Autumn Fires

 Do you remember? Back in the Spring, just before the Covid Lockdown, the high winds brought down our ivy-covered arch into the back garden?

    Graham cleared away the debris into a HUGE pile at the back of the garden. This was substantially added to when he 'trimmed' the leylandii hedge (lopped six feet off it and reduced it to chest height).

    Well this now VAST pile of twigs and sticks and logs has sat in the garden all Summer.

    Occasionally Graham has taken the brown bin (garden waste) and filled it with clippings from the heap, making apparently no difference to the volume.

    Until the other day when he said to me: 'What do you think to getting a garden incinerator? Aldi's have some in at £15.00.'

    I said 'If you want to buy one, go ahead.' while thinking to myself that if he was thinking of feeding the Heap into it, that would take some doing.

    Graham was silent for a bit, and then said, 'Of course, I'd have to move the heap out of the way ....'

    Now one of his objections to having a bonfire was that the Heap was currently positioned over what had been our fire pit, so in order to have a controlled and safe bonfire, he would have to move the Heap, then feed it into the bonfire gradually.

    Also we know that wild life will have made homes in the Heap, so it would need dis-mantling and moving, to be sure that none of our garden inhabitants came a cropper.

    I said nothing. Then Graham said, 'Or I could just have a bonfire.'

    So yesterday afternoon the Heap was shifted. Larger pieces of wood were separated and the fire pit was exposed. As expected, several frogs/toads had made homes under the Heap and these had to be shooed away. One was a magnificent large frog with a prodigious leap. Anyway all was prepared ready for dusk.

    And at 7 pm Graham announced that he was going to start the bonfire, 'I'll come out with you.' I said.

    'Why?' asked Graham.

    'Just to be sure we have stuff put on gradually and not all in one big chunk.' I said.

    Actually it all went very well. Graham was careful as he had seen that at least one of the frogs/toads had moved into the Heap again, so he took stuff off the pile carefully, making sure he wasn't transferring any creatures into the fire.

    The Heap was lovely and dry/seasoned, so it burnt well, but even so it still took over an hour to gradually feed all of it into the bonfire. But it all burnt down well.

    After the last lot was on, we sat and watched it for a while, making sure it was burnt down to a glowing grumble before we left it.

    It is a long time since we last had a bonfire. To me they are always magical, as we always have tried to have a little fire to celebrate the festivals. This year we have kept largely to candles, so it was lovely to sit and watch the dancing and leaping flames.

    These are the fires that our ancestors had. That burnt up the waste at the end of the harvest.

    this was the time when fields would be alight with burning stubble, burning up the disease and fertilising the Earth with fresh ash. These were the fires we would see at night, up on the hill sides, visible for miles. As the bonfires and Need Fires would also be visible in those dark, dark nights or the far past, when the only light you could bring into darkness was fire.

The next day - this is all that was left.

Autumn is Coming

 I love the progression of the seasons through the year.

    They remind us that nothing stays the same, everything constantly changes and moves on. But also they remind us of seasons past and seasons yet to come.

    It is only a couple of weeks since we were sweltering in Summer heat. Every morning I would look forward to opening the back door, and leaving it open, to encourage as much as possible of the cool, fresh air to flood into the house. They yesterday when I opened the door, there was a distinct nip in the air. And after the door had been open only a few minutes, suddenly 'the factory' struck up into full production. The 'factory' is our central heating boiler, which has been silent for months, but that morning with a whoosh and a vrrrrrm suddenly it was heating water and, for the first time since late Spring, the radiators were beginning to warm up.

    It is true that the leaves on the trees are starting to curl up and change colour around the edges. Growth has slowed in the garden, but the hedgerow fruits are starting to ripen. It looks like a good year for rosehips, and the cotoneasters in the garden are popping out hundreds of little red berries. I shall ask Graham to look out for brambles when he takes the dogs for a walk    

    When I was very little, this is when my dad would call for me to go for a very early morning walk with him. We would set off when it was barely light and walk around the edges of the stubble in the newly harvested fields. The mist would be rising, and the air soft and cool enough to make you want to keep moving, and soon we would come to the field where the mushrooms grew.

