Wheel of the Year // Summer is drawing to a close

For the last couple of weeks, we have seen bales of hay being gathered and drying in the fields around us. 

The harvests have been happening - wheat, hay, vegetable crops. And the bees have been busy harvesting the last of the pollen from the remaining flowers. 

There is a recognisable chill in the air in the mornings and a faint reddish-orange tinge starting to appear on the leaves of some trees. 

I'm trying to make the most of the end of summer and appreciating the still-light evenings and slight warmth the sun still possesses. There's no denying, though, that Autumn is around the corner. I am very much looking forward to the new season and cosying down with spiced cider and pumpkin pie. Not long now!

Hedgerow Ramblings // Elderflower

Although it doesn't really feel like it with all the rain and chill, one sure sign that summer is here is the appearance of the Elderflower in the hedgerows. Every June it pops out, amongst the foliage, offering its sweet nectar to anyone wishing to take a whimsical foray into wine or cordial making. 

I've posted before about this exciting flower, its properties and some lovely recipes for utilising it. Have a gander here to find out more. If you're having a go at foraging elderflower for drinks-making this year, I wish you well and lots of enjoyment - but please take care when picking and using wild food: make sure you know what you're picking and please don't take more than you need. 

Blessings.

Thank you B...

...for a truly wonderful weekend of picnics. 

Wheel of the Year // Litha

Midsummer - or Litha to many pagans - is the point on the Wheel of the Year where the Sun is at its peak: the Summer Solstice. June 21st marks the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and it is on this day that many pagans join in celebration of the power of the Sun. Traditionally, many cultures around the world have celebrated this day with feasts, dancing and bonfires - and often weddings - to joyously mirror the energy provided by the Sun at this time. Even today it is a time of thanksgiving for the Sun's warmth and light which enables the Earth to bear fruits.

This Summer season I am thankful for...

* An allotment which is growing beautifully - we are now able to eat what we have sown.

* A long holiday from school, just around the corner, in which I can focus on bringing my personal goals into fruition.

* Being situated in a place where I can see the wheel turning all around me; where the changing seasons are evident with every footstep.

* Time spent with B.

* Being a part of my own friends' celebrations of love and growth, yet to come, later in the Summer season. 

What are you thankful for this Summer?

Summertime Goals

As you can see, I've already put pen to paper (a ritual which always focusses my mind) in order to extract from the tangled mess of school-work-related-tasks, the goals that I...that's me, myself, I...want to achieve this summer. B and I have also written a list of 'together' goals - fun activities we both want to try together over the summer holidays. That list involves a lot more adventure in the traditional sense: surfing, camping, exploring new places. My list is more about personal, internal journeys and adventures.

It's become really important to me to utilise my school holiday time effectively this summer, particularly as so much of my holiday time in the past year has been taken up with illness and family sadness. This summer I want to make sure some of the little creative tasks I've been meaning to do forever get done - I want to fill my days with things that nurture my mind and soul. 

Things like:

* Finally get round to finishing painting my desk chair and upholstering the seat (this has been part finished for about three years!)

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* Get an Instax Mini camera and take lots of fun photos of family and friends

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* Use some of the pretty patterned fabric I've gathered over the years to make a book bag. 

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But mostly I want to do lots of this...

What are your summertime goals this year?

Allotment Tales // First Harvests

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging so much lately is that B and I are lucky to have been able to rent an allotment this year and much of our free time is spent down there planting and tending. We are loving it and our first rewards are beginning to be reaped.

With heartfelt thanks to the sunshine and rain. 

Wheel of the Year // Belated Beltane Blessings

May 1st marks the beginning of Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and this turn of the wheel is celebrated by the fire festival, Beltane.

A half turn of the wheel from Samhain (Hallowe'en, 31st October), this festival is its polar opposite in meaning  as well as seasonal position. Where Samhain symbolises death, the end of harvest and the arrival of winter and the 'dark' months, Beltane is a fertility festival, celebrating life, the beginning of the harvest season and the arrival of summer - we are almost at the 'lightest' point of the year. For more information about the origins and meaning of the sabbat, read last year's Beltane post, here

Beltane blessings - albeit belated - to you all.

Hedgerow Ramblings // One Swallow Doesn't Make a Summer...

...but how about a sky-full?

A little holiday

The reason I have been absent from the blogosphere over the past couple of weeks...

B and I have been enjoying the delights of Cornwall. 

I shall be back tomorrow with a 'proper' post. 

I have missed writing and peeking into my favourite blog-world windows. 

Blessings to you all.

School's Out for Summer!

How cheerful are these gorgeous sunflowers?

They perfectly capture my mood today. 

I have five weeks to myself.

Time in which to enjoy catching up with friends and family, completing some creative projects which have long been intended but not yet begun and - most importantly - resting and refreshing my soul before I return in September.

Joy.

Chance

Looking at this picture now, it does not seem real. 

When I flicked through a day's worth of photographs taken around the farm on Saturday, I was not expecting the flight of the swarm of swallows, swooping in the sun, to have been captured. They are so fast, dive-bombing to catch flies and gnats in the air; it is a chance blessing that the shutter of my camera moved at the precise moment to capture this one mid-soar. 

Wandering curiously into one of the barns, camera in hand, I found the purpose for their frantic flight...

A nest tucked away under the eaves, containing hungry mouths to feed.

Entirely by chance did I choose this moment to explore, and I was blessed with this reward: the opportunity to capture a beautiful aspect of nature in action. 

