

I've just been watching an article on the morning TV which was talking about the use of plastic carrier bags. They were saying how the number of plastic bags we use has been reduced by a vast number, but that in the UK we still buy over a billion plastic bags every year. So there was a big discussion about how could we possibly use less of them.
     I sat and listened to this discussion a bit gobsmacked.
     I am 62 years old, not vastly ancient, but when I was a child growing up, there were NO plastic bags. All of our groceries were supplied in paper bags. Every grocer used to have a wad of paper bags hung on a string so they could pull one off and use it at will. You bought apples or potatoes or whatever goods you fancied and the grocer popped them in a paper bag to weigh them and for you to carry home.
     If you had a lot of shopping, it would be put into a paper carrier bag, or your own fabric shopping bag, or a basket. It wasn't difficult to handle, the only time you had trouble was if it was raining and you stood your paper bag in a puddle while you waited for a bus!
     If you use a paper bag you are helping the environment in more than one way:
First you are saving the use of a plastic bag.
Second you are using paper which can be composted or re-cycled.
Third most brown paper bags and boxes are already made of re-cycled paper so you are saving the environment twice over!
     There is nothing difficult about making bags out of paper.
     At Raven the paper we use to wrap the contents of our parcels is often paper bags. The outside paper is recycled brown paper. The paper we use to print our catalogues is from renewable sources - usually wood from farmed trees. We have been doing this all the time we have been in business, that is thirty years, but all of a sudden this has become something the big companies can boast about doing. Incidentally we don't buy bubble wrap either, all the bubble wrap or other packaging we use is stuff we are re-cycling which has been sent to us with goods we have bought.
     Doing stuff to help our planet doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. Sometimes it just needs a little thought.
    We can all make a difference by doing our own little bits.
     You don't need to superglue your chest to the road - in fact that glue is probably really not helping the environment!

The Green Man

This is an extract from an article on Beltane from the latest issue of the Raven Newsletter:

     This is the time of year when flowers and trees burst into life. It is no wonder that the Saxons named the month of May Thrimilch, which means Three Milk, in other words the pastures are so lush, rich and verdant that cows could be milked three times a day, instead of the usual twice a day.
     The Green Man is the symbol of this green fertility. He is the spirit in the trees, the rising of the sap, the filling of the forest.
     Beltane is one of the times of traditional folk festivals, which includes dancing around a flower be-decked Maypole, and the appearance of the magical Morris Men. The Morris Men dance out evil and dance in good. They are often accompanied by strange creatures from both christian and Pagan myths. There is St George and the Dragon - St George's Day 23rd April has acquired many traditions originally associated with Beltane - there is the Green Man or the Fuzzy Man, who can be hidden in a costume of greenery, or covered in prickly burdock burrs. And in some places there are the strange mares, the horses which may be a horses skull on a pole, which lunges and snaps as it passes by. Or it may be a strange, drum shaped creature which swoops and swirls through the crowd. These are creatures of our native Dreamtime, the mare of nightmares, the steed of the Lord of the Dead, Arawn who may be the King of the Fairies, or Lord of the Underworld.

     At Beltane the doors between the worlds grows thin because this is one of those occasions when worlds and times collide.
     What is dream, what is nightmare, what is Fairy what is spirit, what is ghost? What is night, what is day, what is now, what is then, what is yet to come?
      These are the magical cracks between the worlds, these are the places where Witches live and work, this is a time when magic is nigh

     Happy Beltane !

Seasons Turning

Every season there is something to look forward to. And we look forward to these things because they are transient.
     They come and they pass and we won't see them again until the Wheel of the Year has made a full turn again.
     In the Spring we look forward to the new leaves appearing on the trees. I watch our hawthorn through the kitchen window and suddenly there are little beads of green, like emerald jewels appearing along its branches. They swell, almost as you watch them, and burst, popping out the tiny spikes of bright green leaves.
     Every day there are new flowers appearing in the garden. Or the new leaves of plants which will flower in the summer.
     It really is a miracle the way the barren, bare, brown earth becomes covered with leaves of wild garlic, primroses, foxgloves, alkanet and comfrey.