    We searched through the meadow, avoiding the cows which were following their own daily routine, wandering slowly and grazing the moist, thick grass at the far side of the field. Dad showed me how to look for tufts of grass, where the mushrooms hid at their base, and to look out for the darker green circles of the fairy rings, so many in this field that they intersected. Some were small, only just big enough to sit inside, others were huge, obviously grown over many years, and following around the edges of the rings was where the white capped mushrooms grew.

    When we had picked enough for breakfast, we would meander home, but sometimes we would go the long way, over the fields away from the houses, until we got to Uncle Bill and Aunty Laura's house. Dad might leave a paper bag of mushrooms by their back doorstep, so they would find them when they opened the door.

    Then home at last to have mushrooms cooked in my dad's special way: fried in butter, then a blob of Marmite, and a splash of strong tea (tea leaves and all), to make a flavoursome liquor which we would eat with bread and butter.

Making Mitts

 Crochet central! 

    Through the Summer I have mainly been concentrating on making bedspreads and throws usually from a variety of squares of different sizes and patterns, but eventually I started to want to try something different. So I decided to have a break from squares, and look at what else I fancied making.

    One of the things I wear a lot in the Winter are fingerless mitts. My wrists often ache in the Winter, when it turns colder, so having something warm around them helps get rid of this, but I want to be able to use my fingers properly, so fingerless mitts are ideal. So I had a look on the internet, my first go-to place for all things crochet and there are some beautiful designs, but a lot of the patterns seemed really complicated. I had a think about it and realised that all you need to do is crochet an oblong.

    Start off by making a chain which is the length you wish your finished mitts to be, from about the base of your fingers, to cover your wrists and a bit more. I actually like a long mitt which nearly goes up to my elbow, so I did a chain of 21 plus an extra two for my first double crochet (most people do a chain of 3 for this, but I've found with my kind of crocheting a 2 chain works better for me). Work your first double crochet in the third chain from your hook and work double crochets all along your line of chains, right back to the beginning, then chain 2 (or 3) and turn and work back along the row doing double crochets in all the stitches along. This is a very simple pattern, but I used some balls of ombre wool (ombre means 'shade' so this is wool which shades from one colour to another) that I had and this makes a colour changing pattern as you continue working. 

    Just continue making your rows of double crochet until the oblong is wide enough to go round your arm at its thickest point. I would make it a little on the tight side as this will make them fit better and also the wool will stretch a bit with wearing. Don't fasten your wool off, as you are going to join both sides together into a tube by using a sort of running slip stitch. It is really easy (everything I do is really easy!).  Line up both sides so that the stitches match each other. Push your hook through both sides of the oblong, as near to the edge as your can get, yarn over at the back, pull your hook through the work and through both loops on your hook. Then move to the next stitch along. 

    Continue in this fashion until you are about 8 stitches from the end. At this point you are going to make your thumb hole, so try the mitt on and see if your thumb will stick through ok, you might want to pull a stitch back or two, but don't worry, you can always pull it back and have another go as long as you haven't fastened off. If your thumb hole is in the right place, rather than doing your slip stitch chain through both sides of your work, just do it in one side, leaving the other side free. Do this five times, then go back to joining the two sides together by pushing your hook through both sides of the tube again. You should have three stitches to join (but there might be 4 or 5, if you pulled back a stitch or two earlier.).

    When you get to the end, don't fasten off until you have tried your mitt on, to make sure you have the thumb hole in the right place. If all is fine, then fasten off and weave your ends in. If the thumb hole doesn't feel quite right you can pull the stitches back and re-position the thumb hole to suit yourself.

    Oh something else I tried was using a larger than normal crochet hook. I tend to use a 4.5mm hook, but for this project I tried a 6.5, which is considerably bigger. This means that your stitches will naturally be larger, and makes it quicker to crochet, but also if you tend to crochet tightly this will also loosen your work, make it feel softer and actually warmer as it will hold more air.

As modelled by my lovely assistant.

Consecrated Salt and Holy Water

 Two of the items we sell in our Raven Catalogue are Consecrated Salt and Holy Water. These are basic supplies used for a variety of purposes.