The Triumphant Light

Today marks the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The point on the Wheel of the Year is directly opposite Yule; the counterbalance to the darkest of moments.

Today, sunlight is triumphant.

Whether you are lighting the Litha fires, celebrating with a family feast or, like me,  simply enjoying the enchantment of this Midsummer Night in the quiet of your own garden, I wish you a wonderful, magickal evening.

Solstice blessings one and all. 

In praise of the Sun God

The vibrant sun is at its most powerful at this point in the year: our days are lengthy of light and warmth. At this time the earth is bounteous and crops are growing all around, whether in vast fields or more humble gardens.

The nasturtium seeds that I planted a mere month ago, here, are now well established and I hope to have a host of golden, orange and red hues adorning my little front wall and bowls of salads come late summer.

A mixture of salad leaf seeds that I planted in a giant tub about two weeks ago are sprouting healthily. I'm looking forward to some rocket adding a peppery taste to the mix as well.

Along one tiny little bed I can also see my spinach leaves and beetroot poking up out of the soil. I love the rich red of their stems.

And last but certainly not least, the beans have come to join the party! This is my first sprout on show today - hopefully, with a bit of guidance and support, the runner beans will climb straight up my wall.

As I have such a small plot of land at the front of my house, with nowhere to grow under cover, I have had to wait until so late in the season for the ground to be warm enough to plant straight out. But here they come, to accompany my miniature strawberry harvest, as the fruits of this year's labours.

Thank you to the great Sun God for encouraging these little wonders to grow. 

Summer Bucket List

Inspired by the lovely Laura over at The Lola Letters and recent events in my life encouraging me to seize the day, I thought I would share with you my summer 'to-do' list.

Laura calls this her Summer Bucket List and it comprises of all the things one desires to do during the summer months, written down onto strips of paper and placed in a bucket, to be pulled out once or twice a week. I just LOVE the idea behind this - letting  whatever will be happen. 

So, when the days are long and the evenings light; when the Earth is warmed and the sun shines bright, what do you want to do with your time? I know I'll be enjoying some freedom this summer as, being a teacher, it will be my first long holiday. So, here goes...

My Summer 'Bucket' List

Spend the day in Oxford and have drinks by the river at The Trout

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Visit the seaside and eat fish and chips out of newspaper

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Go wild swimming

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Go strawberry picking

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Have an evening by the fire, toasting marshmallows

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Take photographs in a rapeseed or poppy field

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Share a seafood platter with B

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Paint and distress my desk chair

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Go for ice cream

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'Midnight Margaritas'

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Sew some owls just like these cuties from Alexandra at Moonstitches

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Go for a picnic

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Spend a whole 24 hours without technology - including watches - and just go where the wind takes us.

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Have a girls' pamper day with Mum

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A day trip to London to visit the art galleries with B

I'm sure I will think of many more to add to this list over the coming weeks!

How about you? What would be on your summer bucket lists?

May day musings

As mentioned in yesterday's Beltane post, May day marks the start of summer. This morning, as I watched the swallows whip in and out of the barns, swooping down to mere inches above my head and soaring back up against the sky, it did indeed feel like summer is upon us.

Sadly the swallows were too quick for me to get a good photo, so this 

illustration from the RSPB will have to do. 

It was Aristotle who famously said...

'One swallow does not make a summer'

...and by three o'clock, as the dark clouds set in and the rain came tumbling down, I felt a renewed understanding of those wise words. Here in the UK, our weather can be so temperamental that sometimes it does not feel like we have a proper summer at all. 

And then I thought, if we can't always have the sun, what does make summer here?

Oh yes...

...these play a pretty big part!

And so I spent the rest of my afternoon cheerfully potting up a hanging basket of strawberry plants for outside my window. 

As I filled my humble basket with the nutritious soil and watered in my little summer-fruit bearing plants, I smiled thinking that this is exactly what May day is a celebration of: the start of things to come. It marks the beginning of the season which will provide us with food to harvest, in a month or two. 

Or perhaps even sooner, in the case of this little one...

Strawberry plants are pretty versatile and can be grown in all sorts of pots and containers, as long as they have drainage. I was really pleased with my basket which, when I look out of my window, will remind me of the harvests yet to come, both in my garden and in my life.

I can't wait to taste the fruits of my labour soon - hopefully to be enjoyed with a little bit of that elusive sunshine.

Beltane

The fire festival Beltane is celebrated on May Eve and May Day, ushering in summer and marking the opposite point of the wheel to Samhain. 

Much like Samhain, in mythology and legend, Beltane marks a time when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thin and transitions or communications between the two are believed to be most likely. 

The etymology of the festival's name is from the Old Irish 'beltene' meaning 'bright fire' and traditionally, the bonfires of Beltane were lit as an emblem of purification in preparation for the summer's harvests. 

Nowadays, many of the festivals Gaelic features have been amalgamated with the English and Germanic practices and symbols of 'May Day' which equally celebrates the fertility of the land as summer arrives. 'May blossom' (hawthorn) adorns houses, children dance around the maypole (whose red and white ribbons represent the feminine and masculine elements required for fertility) and an air of gay abandon permeates the celebrations. 

It is a time to ignite your passion and creativity and there's no right or wrong way to do so: beat a drum to envoke the energies of the season; light a bonfire if space permits or an warm coloured candle if not; dance, run and most importantly, give yourself over to instinct and natural desire. Blessed Beltane everyone - enjoy!