Wild Life

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“Where The Wildflowers Grow” by Leif Bersweden – a review

“Where The Wildflowers Grow” by Leif Bersweden – a review

As a first blog post of the year, one that refers to a book that was a Christmas present sort of redeems the fact that it’s the final day of a very wet February and I’d not blogged at all till today. My bad. I’ve been trying to recover fitness and mobility after foot surgery at the end of November that had me literally off my feet for a whole six weeks. I wasn’t allowed to walk at all, unless using crutches and making sure only my heel bore any weight. The surgeon told me that for every hour I had to spend 55 minutes of it with the afflicted foot UP or the bone, ligaments, tendons and skin would not heal properly. To say it did my head in is an understatement, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Walking differently for six weeks as well as not getting the exercise my EDS needs to keep muscles in good order has meant that once the temporary metal pin (there’s one that’s permanent so I must remember I have it if going through scanners or MRI machines) was removed, early in the New Year I’ve been focused on trying to allow the rest of the healing to take place deep within the foot, and try and restore gait to normal and rebuild muscles and fitness. Overall effect, a spike in pain and crushing fatigue. People said, “Oh I’d love to spend six weeks with my feet up and everything being done for me!” but honestly, it’s not good for a body or a soul.

The vast amount of rain this month (around 4 times the expected rainfall for this month in this county) has made inaccessible many of the places I’d usually head to for restorative walks so Mr Bersweden’s book has been a bit of a godsend. The author took a year to cycle round Britain and Ireland “botanising” as he puts it. Unsparing of the often dire weather, he visits a range of locations and meets up with experts in particular plant life, starting on New Year’s day with a hangover and ending the following December. Each month brings new delights, some accessible to lame ducks like me, such as the bluebells woods and some up mountains and off the beaten tracks, and some needing magnifiers to actually confirm identity. I was envious of many of the visits, but was just so impressed by both Mr Bersweden’s exuberant joy at finally encountering some much yearned-for plant (sometimes very tiny beings) that I forgot the envy and just enjoyed the delight.

I was introduced to many botanists from the past, some I had heard of and some I had not. Ellen Hutchins, who died just short of the age of thirty in 1815, was the first of the Irish female botanists, whose work was lauded by many well-know names of the time and who corresponded with them in warm and friendly terms almost unknown at a time when female scientists were treated poorly and often despised by their male counterparts. Her drawings and paintings of mosses, liverworts, lichens and sea weeds were printed in botanical texts and her name was given to around 17 species she first identified as distinct (though many have later been renamed because of changes in taxonomy). Her illness and early death robbed the world of a very remarkable woman. Curiously, about two years ago, I think I dreamed of her; this is an excerpt from the dream:

“I am exploring a hillside which has gullies and crevices with interesting plants and rocks. I get stuck with vertigo on one high bit and have to crawl down. I find myself at the entrance to a wide cave. There is a girl there in traditional Irish dress from long ago and she offers to teach me the names of the mosses and lichens. She shows me the different kinds – there is a candling moss (it’s fruiting bodies look like little lit candles) which has a Small Copper butterfly on it. She tells me all the mosses and lichens have their own properties. She tells me the Gaelic names for them, none of which I know (and I wish she knew the Latin names so I could go and look them up). I ask her, “Do you know all the names of the flora and fauna?” She laughs and invites me into the cave. There are beds of mosses and rushes and lichens laid out (wooden frames like raised beds for vegetables)”

There’s a strong message of ecological concern running through the book, woven into every strand of narrative, focusing on the tragedy of losing all these precious things, often without them even being known about beyond a few hardy botanists. The love of the natural world shines through in an infectious way that makes the reader feel enthused, and there’s a wealth of interesting and exciting information that just makes the plants described seem even more amazing.

“Where the Wildflowers Grow” is available from most booksellers including the Online One That Must Not Be Named. While the weather continues wet and my area prone to flooding (Norfolk looks like a lake…) I’m going to have to content myself with botanising closer to home or just reading about it.

