36 In my father’s line

Sunday January 17, 2010:

Four years ago today, my father died. At 10:30am, the time of his passing, I light a candle and set up sacred space. Here I sit all day and write. Words flow, crafted sweet words, not over frilly but just right. I revel in my enjoyment of my word craft.

Night falls. I go out into the garden and sit down where I always sit when I want to connect or to journey. In the road, the occasional car hisses by. High up on the Parkland Walk, a small child converses with an adult as she walks along. A plain grumbles overhead and is gone.

Last night at this time, I heard an owl. I am half hoping to hear one again. I wait but the skies are empty of birds right now. Perhaps it is too early. Perhaps the owl has something better to do. Perhaps I don’t need him right now.


Here on the anniversary of my father’s death I sit and remember. I ask to know what wisdom my father’s line might bring me. I ask to know something of benefit to me, something of healing to me perhaps, something that will help settle my connection with my father and the male line of the family in some way.

Only the little egg rattle’s swishing can be heard, dancing with the sound of the tiny frosty wind touching my cheek. I breathe and smell the odour of damp old clothes, something musty, slightly unpleasant yet familiar. I rattle on, listening to the soft voice of the egg in the quiet garden.

I walk briskly uphill through the woods. The terrain is rough and I am surprised that I am really quite sure footed. The dog rubs her soft honey coloured flank warmly against me as I move. Together we place foot and paw on the uncertain path.

We reach the crest of the hill and stand amongst the trees looking down. The wood continues and we descend. For a moment, I fear I will fall but the dog places herself in such a way to best guide my feet. I allow her to lead me down.

We walk through the woods. I see a fire dancing between the trees and stand on the edge of a clearing. I see a group of figures sitting around a fire. I recognise them, but this is not my destination. I walk on.

The woods stretch on for a long way. In time, we emerge and are on a frosty snowy cliff top. The black cliff falls sheer to the wild fermenting sea. It dashes and tosses itself frenziedly on the jagged dark rocks below. Beyond, the water is grey and tormented as far as the eye can see.

There is a small boat. We climb aboard and are Bourne away on the frantic sea. The land behind us disappears. The ocean spreads out on all sides. The dog and I huddle in the boat. In time, hours, days, weeks later, the horizon becomes dark with land.

We float through the open mouth of a wide river, through a sprawling settlement and out the other side. The river snakes through the plain and begins to rise as it grows smaller. In time, we can no longer use the boat. We get out and begin to climb along beside the small stream.

We climb through mountains. Down in the valley bottom spreads wide green pastures, with another river winding through it. We follow the water until it is lost as a spring amongst the rocks of other mountains.

Beyond, in a great flat plain lies a huge circle of stones. Inside is another and as we approach, inside that, a cairn or burial chamber.

The dog leads me forward and I follow her, scrambling on my hands and knees into the burial chamber. Inside it is warm and dark. The floor is covered with thick skins. I lie down with the dog and we sleep.

I dream. I dream I spin and weave tales. I sing songs, tell stories, use words to persuade and encourage. My tongue is silver with the beauty of my words.

I walk through the ages and I am a story teller, a minstrel, a singer, a convincer, a spinner and weaver of words. And it is so easy. It is my birth right, the gift from my father’s line. I talk, I sing, I persuade and in time I write.

The soft warm touch of a low golden beam of light wakes me as sunshine pierces the dark chamber. A memory stirs and I know that it is the winter solstice and this is the sun’s return come to wake the year.

We climb from the burial chamber out onto a winter scene. Virginal snow lies on the ground; Snow covers the tops of all the dark standing stones. Snow crowns the mountains and bows the trees on their foothills.

But we must go home. The journey is long. Still, we walk on through the mountains, the green pastures and then more mountains. We follow a dribble of a spring as it widens and becomes the great river making its way to the sea. We float through the sprawling settlement and out of the river’s wide mouth. The great grey sea rears and falls eagerly but bears us safely back to the jagged dark rocks below the lowering black cliff. Our path through the woods feels easier. We pass the fathers gathered by their fire. We strike through the trees and before it seems possible, arrive back in the garden beyond the fence.

I am sitting amongst the castor oil plant. My hands are cold. The dog is gone. Momentarily I feel bereft then remember I don’t have need of a dog in this part of my life. Still, I blow a kiss towards the trees and bow to them. Is that the sound of a vigorously wagging tail whacking undergrowth I can hear amongst the trees or is it the hum of the Sunday city?

“Woof-woof”, I bark playfully, getting up to go indoors.

35 Snow song and the snow Robin
Wednesday January 13, 2010:

For a month now, a Siberian wind Marauds across the land. From time to time, it loses interest and sends a wet westerly instead. Rain falls as snow blanketing the city. With every new fall, the world is shrouded again in silence. Each settles on the half melted fall before. As night comes, it freezes into a lethal glacial icing, defiantly loosening the step of even the steadiest gait.

I lurk indoors, snarling and growling. The local Council has more or less cleared the bus routes, but there is no way to get to the bus stop, so thick and treacherous has the ice become. I am imprisoned. Twice, hope rises along with the temperature and a fall of snow-obliterating rain, only to be dashed again as the silent softness once more descends.

I am grateful therefore for my garden. Each day, I listen to the silence. Snow clogged roads mean that there are very few cars. People stay indoors, unless forced to go out to work, to get supplies or occasionally to play.

I walk carefully around the garden, meeting the snow cautiously with my boots. As I walk, I listen to its various voices as it speaks beneath my feet.

“Hah” sighs the newly fallen snow, breathing softly as it submits to my weight. Here is the loving snow flake fallen to earth to become a gentle carpet.