    Both of these items are used to cleanse away negative vibrations or any unwanted energies and also to bless objects and make them holy. For example if you have bought a special tool for use in a spell or ritual, you could sprinkle it with Consecrated Salt and a few drops of Holy Water and this would magically cleanse it and prepare it for use in your ritual.

     Basically these items clear away any previous contacts, if someone else has held it or used it. A bit like wiping a computer disc of its previous information and leaving it empty and pristine for you to fill with your own special energies.

    The Consecrated Salt and Holy Water can be used separately, or you can put a little salt into the water to make a particularly highly charged magical preparation. This can be used to bless participants in a ritual, or for initiation rituals, or to cleanse any object or area. Such as clearing out unwanted spirits.

    Consecrated Salt it often used to cleanse items which can be damaged by water, so you can cleanse books or Tarot Cards with it. You can also throw it directly at a manifestation to disperse its energies.

    Both Consecrated Salt and Holy Water can be added to your bath water to cleanse you of any psychic intrusions, get rid of bad luck, hexes or curses. They can also be added to a bucket of soapy water and used to cleanse larger areas such as a room used as a temple, or even to wash the path or road leading to your home.

    They can also be used separately or in combination to create a magical boundary which spirits or other entities cannot cross. So if you were having trouble sleeping, or having nightmares, you could make a boundary around your bed, make sure the line is continuous, but it does not have to be a circle. You can use it to reinforce the magical boundaries of your home too.

    The only things I would not use them on are objects which you want to use for their intrinsic magic or psychic powers. So do not use them on herbs as this removes the very magical powers you want to make use of. Also natural talismans such as a Holy Stone or a horseshoe as, again, you would be wiping away the objects own magic and leaving them blank.

Wishing Trees

After I put my last post up, I had a look on the internet to see if there was anything about coins being hammered into trees, and to my astonishment there were several quite detailed articles about it.
     Apparently there is a growing revival of this tradition of making a wish and forcing a coin into the bark of a (usually) felled tree, or a tree stump. I found articles about it from Wales, Scotland and England, so it is a much wider known folk spell than I had realised.
     Up to now, I had only come across the traditions of hammering nails into trees, or tieing bits of cloth or ribbons to them. But in both those cases the trees would be living. Traditional Wishing trees are usually living hawthorn trees and usually overlook a natural spring. You make a wish then tie a piece of your own clothing, or a ribbon to the tree, as an offering. This relatively new phenomena of using coins utilises dead or felled trees, either the trunks of the trees, or sometimes just the remaining stumps.
     I haven't yet found out what makes a particular tree a candidate for becoming a Wishing Tree in this way, or whether any felled tree or tree stump can be used in the same way - I get the feeling that this might be the case.
      Having read some of the articles, it seems that this may be something that many people are doing just because they see that other people already have done it. In other words they are simply copying the behaviour. Sometimes this happens to trees on private land, or that owned by the National Trust, and one confused National Trust person was quoted as saying 'Why are people wasting their money like this, they could give the coins to the National Trust and we could do something with it!'
      The leaving of a votive offering in return for a wish is a very ancient behaviour, it goes way, way back into the mists of time, and seems to be something humans just can't help doing.
      In Hull, one of the shopping centres has an indoor pool with a fountain in it. If you look in the pool you will see that the floor of the pool is full of coins of all different denominations. This pool in a modern shopping centre has become a 'Wishing Well'. There are no signs up telling people to make a wish and throw a coin in (in fact sometimes signs are put us asking people to refrain from throwing coins into the fountain), and periodically the management order a clean up and the coins are removed and given to charity. But it is not long before coins are once more being thrown into this pool.
      People need magic in their lives.
      They need to be able to ask for help from some supernatural power.

       I find it very interesting and encouraging to note that even in these modern days of computers, when people seem to be getting further and further away from nature, new magics are still finding their way into the world.