Tales of the Well-Spring 8 – St Helen’s Well and Elen of the Ways
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Tales of the Well-Spring 8 – St Helen’s Well and Elen of the Ways

Tales of the Well-Spring 8 – St Helen’s Well and Elen of the Ways

Already we are in August(and rapidly approaching September) and I’ve written so few blog posts this year. It’s been one challenge after another and I am genuinely so, so tired. Tired of being tired too. That said, I have managed to get further with the work-in-progress, “On Hob Hill” and hope to have it finished very soon.

Since I went to the White Spring in April, we have explored a few more springs and holy wells, which I hope to write about in due course. However, I’m a bit behind as we visited St Helen’s Well last summer for the first time. We’ve been back a number of times since then and it’s slightly different each time.

Thanks should go to the FB group Holy Wells, Healing Wells and Sacred springs Springs of Britain https://www.facebook.com/groups/244060782427611 for the tips on finding this particular well. Situated in Thetford Forest, not far from the Neolithic flint mines of Grime’s Graves (within walking distance even, though it’s a bit far for me), this spring is a curious one. Finds suggest the site was used in prehistoric times, potentially even in Palaeolithic times. The original healing well emerged, it is thought, close to or actually in the walls of St Helen’s church. This church was built on the promontory overlooking the river Little Ouse, thought to have been during the reign of Edward the Confessor. It was mentioned in the Doomsday book (20 years after the Norman conquest this was a government imposed census of the country) but fell into disrepair some hundreds of years later, and eventually fell down completely. Humps and hummocks in the grass are all that remain; there have been archaeological digs there but not for many years. The spring itself, renowned as a supplier of healing water, vanished too. Fast forward to the 18th century when flints for guns were in huge demand; it was quarried from the chalk close to where the church once stood and turned out many millions of flints before it too fell into disuse, leaving a massive crater. https://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.com/tag/st-helens-well/ The arrival of the railway also disturbed the ground. Quite when the spring-head re-emerged is hard to ascertain but it’s there now. You can park in the main car park and then walk (it’s about 20 minutes or so to stroll to the spring). The direct route down to the spring from the noticeboard is quite steep and if it’s muddy, you can easily slip. However, there is a less precipitous route a short distance further on that is unmarked.

You walk among mixed woodland, the path chalky at times and hummocked, reminding you of the quarrying that went on here. It was always quiet and peaceful each time we went. If you were expecting a nice little well house or a wishing well structure, you’ll be disappointed. The spring-head itself rises and flows away under the railways bridge down to the river; there are multiple places where it bubbles up. It forms a pool, with margins of marshy ground, surrounded by trees, with one largish hazel that drops nuts into the pool in the autumn. There’s an atmosphere of peace and a strange quiet watchfulness. A few discreet votive offerings suggest it’s an active site of pilgrimage and possibly ritual. Every so often a train rushes by but it seems a million miles away from this little oasis. If you sit quietly, it’s like the waters close round you after a stone’s been thrown into deep water. The ripples expand, and then there is stillness. I sat and painted, using the water with my paints, the first time we went.

But who was St Helen? It’s a mix of myth, legend and history and much debate about it all. St Elen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Elen is distinct for St Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who imposed Christianity as the state religion. St Elen is a Welsh saint, whose story is told here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_mythology#The_Dream_of_Macsen_Wledig about how in the 4th century, the dream of the emperor caused him to seek out the woman in his dreams and marry her; she later organised the building of roads across Britain, becoming known as Elen of the Hosts, and sometimes as Elen of the Ways. We have no way of knowing which Helen/Elen the church in Thetford Forest commemorated, and of the well, even less is known. But Elen of the Ways has risen in prominence in recent years and has become a figure of some debate, even furious dismissal. The book by Caroline Wise, “Finding Elen” https://www.amazon.co.uk/Finding-Elen-Quest-Ways/dp/1508644039/ is an excellent book for exploring this mysterious figure, described by many as an antlered goddess, guarding the wild places and hidden roads of this country. Many deny she exists or ever existed, as an historical figure of worship. Antlered goddesses do exist in the archaeological records all across Europe; some wear bovine horns, some wear the horns of sheep and goats and some of various deer species. The debate can be heated and it does get nasty. My feeling is that it’s like one of the definitions of myth: “Myth is something that has never happened and is happening all the time” (attributed to Sallustius). Elen may not have been a historic goddess going back to the mists of time but the fact is, she seems to exist now. And at a time of huge ecological crises, the arrival of a guardian deity of the wild spaces and the wild creatures, seems both timely, comforting, and encouraging. I had a dream last year, shortly before we finally sought out and visited St Helen’s Well, in which the figure of Elen of the Ways appeared, in the form of a statue. An incredibly beautiful, detailed and intricate statue that I have looked out for ever since then, but have failed to find. I found a small silver charm of a female deer, which I wear often and indeed, I wore when I had my self-baptism at the White Spring in April. That day’s guardian of the shrine spotted it and asked me if it was for Elen (which indeed it was) and it turned out she’s a friend of Caroline Wise who wrote the book.