“Err-eek”, squeaks the frost rhinded snow as I move. At first it is unyielding and I think for a moment it might even hold my weight until protestingly, it subsides like the shell of a meringue, crunching dryly as it caves in.

“Crick-crack” snaps the ice-shaded globules of frozen hard snow, chattering beneath me as I step cautiously. I hear it splinter and imagine bright rainbow shards scattering before me.

“Slurp-squelch” sucks the slush greedily. It slides away guiltily, pushing out from under my feet to leave my footprints smeared, blurred and distended as though the abominable snowman himself has passed this way.

But silent is the black ice as it whips my feet from under me. Frantically, I wave my arms in a semaphore of falling as the treacherous smoothness topples me.

The snow is cradled by the shrubs. They bend under their Burdon. It lies frothily across the leaves of the evergreens. Starkly it outlines the twigs and branches like white knobby bones. The paths are obstructed by the stooping hunched bushes. I squeeze past, and as I move, the plants gratefully give up their Burdon as though it were a gift and I, their carefully chosen recipient.

Surreptitiously they drop gobbets of snow into my pockets. Tenderly, they let fall soft cold icy kisses of snow down the back of my neck. They even bend and reach for the warm inside of my boots and dribble their offerings coolly down into my socks. In silence they proffer and deliver their gifts and I feel winter against my warm skin. I shiver but am also glad to be reminded of the season for a cosy gas fire is only moments away.

The birds cluster about the squirrel-proof feeder and chatter. Above in the snow-filled sky, crows caw and their cousins the magpies rattle. High in the ash tree, the robin sings out his merry song. I imagine him, red-breasted against the white snow incrusted branches; beak opened every bid like the image on the traditional Christmas card. He sings out in the quiet winter air and I know he knows he is beautiful.

I turn towards him, wrapped in the song. Confined to barracks I might be, but at least I have the garden and the birds and especially that lovely cheerful singing robin. It is a week past Twelfth night. Yet I cannot bear to take down my Christmas tree. Somehow, until the snow goes, it doesn’t feel right.

Other snow watchers tell me that the snow reveals who has been in the garden. I imagine the snow is scattered with bird prints, dark against the pale like a carefully printed fabric. Amongst them the larger paws of the cat, squirrel and even perhaps the fox may be seen. As delicate as a pen and ink drawing, the black on white is over washed in blue, green, purple, rosy pink and warm orange under the icy white as the changing light of the day effects it.

I reach down to touch my garden alter. It is domed in soft snow, shielded and shelled by ice. I plunge warm fingers in and feel the snow submit then slide away as my body temperature melts it. Hiding underneath, the things on my alter are stuck fast to the log with the fierce grip of the ice.

I bow to the singing robin, stroke a snow edged branch of the rowan tree and make my way carefully indoors. I long for the snow to go so I may be free. yet, this confinement, and this standstill just as the year has turned, this contemplation of the possibility that the light is returning, has allowed me to go within myself, a place I’m still not quite ready to emerge from.

“Thank you Holder, snow queen of the white days,” I whisper as I close the garden door.

34 The Temple of the birds - Finsbury Park

Thursday December 31, 2009:


Just before midnight, I sneak out into the garden. I lower myself carefully into my sitting place amongst the castor oil plant. From here, I feel invisible.

The sky is already crashing and crackling with anticipatory fireworks. They are far enough away not to be bothersome.

“Dad, it’s nearly time!” wheedles a young boy from a few houses down. Soon his father is in the garden, issuing instructions. My heart sinks.

Effervescently, the air fizzes and hisses. Shortly followed by a series of seemingly random bangs, growing ever louder, the relative peace of the neighborhood is rocked.

“Harrumph!” I mutter darkly as I get up and stump in doors. “Next year,” I say, slamming it rather petulantly, “I’m going to go somewhere out of town where bloody jollity can’t find me!”

Friday January 1, 2010:

Morning comes. I take a cupper into the garden to greet the day. The dew has frozen on the leaves. They are stiff with frost rind. My warm curious finger dislodges a thin sheet, which melts in my palm. Icy shards crackle underfoot as I walk.

Peace reins. I sit down in my usual place and am still. The houses slumber behind their closed curtains, like a sleeper with eyes tight shut determinedly denying the dawn. I have the world to myself!

The robin sings in the apple tree. Beyond the fence, the pigeon coos comfortingly. A magpie rattles irritably and a crow caws high up in the sky. I hear blue tits chattering and behind them, the almost soundless tread of a creeping cat.

The undergrowth hisses and rasps softly as something pushes its way through. I can almost hear the tinkle of breaking ice, falling from the shaken leaves and disturbed bare twigs.

All around beings stand and watch or move quietly. I am surrounded and I sit and enjoy the feeling of being observed. I nod my head at them and listen to how a larger shadow shifts, approaches and then is still.

“Tic-purr, Tic-purr, Tic-purr” sings an unknown bird from near the tall hawthorn.

“What on earth is that?” I wonder, listening hard to the strangeness of the song. Behind it, the wind brings the sound of the geese in the park. They are hooting and babbling, quarrelsome as usual.

“What is it that I will do when I grow up?” I ask of no one in particular. It being a new year, it seems right to reflect right now on that question, especially given the uncertainties that a General Election will bring to my career.

The eagle offers his broad wings. I climb upon him and we soar above the earth, see ourselves reflected most beautifully in great sheets of water. Here, I find a world described in words, my words, carved beautifully in multi-dimensions, painted lovingly in colors that sing gladly in the heart, told cheerfully in songs that everyone knows the chorus of.

The dove dances in the fire. Her tail fanned out, her breast succulently plump. But she is not harmed. It is almost as though she and the fire belong together. Passion and love combine, I think as the flames dance about her. That fits. And this year too, I will journey with fire, I remember.

Bobbing up and down on the water, the duck quacks comically and I laugh and join in. There is really nothing else to do but stick ones bottom up and hunt for food. Amongst the rocks, a tall gaunt crane stands watching. The sun sets behind him. His shadow is austere and the warm glow. So there will be joy and contradictions. I hope I will learn from them.

The owl is silent on his tree stump. Serene and still, he looks harmless but his beak and talons are efficient at catching and dispatching his prey. In the dark of the night I can rest. In stillness, I can be with me, gladly. Doing nothing purposefully is as good as unfocussed frenzied busyness. I am not afraid of the dark for “When the owl hoots, expect a bright ‘morrow”

Wings beat vigorously against the bare branches. Softly, the “thwo-thwo-thwo-thwo-thwo-thwo” of their wings soothes and comforts me.

High up on the Parkland Walk, a large dog barks. Peremptorily, his owner calls him to heal. In the house next door, the washing machine begins to whine.

I commence the rest of my morning circle. As I stand in the mountain pose at the beginning of the “Ha Prayer”, the sun gently touches my cheek. And I think about the dragon from the blue moon eclipse working last night.

“This year,” I say to no one, “like the dragon in the blue moon, I will lick out fear and loathing and breath in love. That’s what I’ll do when I grow up!”I walk back round the temple of the birds and place my hand on each in thanks and farewell. “And this year too,” I say to the birds, “I will dedicate this space to you.”

33 The dragon in the blue moon – Finsbury Park

Thursday December31, 2009:

I’m feeling frustrated. My arrangements for New Year’s Eve have been sabotaged by adverse weather conditions in the West. My plan to be amongst trees as the calendar year rolls into 2010 is no more. I feel caged and confined. I long to stride the hills, to step carefully through the woods, to dance along the cliff tops, to be anywhere but here, confined by walls, fences and people. But the weather has decided that I’m not going to be set free this night now and I’m growling!

But it is a blue moon! My companion and I sit drinking tea and discussing what we will do to work with it. Even more significantly, it is also a partial Luna eclipse; a moment in time when the earth gets in the way of the sun as the moon passes and thus is obscured. On this occasion the earth’s shadow will fall across its most southerly edge

In the past, people have feared eclipses; in ancient Mesopotamia they used to think the great dragon Tiamat was eating the moon. We talk of how we can use this to do a working to challenge homophobia across the world. We think about the places where homosexuality is punishable by death. We think also of the internalized homophobia that blights LGBT people’s lives too.

Homophobia is often fuelled by fundamentalist interpretations of religions. When partnered with fear of difference, the other, the strange, it is often lethal.

We think about what we could do to change this. We need to lead people from fear and loathing, to compassion and tolerance and eventually to acceptance, respect and honoring. We decide to work from the place of anger into the place of noticing and getting used to difference and other, as represented by the partial Luna eclipse.

It is surprisingly quiet out in the garden. It’s not as cold as my companion feared. She tells me that the moon is partially obscured by thin cloud but that the cloud is moving and from time to time the moon beams down upon us from the east above the trees.

We enter the temple part of my garden, the area guarded by the eagle of the East, the dove of the South, the duck of the West and the owl of the North. All are invited to join our working. We settle to begin our work.

Post menopausal women are great growlers. My companion who has a deep rich chocolaty contralto voice growls most marvelously. I am encouraged by her excellent example to connect with the trapped frustration I feel and to begin to growl too. My throat shakes and I grumble deep in my chest. I snarl and scowl, snap my lips and grind my teeth. I grimace hideously, feeling my skin stretching across the fine bones of my face. It feels good so I do it some more.

I prance from foot to foot, like prowling on the spot. I stamp my feet. My hands claw-like, pawing the air malevolently as I begin to enjoy the truly nasty noises I am making.

My great wings spread out over the spinning land below. I wheel across the land as it spins beneath me. I can see my shadow darkening the earth for the moon is shining brightly behind me. I know I look scary and I like that!

Their eyes are white with fear. I swoop down and land upon their chests, one by one. I drink from their hearts. I drink up all their fear and loathing. I feast until I am filled by their fear and loathing. I roar with anger and my roar shakes the earth.

And as I suck out all their hatred from their hearts, I breathe my hot breath into the space left behind. I warm their hearts, Breathing and breathing until I am breathless and can roar no more.

When I am done, I spread my great wings and fly up towards the silver disk that is the moon sailing through the dark sky above me. I fly with the moon as she moves, my great dark body shadowing part of her southern face. We sail together towards the west.

Down below, the people stair up. They see the moon looking different and because their hearts are empty of fear and loathing, they love her because of her difference. Now, they realise is the time to celebrate her when she has an unusual face.

I lie with the moon like a lover. I am sated. My great body relaxes and I sleep, my heavy head resting on the roundness of her.

I know what I have done and I am satisfied. In breathing the hot fiery breath into their hearts, I have breathed in love to replace the fear and loathing that I licked out. So if they accept and learn to love the moon with this unusual face, can they come to accept those who live amongst them who are different, are strange, and are other?

My companion begins to sing to the moon. I join in. We croon along gently, like singing a lullaby. Soon we find words of comfort to sing, words of endurance, of gathering strength and of celebration.

The moon shines down, her lower right side shadowed slightly at the edge. I imagine her imperfect face and I love her for that difference. I think about the other moon gazers, watching her from across Europe and Africa and hope they are loving her beauty in her difference too.

Our work is done. We bow to the moon and thank the northern owl, the Western duck, the southern dove and eastern eagle. We thank too, the great dragon sleeping on the breast of the moon. Soon she will slip away into the dark night again to continue her work of feasting on fear and loathing and leaving behind love.

32 the Robin and the Wren

Saturday December 26, 2009:

It is St Stephen’s Day. The frenzy of Christmas is over. We humbuggers breathe a sigh of relief and can go about our business alone and openly again , no longer prey to the sentimental compassion of others who think that to be alone at Christmas means you are a sad loser!

I have spent an autonomously happy day with myself. I am quietly contented. At this quiet time between Yule and the new calendar year, I have time to think and be, to reflect and to work. I write, I dream, I journey and I SING.

With the turning of the year and the return of the light, Robin and Wren are the birds of the season. For me, they are the sacred twins, the holly and the oak and the storm and the sun. As a twin, I feel deeply connected to both.

All hail, wren the king of birds. All hail robin, the prince of the garden, I say as my companion and I create our circle and call in both birds with recordings of their glorious songs. On the alter are holly and oak, a gold and a red candle, and images of wren and robin.

Rolling up our circle and taking it with us, we walk up onto the Parkland Walk and make for a clearing to one side of the path. Here From time to time walkers pass, but they ignore the two middle-aged women sitting by a young tree beyond naked shrubs.

Our Intension today is to connect with the wren and the robin. We know the history of these birds and we want to apologise for how humans have treated them. We want to know how we personally can atone for what our people have done in the past. We want to know what we can do to honour and celebrate their lives and contribution to our diverse and rich ecology.

I play a recording of the robin. A robin in a nearby tree begins to sing back as though to say, “Call that beautiful singing, well hear this!”

I play the recording of the wren and the robin sings louder. I listen to the birds and wonder if I can hear amongst the trilling and whistling, the vibrant pulsing rapid shrillingly loud song of the wren. Beyond them, wood pigeons coo noisily, and far off, a crow caws.


My companion reads the following two poems in honour of our sacred avian twins.

The Wren

The wren, the wren the king of all birds
On St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze,
Up with the kettles and down with the pans
And give us a penny to bury the wren.
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze
Although he is little his family’s great,
Put yer hand in yer pocket and give us a trate.
Sing holly, sing ivy – sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink it would drown melancholy
And if you draw it of the best,
I hope in heaven yer soul will rest,
But if you draw it of the small
It won’t agree wid de wren boys at all.



Who killed Cock Robin?

I," said the Sparrow,
"With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin."
"Who saw him die?" "I," said the Fly,
"With my little eye, I saw him die."
"Who caught his blood?" "I," said the Fish,
"With my little dish, I caught his blood."
"Who'll make the shroud?" "I," said the Beetle,
"With my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud."
"Who'll dig his grave?" "I," said the Owl,
"With my pick and shovel, I'll dig his grave."
"Who'll be the parson?" "I," said the Rook,
"With my little book, I'll be the parson."
"Who'll be the clerk?" "I," said the Lark,
"If it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk."
"Who'll carry the link?" "I," said the Linnet,
"I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link."
"Who'll be chief mourner?" "I," said the Dove,
"I mourn for my love, I'll be chief mourner."
"Who'll carry the coffin?" "I," said the Kite,
"If it's not through the night, I'll carry the coffin."
"Who'll bear the pall?”We," said the Wren,
"Both the cock and the hen, we'll bear the pall."
"Who'll sing a psalm?" "I," said the Thrush,
"As she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm."
"Who'll toll the bell?" "I," said the bull,
"Because I can pull, I'll toll the bell."
All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.


My heart feels heavy. I hang my head and lean against the tree.

“Sorry,” I say once more.

I enter a clearing in the wood. The sun is slanting low between the trees. It is the end of the day. I sit down and make a fire to warm myself with. I sit tending it and waiting.

Suddenly the peace is pierced by tremulous staccato, loud and clear. Again and again the song fills the air. Its characteristic trilling flows tells me that wren is here. I look towards the sound and see the small brown bird sitting on a bush ahead and to the left. I bow low and he sings on.

The woods are full of singing this afternoon. In the distance, I hear pigeons, crows and an assortment of other unidentifiable songbirds. Amongst them, hard by me on the right from the depths of another bush, comes the silver whistling song of robin. I squint towards the bush which sits in shadow with the last of the sun’s rays behind it. I screw up my eyes and can just make out a cheerful robin sitting singing his heart out.
It is clear they know each other is there, the two birds duet together. Their songs intertwine, call and response, sometimes in tandem, together they sing in the warmth of the setting sun in the lively woods.

I sit listening, silently apologizing for the treatment of their ancestors. I think about what I can do to make amends and then it comes to me. I should do a ritual of atonement and to honour the wren and the robin each year on St Stephen’s Day.

“It would be my honour to do that,” I say to the singing birds, bowing my head.

I wonder if there is anything else they would like me to do. I wish I could find the words to put in a song. Perhaps I’ll work on that?

I sit and listen. Their singing is so beautiful and I feel so peaceful. Perhaps I should also take time to be in places to stop and to appreciate their singing.

“This too I will be honoured to do,” I say to the birds, bowing again.

The tiny birds sing in their bushes as the sun grows lower and the shadows darken the clearing. My fire burns down to glowing ashes. It’s getting a bit cold. I shiver.

The wren flies off. I hear him singing as he moves. Then he flies back still singing and darts off again. I get up and follow him, for I am sure he means me to.

We move through the darkening wood. He takes me to another clearing. A dead tree lies decaying, covered in fungus, gradually and slowly returning to the earth. Many creatures live upon it, feasting on the nutritious matter that is the decaying wood.

“All things must die to transform and be reborn again as something else. Death is life.” I think. I bow again in acknowledgement of a thought that I am sure was his and which he has given to me. With a crescendo of trilling, the wren flies off.

I hear him singing as I move back through the woods. I hear also the robin singing. I FOLLOW THE SOUND OF THE WRENT TAKING ME TO THE ROBIN.

The robin leaves his bush and I follow him through the woods. I walk into a glade that is still sunny with the last rays of the sun. The robin flies into a low green bush on a green bank. There in the beam of the sun’s last rays, a ragged bright red flower shivers in the evening breeze.

I kneel down and touch its silky softness. I gaze hard at its brightness and I feel my heart lift. It’s the kind of red to make you laugh out loud with joy. I throw back my head and roar with mirth. My voice bounces off the trees, ringing in the woods canopy. The birds sing back their joy in the final chorus of the evening woods. And as I listen I know that there’s always brightness. There’s always life and it is filled with joy. I bow to the little robin and to the raggedy red flower.

I begin to sing to the birds up in the bare winter canopy. They sing back. My companion and I drink tea out of wren and robin mugs (mine is the robin’s one). We eat vegan marzipan chocolate and share our experiences.

I tell her why the image of the robin has played an important part in my life. It symbolizes cheerfulness in the depths of winter and courage in the face of adversity. It was the first picture I drew when I returned to drawing after going blind. It led me to get to art school and changed my life.

The air is cooling. I’m thinking about dinner. We thank the birds again and pack up. Carefully we edge our way down the slippery bank back onto the main path and head for home and the warmth.

31 Calling Owls

Monday December 21, 2009:

Its 12:45 am. It’s the middle of the night for this early bird. Yet the city is still singing. I stand in my garden, wrapped up against the bitter northern wind, teetering on the glass smooth ice. A shift of balance and I’ll be over! I allow my knees to be loose as I carefully balance.

I’m seeking the owl. Twice I’ve heard him at dawn, several times in the middle of the night. His aloof hoot sometimes hard to hear and once early in the morning before the day had woken, shockingly loud and very very close. Tonight, it’s police cars, fire engines and ambulances that are howling against the darkness of the winter’s night.

Only the northerly wind shakes the twigs crossly as it skims across the frosty garden. I retract into the warmth of my thick duffle coat and stretch out my ears to hear behind the city scope, to the voice of the wild beyond.

In the lull before the next bright burst of wailing, the trees shake in the wind. The ice crackles as though someone stealthily steps along the path. Beyond the boundries of my hearing, something wails; is it a baby crying, a dog whining or a cat yowling … or is it something altogether more primeval, raw, and wild?

I quietly hoot under my breath. Only the wind whispers back, hissing like a breath, indrawn in protest because of the bitter cold.

The frost is sharply sweet, like damp earth translucently diluted by ice. Is that the smoky waft of a cigarette spinning across the garden next door? I breathe in deeply and the cold sears my nostrils achingly. The sweet green odor of ivy softens the acridity of petrol fumes wafting along the street beyond the house.

I imagine the silent owl; high in the ash tree beyond the fence. His hearing sifts the spaces between the yowling, howling city to the quiet crunch that might be dinner, stealthily creeping its way between the stiff leaves of the shrubs behind me. The breeze touches them and they clatter thinly.

I reach out to touch. An ice-hard teardrop of snow shivers on the leaf before it slides into my warm bare hand, there to melt away. The foliage is brittle, starched and bitter-feeling.

I imagine the owl, his wings stretched out, swooping down from the tree, down into the undergrowth to pounce on something small and scurrying, warm and alive and soon to be his supper. I hoot quietly again and stretch out my ears to hearer an anseringcall; but none comes.

A mile away, the crouch End clock tower chimes once. The wind lifts the sound and delivers it to me as though to say,
“Not an owl but a bell, will that do?”

I reach down and touch the concrete owl sitting squatly on his tree trunk. He is glassed with ice and frozen into stillness. Carefully, I trace his eyes, ears and beak, gently wiping away the frost rind.

The owl will not sing for me this night, it seems. So be it. I bow to the owl and carefully crunch my way down the garden path to the backdoor.

30 Old crow woman – Highgate

Saturday December 19, 2009:


“In the dark, dark hart of the night, when all is still, when all is quiet, the earth sleeps. , Silently, she surrenders to the night, submits to the stillness that brings her deep rest that helps her recoup her energy for the time when the light will return.” I say as the company settle down to rest, all around me.

I sit in stillness. The drumbeat, a muffled heart-beat rocks me. The circle is quiet. Slowly, their breath unites to dance with the drum and the gentle rumbling snoring of someone who is too tired to dream

I call to dark mother to watch over us, to great mama bear to cradle us on her soft round belly, to fierce old crow woman to protect us from harm.

The earth holds me. I am still; in that place before it is time to grow. Conserving and preserving, I rest and wait.
“Deep in the earth,
Deep in her womb.
Cradled in the dark,
Resting in the tomb.”


I am in a dark cave. Far in the distance, a light flickers. Gold dances on the coal black walls, cracked and fissured in fine lines, like feathers.

I walk towards the light which dances beyond a great jagged black shadow. She stands before the fire, silhouetted against its leaping golden flames, her great beak cruelly sharp, and her black eye shining. .

I kneel before her, head bent. Silently, I make my request, the wish I can hardly name, so ashamed am I for having to admit it. But by voicing it, I make it real and my desire to change, with it.

“Trust”, she caws deeply and her voice bounces off the walls and comes back to me a thousand times.

“Trust … trust … trust … trust … trust” say the walls.

She stands aside and beckons me to the fire. I hold my hands out and dance with the flames. They move and grow as I shape the heat. As I weave the flames I resolve to let go of what I no longer need if I have trust. Brilliant blue flame leaps as though to snatch something from the air. The fire burns fiercely, consuming, transforming all.

The great dark figure turns from the fire and walks into the shadows beyond. I am drawn to follow her. The blackness swallows her up and I am left alone. Only my soft breathing tells me I am alive.

The softest of golden rays hits the shining wall to my right. It ripples with iridescent sparkling currents. I walk towards its inviting light.

“Light is returning,
Although it seems the darkest hour.
Nothing can hold back the dawn.”


“It is an act of will, an act of courage, in the darkest times, to affirm that light will return …” says the other priestess.

“… We call upon the brightness that will heal the earth that will whisper to seeds that it is time to put out green shoots that will warm the dead places in our hearts that will make newness, life, joy and laughter both possible and right. Because we have rested with the dead, we who believe in life must always be ready for the next rebirth. Because the times are difficult, we who believe in life must sing and dance to call the new light into being, knowing that it cannot be held back.” She continues.

I pick up the drum and begin to beat steadily. Throwing back my head, my heart filled with hope, I sing:

“Celebrate the birth of the sun,
Light the way O Lucina.
Dance around on Sabbath night.
Blessed be the great mother!”

I feel my body begin to move as the circle bounces into life. Voices rise in joy; we dance a spiral dance for the love of life. Smiling dances pass each other as they circle me and I am bathed in the warmth of the ecstasy of their dance. The sun is born. We are alive as the world is alive!

The song soars. Hands reach out and capture the energy and direct it down into the earth. She who has been betrayed by the farce of Copenhagen is given our love in hopes that it will help to heel her.

Laughing, we pass the sack of bounty. Together we feast an drink, blessing each other as hand to hand, we share sustenance.

And in the back of my mind, I see the old crow woman. I taste pomigrannit on my tongue sweet and rich. I savor the juicy fruit of the mince pie and I thank her silently for her wisdom. At the back of my throat, I feel air moving through my vocal chords and, Under cover of a raucus laugh; a quiet caw escapes in honour of her. I fold my hands across my breast and slightly bow my head, before reaching out and liberating a piece ofchristmas cake from a passing platter.

29 Crow’s feet – Finsbury Park

Saturday December 19, 2009:

“The crow she is the Cailleach’s bird,
She brings magic to the world.
The bravest man is he who shows
No fear to talk with big black crows.

The crow she brings you news of death
Where‘re a baby draws its breath.
And as he grows, where’re he goes,
He’ll be followed by big black crows.

There is a man amongst the grain
Through the summer he shall rein.
His father sent him many foes.
His enemies are big black crows.

There is a woman by the hill.
If she’s not dead she lives there still.
The henbane all around her grows.
Her only friends are big black crows.

The biggest crow I ever did see,
Was taller than the tall oak tree.
We shot him with arrows and with bows,
And we feasted for days on big black crow.

Fly away big black crow.
Crow don’t go where ploughman go.
Where the seed grows, the good seed grows.
Without the help of big black crow.

(Words adapted by LH from an original song by someone else … thanks, unknown songstress!)

The garden is stiff with frost. It crunches beneath our feet as we step carefully along the slippery path. The shrubs hiss grittily as we brush past them, their twigs frozen in stillness against the sharp northern wind.

“There are bird prints in the snow”, says my companion, carefully placing her model of a crow down amongst them on the grey slate bench. Theconcreate owl perched on his log hard-by sits silently watching as we make ready to connect with the spirit of the crow.

It is so cold that we determine to move about, even hopping perhaps as the crow does. I stand on one leg and tentatively bounce. Nothing happens. I don’t seem to be able to get lift off. I flap my arms as though they are wings and try again. My knee groans in protest and I desist, placing both feet firmly on the ground, I shuffle a bit and then grow still.

Across the curved breast of the snow blanketed hillside, large bird prints March darkly into the distance. I put my feet down carefully so as not to obliterate their sharp three-pronged beauty and follow them. At the top of the hill, I see the tracks ascend into an Oakwood, dark twisted arms, tangle stark against the white sky. I step carefully down into the vale.

Beyond the trees, I see something dark flickering against the white snow. I speed up but it seems to be moving away faster than I can walk. Through the trees now, the path rises and then dips down into another valley. More bare leaved trees stretch, climbing the steep sides of the hill. I trudge on, sure I can see something dark and moving against the silver sky.

My boots crunch sharply on the frost rind snow. My labored breathing meets the beat of my feet with every step I take. Still the bird prints lead me on, up and over another hill, through rocks and boulders, their deep black showing only in the parts where the snow has not settled...


“takka-takka-takka-takka!” rattles a magpie three gardens away …

Down amongst oaks and birches, guarded by dark, dark sharp holly, with berries deeply red like shiny beads of blood, stands the blackest of squat, gnarled hollow oaks. The bird prints lead right up to it. Beyond is mystery, but I am determined to follow. Bending low under the prickly protective arms of the holly, I stoop and enter the low wide gash in the side of the tree.

Black against the black she stands, her feathery clothing trembling in the chill of the dark chamber. Her face, the great beak, severe and cruelly sharp, the black eye shining as she observes me. I hold my breath and wait.

“Death is silence and stillness” she caws. Stillness is patience, patience, patience.”


I bow my head in submission and caw …

High up in the sky, circling over the ash tree beyond the fence crow caws three times...

Bidding crow farewell, I bow and back out, turning I climb stiffly under the overhanging holly. I look to see my footsteps following the crow’s, but I see only two pairs of crow’s feet, one smaller than the other., Casting my eyes down to my own feet I see a pair of crow’s feet, half submerged into the snow, their curved black talons pointing in three directions.

I raise my head and caw. The hills throw me back my own call and we duet competitively for a while.

The slate crunches beneath me as I bounce up and down on one leg. But this is very hard work and I soon give it up. Cawing to each other, my companion and I stump back to the house and the warm.

What the Raven said – Tower of London

Friday November 27, 2009:

We’ve come to the tower of London, my raven appreciating friend and I. It’s a lovely November day. Behind the snapping wind, the winter sun warms our faces. We move through the courts in search of ravens.


We’ve timed it just right. The Raven Master, a beefeater who rears and handles the birds is about to feed them. We are amazed to learn that the ravens think he is one of them!

Three ravens are in the aviary. One (Gwillum) is elderly, another (Elizzie) almost blind and a third (Merlin) is recovering from some illness or injury. I want to go to meet the blind one, but the aviary is on the other side of the lawn.

I stand by the fence and sing deeply in my throat. “Guarg-guarg” I caw.

“Oh” says my companion excitedly, “Here comes one!” She describes his hopping gate as he bounces across the grass. I begin to hop and flap, but find it too much hard work and stop.

I speculate on how we could fashion a raven dance which imitates (respectfully of course) their gait. They hop one foot raised delicately off the ground. They bounce, clipped wings flapping. They masterfully stalk, head held high and proud.

But we’re here to do ceremony, I remember at last. Outcome our raven masks and we begin our call to them with our attempts to do the raven dance. Sure that we look silly, and attracting a certain amount of attention from both ravens and tourists, we subside into seats and allow ourselves to connect more decorously.

It is windy on this crag, but the sky is blue and clear above me. I sit and wait.

“Guarg”, says the big black bird standing before me. I sit still and gaze at him, dark as the dark rock on which he sits, his head held still as he eyeballs me.

In a moment he is closer. He leans his head against my knees. WE are silent as I force myself to keep still. It is a huge effort of control to stop myself reaching out and touching.

He turns and offers me his back, his great wings outspread. I see this for the invitation it is. Carefully I climb upon his back. It seems hardly possible that he can take my weight. We soar suddenly into the sky.

The black rocks spin beneath us. We climb high into the pale blue sky, and the land takes shape beneath me. The rocks are edged with a pale glistening sea sparkling in the sunlight.

We fly across a dark cliff and into a deep cave. Out of the wind, if feels warm, if not dry - I can hear dripping water somewhere.

In front of me, a deeper darkness moves. I hold my breath as my eyes become adjusted to the gloom. There before me stands an enormous raven.

“Guarg-guarg” he says.

I bow my head. My beak touches the rock before me; my neck is stretched out in supplication. Something touches my head. The heavy beak gently strokes the feathers. I feel soothed and gentled.

“Mine, mine, you are mind” says the raven.

I am still. He is still. Time moves on.

I am alone. Behind me I hear the scratching of claws on the rock. The raven who brought me has returned to take me away.

“guarg-guarg” bubbles a rasping voice behind my still companion. “Guarg-guarg” I say out loud. My companion responds, for this is our signal that our journeys are ended.

We talk of our experiences. I am clear that the raven has asked me to pay more attention to him in my spiritual work. I rfeflectwith some trepidation how that will turn out.

My companion tells of her encounter and the work she will do to honour the Corvus family including helping others to find their particular crow family totem. We discuss devising and demonstrating the raven dance as a way of connecting and other work we might do in their honour.

I stand by the fence and sing low in the back of my throat. A raven caws; I like to think it is in response to me.

The sun is low behind the buildings now. The air has definitely cooled. I shiver.

The Raven Master appears; it’s time for the ravens to go to bed! He begins to call them each by name, whistling to them, tapping the top of the aviary, walking about the grass toshepperd them safely to their night boxes. One by one, they come, some eagerly, some grumblingly, hopping, bouncing and stalking, cheerfully, dignifiedly, reluctantly.

All birds gathered in, we stand for a moment in front of their boxes. We call to them in thanks. Our work done this day, we turn into the warmth of a nearby souvenir shop for a bit of post ritual retail therapy. Every good ritual should end with a bit of shopping, I think. It’s almost as grounding as chocolate!

Crow circles – Highgate Cemetery

Tuesday November 3, 2009:

The sky softly arches overhead as we walk through the park. Beside the lake, ducks quarrel amongst themselves. Overhead, crows caw in the turbulent air.

In the deserted cemetery, we move silently amongst the graves, laid out in rows all around us. Not far past Marx’s tomb, a riot of wreaths is piled high on a newly covered grave. A large hammer and sickle tells us, we are at the right place.


We’re here now because I couldn’t be at the funeral. We’re also here because it’s the full moon and we’ve been working with the issues of illness and death these past two moons.

According to my personal bird calendar, we’ve now entered the time of crow, raven and owl. The earth has turned and, in that time past Samhain, where we move into ourselves, to reflect, rest and be still, it is a kind of annual dying. It is for me certainly a time to die to what no longer serves me.

A comrade has died unexpectedly. His influence has shaped a lot of my public work this last eight years. His life focus on socialism and justice reminds me that my work is not yet done, although his is.


My companion and I circle the grave, casting the circle and calling up the directions. We walk round and round, singing revolutionary songs in his honour.

The trees shake in the wind. The moving air brushes my cheek. A crow circles above and caws roughly. A young woman appears from somewhere and stands silently for a moment before moving on. I don’t know who she is. I stand still and wait in the quiet.

And I am a crow flying above the graveyard. I see the mounds spreading out, row upon row across the hillside. I see the figures by the flower clustered grave. They are very small.

So many dead. All gone. Nothing remains but the plot of land in which they lie. Amongst the well-known dead, this cemetery is the resting place of a number of comrades from my life. I think about my neighbor who died of AIDS. I remember a colleague who had a brain tumor. I remember another whose voice in the words she wrote expressed so much. All have affected me, changed me because they were in my life, deeply, daily, occasionally.

I stand by the grave and breathe in the sweetness of the flowers, and the richness of the recently turned earth. “Thank you”, I say to the comrade who is no more. Our work done. We open the circle and I bow to the grave and we move away.

Walking amongst the graves, we come across George Elliot’s. My companion reads her stone and the inscriptions on the graves around her.

It is late. If we’re not careful, we’ll get locked in as the cemetery is about to close. Hurrying now, we make our way to the gates. , a crow caws as he circles high in the sky above the silent cemetery.

26 The fallen warriors

Saturday October 31, 2009:

“Veiled by clouds, the moon shines down.
Across the undulating belly of the earth,
A snake of silent people move.
Connect, remember, honour
Our fallen warriors; our dear beloved dead.”

“It’s an ash tree not a lime”, Declares one of my companions as we stride across the tussocky heath. The sky fizzes with fireworks. The moon peeps out from behind hazy clouds.

We circle the tree, make sacred space and call our ancestors.
We light candles and place them at the bottom of the tree. The smell of the wax reminds me of the smell of the air of Trafalgar Square last night and the hundreds of candles burning at the foot of an impromptu stage. Another gay man has been murdered. The community gathers to say “no more, enough is enough!”

I call the spirits of our fallen warriors, my brothers and sisters in struggle from all communities. AS we stand in circle around the tree, I feel them walking across the heath towards us, streaming in from all directions, from all communities.

The snake of silent walkers swings round the tree, moves through the veil (a piece of blackpaterned net swinging from a branch of the tree. Foot in front of foot, we move, connected with silvery ribbons, we move as one behind the drummer.

The grass hisses on either side of me. I feel the presence of many feet. Without speech, connected heart to heart, they tell me their stories. I learn of their lives and how they were ended.

At first they tell me, it was the names, solo initially and then a hail of hate. Of course it was never to end there. A blow, a blade, , a brick, a boot, a blaze of searing light; shit covered nails, arching through the air, smashing into flesh. In the moment before oblivion, the inconsequential thought and then the heart-stopping spasm of fear. Disbelief turns into certainty back into disbelief again.

My flesh shrinks as though it receives the blows; I feel my anger rise and the tears come. “Why” I say to myself, “how can we be so hated?”

“It’s because we are different”, the dead ones whisper. “It’s our very existence which challenges the status quo, the acceptance of normality”, they say. And of course I know this and know too that it has been so since the beginning of time.

”Say no to hate crimes” I hear the dead whisper. And I know that this is what I must do. I must use words to fight the hatred, to change it, stop it.

The walkers swing round and through the veil, circle the tree, hold hands and connect. Behind its sheltering branches, the dead of my community stand and wait until it is time to go.

Silently, we bid farewell to our dear beloved dead. I turn and bow towards my brothers and sisters in struggle, still standing silently watching, beyond the tree’s shelter. They turn and move away, walking in all directions. Long grass swishes beneath their feat as they move back into the night.

25 … And the feathery nest …


Tuesday October 27, 2009:


On top of one Tree Hill, we stand and face the curving river. The sky is mackerel, according to my companion, who with nerves of steel has just made it up the deeply cambered steep path in her electric wheel chair. But One Tree Hill is not the place for us we decide.

With relief I lie down on the grass on top of a burial mound on the other side of the park. I raise my face to the sun. The sky is now a clear blue. Only the caw of the crows can be heard on top of the whispering trees in front of the deeper hum of the traffic beyond.

“Goodness!” I say to no one in particular, as something seizes my feet and swings me up in the air. Above me, the down draft of huge beating wings ruffles my hair. Grasped in sharp curving claws. I see her dark wings against the pale sky as she soars towards the sun.

It seems like I am drifting. Gently, I am laid down on a bed of the softest, silkiest feathers. I sigh, sinking deep into them and am content. Time moves on.

“Oh” I gasp as I am swung up into the air again. The claws, the great dark body, the same pale sky rotates as we rise. She lies me down again on the curving bank of a meadow and I relax back until once more I am swung into the air.

Now I lie under the sheltering branches of a stout chestnut tree. All is quiet. The tree leans over me as though watching. The sky changes. I am returned to the bed of soft feathers until removed once more to the grassy bank.

The trees lose their leaves, become skeletal and then begin to bud. The sky thins and whitens until with the sharp winds of winter’s end, I hear the blackbird sing. All winter I sit still in nature or lie cocooned in feathers.



Last week, I remember as I become conscious of the burial mound upon which I am lying, I was encouraged to dance in nature to get me through the winter. Now the birds invite me to sit in solitude and stillness in silence. Perhaps I’ll do both, I think, rolling over, preparatory to getting up.

“I’m going to buy a duvet”, I say as I get slowly to my feet. I stretch and yawn, raise my face to the warm sun. “This is the life”, I think, bowing to the birds and the sky and the undulating land.