     At the same time the days are lengthening, the nights growing shorter. This is dramatically apparent when we change the clocks at the end of March, and the evenings are suddenly even brighter and longer.
     There is no wonder that Spring is the season of youthful Goddesses and Gods. They return from the dead, they emerge from the Earth, they are re-born and grow with the plants and the light.
     This is the time of the Maiden and those spirits which care for all young creatures. Dummuzi or Tammuz is the young shepherd who returns in Spring to the loving arms of Inanna. Attis, the young bull, returns to Kybele.
     Even the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, puts away her crown and returns to her mother Demeter, and becomes again the Spring Goddess, Kore.
     These returns are all times of joy, and made even more joyful simply because of their transience.
     Time will pass, the plants will flower and mature. The trees leaves will change from the bright yellow-green of Spring to the darker green of the mature woods.
     The young gods will grow older, mature, become bored of their older lovers and seek new loves amongst the fresh, sweet young humans, and sow again the seeds of their own Autumnal destruction.
     But for now we shall forget the future, forget what is to come, and instead celebrate the return of Life to the Earth.
     Plant some plants, sprinkle some seeds. Make a bird table or put up some nesting boxes. Make your garden a place to welcome Life and it will also breathe new life into you.

Double Glazing (Part Deux)

Last Wednesday night we had a phone call to confirm that on Thursday 'the men' were coming!
     'What time?' I asked
     'Eight a.m.'
     We were (of course) up extra early on Thursday morning so we could move things away from the windows, check that EVERYTHING had been removed, take down curtains and dismantle Graham's gaming computer which is in front of one of the windows - this meant unplugging various wires (will we remember what plugs into where?)
     At eight a.m. nothing happened.
     Nothing continued to happen until nearly nine a.m. when two vans turned up and I was asked to move my car so they could park in front of the house.
     MANY men got out of the two vans and began to unload MANY windows and two doors.
     'You are having all windows changed.' said a lad with a clipboard.
     'Not as far as we know,' I said, 'Only the big windows and not the back door.'
     'Which windows are you starting with?' I asked
     'All of them.' he replied and went away.
     Graham took the dogs out for a walk while EVERYTHING commenced.
     There were men all over the house, upstairs and down, and I was astonished to find that their first job was smashing our existing windows to remove the glass. I'd sort of imagined that they would run glass cutters around the frames and lift out the glass in panes, but no it was hammers, big gloves and pincers. And it seemed that, yes, it was all of them at once!
     By the time Graham and the dogs returned I was sitting in a very breezy living room, with openings to either side - well at least I was getting plenty of fresh air.
     Once all the windows and doors were off, the openings were checked, slight adjustments made to the ready-made frames and these seemed to be quickly slipped into place and secured with very long brass screws to the walls. There was much galloping up and down stairs, hammering, banging, sawing and drilling, but soon they were on to the finishing touches. The windows were cleaned inside and out, sealant squirted around the frames and smoothed into place,and all grit and dust cleaned from the window sills.
     Just before they left we were instructed how to use the new locks, which Graham has mastered but I can't get the hang of.
     We also found that yes, ALL the windows have been changed and both doors.
      But the back door has a large dog flap and a large glass panel in it. Unfortunately the glass is frosted, so negates the whole point of why we wanted a glass panel - so we could see out into the back garden and watch the dogs and wildlife. But at least the dogs are catered for.
      They were all done by 2.30ish so only five and half hours of disruption. As soon as they'd gone Graham got the vacuum cleaner out and went round the whole house - it was amazing how much tiny glass 'sand' and pieces he picked up.
       The fire draws ok and the dogs are getting used to their new door.
       The fitted doors look nice, they are both black wood effect, and I'm sure the house is far more insulated, which we are told will make it warmer in the winter.
      It just looks a bit too swish and posh to be our home. We are no longer rustic and a bit country shabby.
       I am sure we will soon get used to it - and a few coloured glass bottles in the windows will help matters enormously!

     Incidentally, when I had taken this photo, I found that I could not close the new front door, so we shall be seeing at least one of the workmen again before too long!