The fact that a new goddess who has always existed (I know it’s a paradox) has emerged and has become a focus for a greater awareness and love for the natural world is one of the few things to have encouraged me both spiritually and emotionally this year.

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A small blue bird of grace

A small blue bird of grace

If you have known me a while, or have followed this blog for any time, you’ll probably know that for me the kingfisher is a sort of talisman. It’s a sign of things beyond feathers and beak and general bird-ishness. Which isn’t a word but you know what I mean. There’s connections to the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, As kingfishers catch fire, and a couple of other things as well. They’re not particularly rare birds, though rarer than they should be, and many people have never seen one in real life. Their habitat and feeding needs mean they are only found close to water. At this time of the year, the dearth of small fish in their usual hunting grounds sends them downstream towards the coast and you have more chance of seeing them there, perhaps fishing amid rock pools or in the streams that empty onto beaches.

I haven’t seen one for a couple of years. I used to see them on a regular basis while I stood on the bridge across the stream in the glebe meadow in the village a couple of miles across country from where I live. But that changed, and though I have walked down there fairly often (less often this year), I haven’t seen or heard one there in over 4 years. I keep a record of this kind of thing in a note book; it’s dedicated to my explorations of all things related to the Grail. The last mention of a kingfisher is from July 2016.

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t goes without saying that 2020 has been a terrible year. Globally, nationally and personally, a bugger of a year. I don’t have any sense or expectation or hope of things getting any better quickly. Or, on a bad day, at all.

Today I took myself off for a walk. Inevitably, because this is Britain in October, it hammered down with rain when I was five minutes out. The washing was out on the line too, but I decided an extra heavenly rinse would do no harm and I carried on. The rain brought out some glorious scents and when I reached the glebe meadow, the stream was in full flow. Brightly coloured leaves drifted down from some of the horse chestnuts on the banks. Raindrops made expanding rings on the running water. The music of the water chuckling along and the sound of waterfall over the sluice gates half way up the meadow made a baffle to the noise of occasional traffic. After ten minutes, I headed up to the waterfall and stood watching it. I’ve often made a wish, a prayer, to see a kingfisher, to be given that sign of connection, but I knew that the residents here, if any remained, will have already headed down to the coast.

Then, to my amazed ears, I heard the distinctive cry, turned, and saw the electric blue back of a kingfisher as it flew downstream. I had not asked directly for this, just, as almost always, had a vague but heartfelt desire to see it again. Today was no worse than many days where I have craved that comfort of connection to the Other; why was it given today and not on the days when I was in utter despair?

I cannot tell. Such a gift (if you believe in these things) is a gift of grace, not given because you deserve or desire a thing, but because it is what you need at that moment more than anything you might consciously believe you need.

A kingfisher, said to be the first bird to fly from Noah’s ark after the deluge, supposedly received the orange of the setting sun on its breast and the blue of the sky on its back. It was considered a symbol of peace, promising prosperity and love.

 

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Lammas: Replenishing the Life-Well

Lammas: Replenishing the Life-Well

Since the pandemic lock-down began here in the UK, I’ve not spent a night away from home. The furthest I have travelled was a two hour drive to my mother’s funeral, back in April. As restrictions eased, we’ve been to the coast a few times and into Norwich. But we’re not going to be going away for a holiday and I have no idea when I will have my next work trip. I was supposed to have had a couple of Paris or Northern France assignments in later June/early July but obviously they didn’t happen.

