planting up a few tomato seedlings… earth day, blessing from the empress, abundance to all walk on the sacred earth beneath the broad expanse of sky…. our birthright being outside, in nature, with people we love… connection to body, land and each other ………. toms grown from last years seed slobber, love the closing of these circles nettle tapenade for lunch, yum… i’m calling it tapenade as, happily, i have no idea what the word means!
Esther: I have these Angel cards too! Don’t have much spare time to draw them these days but you’ve reminded me to do a reading for myself 👼 xx
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Aw I’m sure your so hugely busy all the blooming time! Hope you find some peace amongst the bedlam… plus occasional appreciation of how joyful it is… my nippers are 25 and 21 now… proper bonkers xx
I actually really like these cards… I read tarot for years, but kind of came to a pause with it, as tho, obvs, powerful wasn’t always in the right space to integrate some of the darkness These are proper fluffy, love the illustrations and lots of buoyancy Most of the cards make me think of someone I know… this lady/empress does too… tho can’t quite work out which of my friends she is?! Ha! Hug xx
in the realm of cernunnos, the horned god a drab day, an inconsequential copse, away on the cusp of the downs. yet even then, is there anywhere you’d rather be than a british woods in the idyllic throes of spring? a white carpet of wood anemones bob their heads beneath the breeze… birds flit, a warble of rapture hawthorn and elder flush fresh with leaf everywhere the froth of life, thin skein. green i love this place, partly for the fact so few people bother to come here all the paths are stopped. toppled trees from the great winters storm upheaval. upended… vertical becomes horizontal the roots claw scrabble down in the chalk. amongst the flint … not deep enough to withstand the barge and shove of air i hunker down, these roots, a fungal earthen smell, gone to ground… a selfie, trying to conjure the trunks as cernunnos horns? not quite next… bum shuffled along the trunk, over the crisp crackle lichen, till perched 10 ft above the path… legs a dangle. that’s plenty high enough for me! with the breeze, occasionally the trunk thrums, a wave of vibrations move upwards, and then through my body dragons of earth, dragons of air i sit, still, thoughts settle then subside ………
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emerging from the trees there’s a view of the abrupt white cliffs of seaford head, the spire of St Michael Newhaven peeks above the ridge away, far down the valley, the silhouette of the Castle and the spire of St Michael Lewes the archangel Dragon slayer! doubled. The worm would have plummeted to earth somewhere along this ridge? I look for a long barrow? but none I know of nearer than on the hill above Alfriston curious to think that, back in the neolithic, before the coming of sheep, all the downs would have been lightly wooded… a liminal space of dread the path follows the sight line, directly downhill to the church in piddinghoe and there in a stained glass window, clasped in a golden chalice, i find the baby dragon!
written quickly, coz thats fun too!
oh and i’ve got in the habit of writing respectful, but mildly eccentric words, in church visitors books… give it a go!
i love this site… you can zoom in anywhere and find all the barrows and ancient listed buildings wherever you care… lewes is an utter glut!
do things that make you feel infinite! majestic! stuff that makes you laugh! i went for a jog today, hurrah… heres an artists impression (by Rich, age 56), which captures something of my wild eyed gait!… mixed media, the clothes i ran in, some lidl lemons and left over Kale from the permie plot… haven’t been out since last year, when i totally destroyed my foot up on the cliffs… gently, gently we shall see how it goes the body is amazing, a pharmacological genius, it produces all these absurd euphoric happy chemicals, just for us to indulge and gorge on of course they don’t last long, pretty soon we’re back huddled again in our cloak of despondency… but the memory of such glee! bound to lighten the load so jump in the freezing cold sea, dance like a loon, recite poetry to a gold fish… whatever floats your boat i’ve been pondering the obvious… ‘being happy is a radical act’, the oft neglected buddhist quality of mudita… boundless, effortless joy the caveat that: so long as you have a roof over head and all your woes are just human size… but just being happy, tis a good thing and even better… theres nothing more to say about it! ….. oh and may as well jumble in some other pics… can’t beat a dollop of chaos!
eldest is home from his adventure, lovely to see him again
praha april 92… steve and i in his kitchen… day or night? party… never seen this snap before yesterday, made me chortle
snow and blossom! a day at the permaculture plot in stanmer, i’m only ever a sporadic visitor, but whenever life is a little bit at a lull, a day working outside in nature, well mostly supping tea and nattering, is always a good idea! tho the pic doesn’t really do it justice there was about an hour of fluffy stuff… a jumbled up, out of kilter british spring… a bit of snow won’t cause much harm, but freezing overnights more problematic for autumns harvest aw i have a fleeting moment of wishing to be a zen monk… but they’re much better at rocking a bobble hat, writing poems… or mbe should be a viking? who knows! snow upon plum blossoms ephemera mingles with euphoria wind swirl gyre downwards from the heavens this eternal moment, poised, topples into poignancy that sort of stuff!
lunchtime nettle pesto.. continuing on from last weeks post generous handfulls of nettle tips, wild garlic from stanmer park (it’s out already!) 1 lemon, a pinch of pepper, bountiful mixed seeds, olive oil… these foraged from lidl whisk and pulverise to perfection… slobber over gnocchi… guzzle. yum have you ever seen a more delicious dick n’dom BOGIES green!? it just has to be good for you!! takes 5 minutes to prepare and then you can waffle on about it for at least a week food on social media always a performative act didn’t follow a recipe, all ‘intuitive’ quantities, guided by the spirit of the nettle… well, too lazy to be bothered to google it you might blanch the nettles to eradicate any danger of stung tongue?… but mine was fine with mere whisking the nettle flavour is sort of slightly soggy woolen socks… tastier than that sounds! don’t, DON’T whatever you do make nettle soup… made that once, just yuk, fed it to the kids (possibly greta too), they’re usually hugely tolerant of my experimenting, but even they didn’t much like that aw wild garlic pesto reminds me of the epic LEJOG cycle gang! meandering again… ha, tumbleweed on here anyway yawn… can’t seem to wake up post lunch, fun weekend, up to see mum yesterday, whilst saturday after a sunset beach loiter went along to mobius loop… such a brilliant fun festie band! a cauldron of cacao, lots of faces, old and new, wild boogie oh and they played a couple of much more folkie tunes too… really enjoyed teh one below!
Nicki: Richard Basgallop great night … love this song thanks for posting the link .. Particulary Loved this one that the other group She sang too ..its so beautiful
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Ooh that’s lovely, thanks for posting, beautiful harmonies!
In keeping with the synchronous, warm and soulful, nature of the eve, also enjoyed dancing with them (down the front always the place to be!), then chatting to them after. Groovy good to see ya too! Xx
So looking forward to summer festies! X
Sheila: smart funny guy!
Alex: Ooo DELISH! Whereabouts in stanmer did you find it? X
Wild garlic was up the top and way way way (one more way for luck!) back.. they’ll be plenty more of it about in a few weeks!
Was a treat to bump into you and bf… sunset just after was lush… we should totes hang kat more often xx
Alex: Richard Basgallop yes lovely to introduce you guys and see you 🌅
Hang kat? Autokorrect has stopped even trying to make sense. Sigh xx