Mystery Spell

Every morning Graham takes the dogs for a walk, and part of that walk is usually through a strip of managed woodland, known locally as 'The Plantation'.
      As the woodland is managed, from time to time trees are felled for one reason or another, usually because they appear dangerous, or have become uprooted and need making safe.
     Some months ago now a large beech was felled, its upper branches were removed and taken away, but a large piece of the main trunk was left behind. It has become a nice place to have a sit while passing through the woods. Graham often makes use of it in the morning and so it was he noticed a couple of months ago that some coins, copper 2p's and silver 20p's, had been hammered into the trunk of the tree, in the deep grooves of the bark.
      It seems as if these coins are hammered in maybe every few days. The numbers fluctuate, possibly children notice the coins and pull them out, not easy as some have been hit with such force that it has bent the coins, but they are all left proud of the bark, not hammered in fully.
      There are several old spells which usually call for nails to be hammered into a tree. These spells are also usually for getting rid of something. The tree takes the energy of whatever it is you are trying to get rid of - and as this tree is dead and will rot, I would think that this adds to the power of any banishing spell.
      Usually these spells are for getting rid of illness, or something such as warts, each nail hammered in represents one of the warts.
     As this spell is obviously being added to, and has been for at least a couple of months, then whatever is being got rid of is a big thing.
     Also as this seemed to start around the time of lockdown, perhaps this is a spell for getting rid of Covid 19. But it could be to get rid of bad luck, or of a long-term illness. There could also be more than one person doing the spell.
     The fact that coins are being used is another interesting feature. Coins represent payment, so the tree is being 'paid' to take away whatever it is. The fact that two different coins are being used is also another interesting fact, why 2 p's and 20 p's? Copper is the metal of Venus, goddess of love, and copper coins are usually used in love spells, but copper coins can also simply represent payment as I said before. Silver is the metal which represents the Moon, and the 20p coin has seven sides which could also be significant. It must be more awkward to hammer in the 20p's too as they are relatively small. Silver coins are also given in payment to the Fairies for their aid too.
      There does not seem to be a pattern to the positioning of the coins.
      So there we have the mystery of the tree and the coins.
      An interesting magical feature of our local woods.

You've Done What With It ?!

Graham and me are not tidy people.
     Thank goodness this applies to both of us. If only one of a couple is untidy, they would drive their partner mad!
     Anyway, because we are not tidy people, things accumulate in drifts and heaps around the house. These are often 'themed' heaps and can last for years.
     Such as: clean clothes accumulate in the clean clothes basket in the kitchen.
     This means that rather than trailing all the way upstairs to fight your way into the wardrobe (which has a pile of boxes piled against the doors) you just rifle through the clean washing basket and wear the first whatever of yours that comes to hand.
     The system works pretty well, because we both know vaguely which heap you might find something in.
     The trouble starts when we have an 'Oh God! I can't stand this mess any longer!' episode, and PUT THINGS AWAY.
     For a few days afterwards, maybe up to a week, the house is clear and tidy, then the heaps begin accumulating again, in small ways.
     But the damage has been done!
     Stuff has been PUT AWAY, and because we are used to whatever it is being in that heap over there, and it is no longer there!
     We have no idea where it might be.

     And so it was, after the plumbers had been and fitted the central heating, we had a sort out in the kitchen.
     For many years we have accumulated spare pairs of 'Pound Shop' spectacles, so that when our favourite pair gives up the ghost, we will have a spare pair ready to go. And all the spare pairs were dotted on the shelves of the dresser in the kitchen.
     We had this bright idea that just laying about loose, as they had done for many, MANY years, was obviously not good for the specs, the lenses could get scratched etc before they came into use. So in a moment of tidying up madness, we gathered all the pairs of glasses up and PUT THEM AWAY!

     This morning Graham's glasses, which he wears constantly, fell to pieces, so a new pair was called for.
     This would be no problem, because we always have several pairs of brand new Pound Shop specs ready and waiting for action. He went to the dresser in the kitchen, where the glasses always are and there were NO GLASSES THERE!
     Dum, Dum, Daaaaaaah! - dramatic music.
     We have put them away. In a safe place.
      Where that 'safe place' is, neither of us can remember ......
      Luckily he did manage to find a pair that we had missed during the tidying up session, so he could see to take the dogs for a walk.
      It is a good thing that even when we are tidying up, we are rubbish at it!