At the same time as all this, I’ve had a massive, and utterly horrible increase in the amount of pain I am in, and an equally massive loss of energy. When you can’t sleep because of pain, anxiety, grief, the body has no chance to mend itself, to rest and recuperate and the spirit/soul has no chance to recover from the blows life has aimed at it. I would have loved to have been able to visit various locations and sites that nourish me, but until quite recently that sort of travel was out of the question for normal mortals who cannot flout the law like certain government advisors (and others). Even though many places are now open, at least partially, the limitations and the extra hoops to jump through put me off even trying. I don’t want to, say, go round Norwich Cathedral, following a set path that takes a truncated tour. I want to sit in empty corners and quiet chapels, or stand in the labyrinth and gaze at the sky.

We had a wonderful trip with my brother to a woodland near where he lives; we took a picnic and since he’s a butterfly expert, we got to experience certain examples of lepidoptera we’d not have spotted or recognised. He can identify a butterfly often just by its flight patterns, so this meant we got to see silver-washed fritillaries we’d otherwise not have realised were there; a purple hair-streak butterfly came down from the oak canopy and we were able to get a decent look at it. I’d never seen one before.

Then a few days ago, we went to Dunwich Forest, and had a deeply restorative walk there. We used to take our dog there, and since she died almost ten years ago, we’ve hardly been back. The fluttering leaves of birch, the high fronds of bracken, the deep dark green of planted conifers, and the solid green of oak leaves gave us shade from the intense summer sun; the scent of ferns and moss and the hint of fallen leaves and fungus reminded me of the ephemeral nature of the season. We saw many gatekeeper butterflies, coppers, large skippers, peacocks, red admirals, silver-washed fritillaries (which I’d never have identified if I’d not had my brother show me the week before), and a couple of white admirals too. Dragonflies of many hues and species flitted around like jewelled brooches that have come to life. The sun on gorse seed pods made them crackle and pop and fling the seeds a surprising distance; the few brilliant yellow flowers gave out their toasted coconut macaroon fragrance. Then, because an hour and a half’s walk had worn me out, we drove to the beach and got chips from the beach cafe, and ate them sitting on the shingle while the sea caressed the rolling pebbles at the shoreline.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my garden; I bought a couple of zero gravity reclining chairs which have proved perfect for lying back in to gaze at the night sky and try to see the comet. Later this month, we’ll watch for meteor showers. We’ve left the lawns uncut this year; closer to the house, they’re kept short by the assiduous efforts of our little squad of guinea pigs but further away, the grass has gone to seed, as have the various hawk-bits, cat’s ears, hawkweeds, and others. That’s brought in squadrons of seed-eating birds like goldfinches. The longer grass has encouraged grasshoppers and crickets, and I’ve spotted wall butterflies (whose larval stage eats grasses) and also clouded yellows (whose caterpillars eat clovers) flitting around and mating. The vegetable plants we’ve cultivated are all producing delicious food for us and the guinea pigs; the self-sown evening primroses draw both butterflies and moths. The flowers are like faery ballgowns of the softest, most vibrant yellow silk, and at night they give off both a gentle aroma and a strange, almost luminescent glow as the colour reflects moonlight and starlight. Bats fly in profusion over our heads as we lie star gazing, intercepting the June bugs and cockchafers that have launched from the lawn most nights during June and some of July, and hedgehogs perform their mating rituals (noisy) a few yards or even feet away from us, before adjourning to the feeding station to crunch up cat biscuits and slurp up the odd over-ripe banana.

Our apple trees are laden with fruit that’s ripening and drawing both wasps and blackbirds to the windfalls. The bees get on with their work and a steady hum of insect life underpins the sounds of bird life and the harsher hum of traffic. New dragonflies emerge from the pond, eye us up and decide we’re too big to eat (apparently they’ll intercept fragments of crisp or peanut flipped into the air, or so my brother has told me) and head off to find something more manageable.

I’ve had very few human encounters face to face in the last months; the few that I have had have been usually very welcome, with people I like and admire. The facility for video chats (many platforms available) has been a sanity saver for me and for many.

All of these things have been replenishing my life-well. It’s a term I have used (I might have coined it) for that deep pool of experiences and thoughts and memories and dreams that feed me at the deepest, most essential level. It’s where the ideas for stories are drawn from, where they sink down into the bedrock and sometimes emerge years or even decades later as part of something complex, and wonderful. Two years ago, we went back to Taize, and though the week(with two days of travel either side) left me so physically drained it took months to recover, the contribution to my life-well was so profound that it will stay with me forever. There was an attempt to get such a trip going from this diocese, and I was part of the meeting discussing it; it didn’t happen, and even had it been planned for this year it would have been scuppered. One of the things I needed to get across was how important that trip had been to me, but also how difficult it had been. The sad thing is how abled people react to information about difficulties in access to these kinds of pilgrimages. The general feeling is, “If it was that hard, why on earth would you put yourself through that to go again?” This completely fails to understand what life is like for the disabled. The idea that if they were in your shoes, they’d just not do anything difficult or painful is absurd; life is already constricted for those with disabilities, and the opportunities to replenish your life-well are also restricted. It’s the life-well we draw on in dark days, in days where getting out of bed let alone the house, is a major challenge and can be nigh-on impossible.

Having a life-well is important, vital even, to living a full, well-lived life rather than just enduring an existence. This extraordinary year I have heard friends talk about watching for hours as a spider spun her web, of books read they’ve long intended to read but never found the time for, of local walks where some kind soul has chalked the names of plants on the pavements, of meeting life-minded souls via Zoom, of taking virtual pilgrimages, of being still enough that wild creatures draw closer. I’ve heard nothing of holidays on exotic beaches, of sightseeing in distant lands, of the long-awaited family wedding, because the experiences that fill our life-wells this year are different. Some have been bitter, dark and filled with sadness and horrors. Some have been laden with home-made bread, bird-watching in back yards and reconnecting with much-loved old friends.

This is my Lammas wish for you: that your life-well this year be filled with unexpected riches that will carry you into the colder, darker months and give you joy and wisdom to draw upon as the year turns.

Blessings to you all.

Small things to reduce plastic use and other green tips
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Small things to reduce plastic use and other green tips

Small things to reduce plastic use and other green tips

With the New Year came a plethora of articles and television programmes, basically with a new year-new you theme. The tidy fairy aka Marie Kondo has taught people to fold t shirts and declutter their homes. I’m not a fan of the whole decluttering lark, because it tends to actually create anxiety in many, because we are social animals and can feel pressure to conform and seek approval from our peers by following the trend even when we don’t really want or need to. And much of it is aimed at people who are financially secure enough so that getting rid of an item that still has use in it isn’t a problem if they suddenly discover they do need it six months down the line. They can just buy a new one. Nor am I am a fan of the idea that everything you own must spark joy. I’m more a fan of the William Morris adage: “Have nothing in your home you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

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N is for Newt
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N is for Newt

N is for Newt

When I taught English as a foreign language, playing word games was a nice ten minute filler at the end of the lesson. Going through the alphabet and finding a word for a series of categories was a pretty standard exercise but the letter N always stumped students when it came to the animal category. There really aren’t many animals starting with N. I usually ended up supplying the word, either Newt of Nuthatch.

Newts are (as you all know) amphibians. Contrary to popular belief this doesn’t mean they spend most of their time in and around water; newts like damp places for certain but the only time you’re likely to see them in your pond is during the breeding season. Our pond has at least once species of newt that breeds in it (as well as frogs and toads), and they’re utterly delightful to watch.

This one was caught when we were weed-clearing last year and was returned immediately after the photo opportunity.

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A Thinking Place

A Thinking Place

Do you have a place you find yourself drawn to when you need to have a good old think? I suspect most of us do. Over the years there have been many, some close to hand and others a good distance away from home.

When we lived in Nottingham in the early 90s I had a thinking place almost on my doorstep, which is just as well as I had a toddler at home at the time. The house was the first we’d had which had a proper garden and it was quite a decent size for us; room for a swing and plenty of space to run around but also nice for us adults. My thinking place was half way up the garden path, where the garden sloped upwards and there were a few steps. I’d sit there, summer or winter, with a mug of coffee, and think.

In the years that followed there were many more. When we lived in north Yorkshire, there was a place up in the forest above where we lived, about a half hour’s brisk walk. The mountain stream that meandered down from the moors passed close to the path and down a cascade of waterfalls over rock formations left behind after the last ice age. There were four stages to the waterfall, and the sound of running water and bird song was intensely calming and conducive to deep contemplation. I’d walk up here with the dog, sit down for twenty minutes and let it all sink in, and the knots in my head slowly untangled.

In Norfolk, there were several close enough to my home that a walk often took a couple of hours as I spent time in each. One was a huge tree trunk that had been dragged off the path and left. Here I would sit, among the woodland, and listen to nightingales and watch for wildlife and the fae. Further on, deeper in the woodland, was a vast black poplar, larger than any I’ve ever seen before or since. It was clearly the queen of the wood, twin- trunked and massive. In the gap between the two huge trunks I would stand and think; I remember being there with my friend Claire, singing native American chants together, in tune with the spirit of the forest. There was a small clearing further along, on the edge of the common, where I could sit unseen and be at one with the trees.

In the Midlands, I had several areas along the river Soar where I would stop for a while and watch the river, one close to the lock gates, another further along the tow path. When we lived in Suffolk (until about 3 years back) I had a few along the beach, sitting on a particular groyne, or among woodland clearings. Here I have one or two, by the giant old oak or on the bridge over the stream in Starston.

Despite the changes in landscape, all these thinking places had a lot in common. Each was a place where wildlife came, even in the city, though there was nothing visible that would obviously attract birds or animals. My waterfall place was the first and only place I’ve seen a merlin (the smallest of our raptors). It had not come to drink or really to hunt; it just appeared on the other side of the stream, watched me for a while and flew off. My thinking spot on the Soar brought me into contact with a weasel I lifted from the river; for example, and the further one brought me face to face with a mink. My thinking spot on the bridge brings me close contact with kingfishers, dippers, waterbirds, rodents, owls, egrets and many others. The fallen tree and the black poplar was also places where the usually invisible beings of the countryside allowed themselves to be seen. At night time, the wood was alive with the fae.

The characteristics of my own thinking spots mark them as places a shaman would call power spots, a seer would call them nexus points where earth energies peak. You can dowse for them, even, or just sense how a place feels. Often your body just knows (just as it can know when a place is somewhere you need to steer clear of!) It’s this convergence of power that seems to call wild things close, and which keeps them there when a human is present (when all their instincts are to high-tail it out of there). I’ve had a young seal virtually sitting on my lap, on a winter beach, unafraid and almost affectionate; deer, and hares, and many other creatures have come absurdly, marvellously close to me, looking me in the eye and coming so close I could have touched them.

Places like this are truly magical and to be treasured.

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Things of Winter Beauty and Wonder: Advent Day Twelve

Day Twelve

Birds in the garden

As winter arrives a variety of migrant birds arrive in Britain; not just the overwintering geese for whom our climate is like a spa holiday compared to their usual honking grounds, but familiar birds like blackbirds, robins and starlings, come from continental Europe and beyond to take advantage of our milder weather and our love of feeding the wild birds. Blackbirds from the continent can be recognised by their brighter yellow beaks. Murmurations of starlings coming to roost make winter evenings spectaculr events. The robins’ song is a challenge to a death match, fighting over good territory.

But it’s a simple and beautiful thing to watch visiting birds feeding on a bird table; after pairing off for breeding, goldfinches and other small birds now group together in flocks. Many will huddle together in great roosts, hidden away in your shrubbery, sharing body heat like minute, temperate penguins.

The robin has featured on British Christmas cards for a long time, but despite folklore linking the robin to Christ on the cross, the reason for their link to Christmas is more prosaic and amusing. Originally the first postal delivery men in this country wore bright red coats, and became known as Robin Redbreasts, and since greetings cards for Christmas were delivered by Robins, it soon became a jokey theme to use the birds on the cards. As a child I remember a book called The Christmas Robin about a little bird who ended up in a house and perched on the top of the tree and sang on Christmas day; the connection has now become so strong that the robin is the quintessential Christmas bird.

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Be more Badger ~ calling afresh on an old ally

Be more Badger ~ calling afresh on an old ally

A few nights ago, I caught the end of a nature programme I’d seen before, “Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem” and I had an enjoyable twenty minutes watching the antics of captive honey badger Stoffle (he was hand reared, I believe because he was found injured as a baby and couldn’t be returned to the wild). It reminded me of my ties to Badger medicine.

My first proper job after I graduated was in nature conservation, working in the capacity of education officer on an SSSI reserve in the north east of England. One of the many wonderful aspects of my job was the badgers. We had several colonies of them and one sett was perfect for badger watching. Dug into the sides of steep yew woodland, the sett had many entrances and it was possibly for us to scramble down at nightfall and sit among the tree roots and watch the badgers. I’ve written more about it in a post from some years ago. https://zenandtheartoftightropewalking.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/badgers-bums/

The European badger is a more reserved beast than the South African honey badger but it shares powerful characteristics. Tenacity, strength, connection to roots are all part of its medicine. According to my usual favourite site on such matters http://www.animalspirits.com/index8.html , the badger is:

Keeper of stories, Bold self-expression, Aggressiveness, Single-mindedness, Passion, Cunning, Revenge, Perseverance, Control, Antidote to passivity or victimization, Persistence in the service of a mission, Groundedness, Knowledge of the earth, Earth magick and wisdom, Creative action in a crisis, Protection of rights and spiritual ideas.

 

One thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that the European badger has the thickest skin of any mammal native to Britain. This means that not only is it able to avoid the kind of injuries creatures with thinner skin might get, it can also move within its skin if pinned or held down in a fight. This gives greater manoeuvrability in conflict.

They also head deep underground during the winter, not to hibernate as such but to go into energy conservation mode, sleeping and dreaming the winter away. Who knows what their dreams are?

 

I need more of the badger attributes. And I need a thicker skin. I shall Be More Badger.

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Frog medicine, Duck medicine

Frog medicine, Duck medicine

All in a rush, Spring arrived and in our garden it came with enough frogs to almost walk across the pond. For a few weeks, there was a party in the pond, and each evening I went out to put food out for the returned hedgehogs, to hear the contented song of mating amphibians. I’ve always loved frogs; the metamorphosis from spawn to tadpole to froglet to full frog is mind-boggling. Tadpoles apparently can decide when they make the transition. If conditions aren’t right, they can remain a tadpole, getting bigger and bigger, until they mysteriously start to change into frogs. In many animistic traditions, frog is a being of significance too. According to one favourite site (http://www.animalspirits.com/index4.html) this is some of Frog’s attributes:

Singer of songs that celebrate the most ancient watery beginnings, Transformation, Cleansing, Understanding emotions, Rebirth

There’s plenty more information out there, though it does tend to repeat itself. Frog is a water totem, and connects strongly with emotion and cleansing, new starts and transformations.

Frogs

Frogs

On Friday, we had a delightful discovery. For a couple of months the garden has been visited daily by a female mallard duck, sometimes with and sometimes without her drake swain. We wondered whether she was the same duck who came last year with two half grown ducklings; on Friday morning she appeared as if from nowhere with thirteen fluffy little pom-poms. The likelihood is that she had a nest somewhere secluded in our garden and the ducklings were brand new, fresh from the egg. Ducks, too, have their medicine attributes:

Grace on water, Water energy, Seeing clearly through emotions, Spirit helper of mystics and seers

 

http://www.animalspirits.com/index5.html

The alignment of the two symbolic sets of meanings is striking, and with my own mystical aspirations, I cannot help but assign meaning to the apparent coincidence of our garden visitors, and begin to see a slow, but accelerating change in my internal world.

 

Mother Duck and ducklings

Mother Duck and ducklings