season of the hazel catkins, bringing a genuine benign softness to the woods at this time of year, apparently sacred to brigid, irish goddess of inspiration (ajna and aquarius?)… and her feast just passed
a pleasant weekend in the sunshine at the lovely festie at emerson… such a beautiful sacred landscape around there
at one point i meandered off for a sunset walk, found a swing hung from the branch of a huge old beech tree to play on, in the low evening sunlight you could see how every clump of grass was connected by the glorious shimmer of spiders skein
so much else happening in the world, whilst we blunder bumble along with our tired thoughts
ephemerera continually arising into being then fading away again. a delightful granualarity… if we but find the stillness to watch
……………
… and to babble further… i quite like it that folk seldom read far
the next day a family of rats playing in the garden, steiner biodynamic rats at that!… of course quell the initial loathing, ancient enemy, man and rat have been neighbours for ever
both our familiar and similar, alike in their curiosity and querrelousness… normally you just see the hairless tail of one scurrying away from view
but these just hopped about, poking their noses into everything. dudes!
a dusk time stroll up towards the castle, i rounded a corner just at the moment a fox pounced out, the whirr of feathers midst the melee, as 3 plump game birds scrambled skywards
Rufus exultant. Magnificent. for a second he paused, then nonchalant turned tail and bounded back into the thicket. not your mangey down town fox, but tawny sunset gloss of pelt
always in the woods there is the sense, if your imagination allows, that just around the bend, the laugh, the tantal-o-o, the joyful shrieks of the wild wild fairy hunt
but with hazels, they always seem like the spirit of a sweet young boy… and with him, forever nearby, walks the white lady of the woods, snowdrops and anemones flowering around her gown
oh and spent some of lunchtime reading about hazel in my tree book… tree of quicksilver wisdom!… the salmon and the legend of Finn McCool… probs some of that in these links? … starts with the yeats, from the christy moore song too
https://www.druidry.org/library/trees/tree-lore-hazel
http://www.thegoddesstree.com/trees/Hazel.htm
…and ever curious McColl means son of hazel … as in Kirstie… and her dad Ewan, who wrote: