39 Fire and wild ways singing

39 Fire and wild ways singing
Friday September 28 2012:
In the woods, I sit on a bench made of branches, still twisted and curved
in an undulation of life's growth. It rocks as I slightly rock.

The drum beats fast and syncopated. Low grumbling, soft crooning turns
sharply into loud howling, deepening and roughening into snarling and
snapping.
Here in the centre of the wood, trees watch as in the clearing, the fire
begins to blaze. The woods are alive. I am alive!
All around, emerging from trees, from the low plants, from amongst the
cracked mud and oozing from the soft thickened puddles, come the folk of the
land. Fierce and stern, soft and subtle, they come.
Me, I curl softly and warmly. My mouse paws before me, my head down,
whiskers twitching as I listen and notice. I am safe, sat between his great
hooves. Nothing will come to harm me. My tribe and I are here to be the
softness between the hardness of the old wood, the thickened horn and stiff
pelt.
The dance goes on, gyrating and spinning. Across the forest, occasional
piercing screams echo between the trees. I sit curled and still, serene and
content.
The folk have come to dance, stride, strut and be. I am still, curled
between the great hooves, a reminder of gentleness in this wild world.
All around is fierce energy. Here in me is soft quietness. This is my
relationship with the wild places.
I like it that I am soft. This wild place is hard, but it is also soft. Not
just the mosses and funguses but the softness of the rain-soaked earth,
trembling beneath my feet as I walk.
My weight presses it into dips and hollows. It clings to my feet. We're
getting to know each other, the mud and I.
Saturday September 29, 2012:
I walk in the woods. The sky, the ground, the waters, the air are all
jumping.
The other path is wider and less steep. It leads me past a standing stone. I
move onward through the trees, listening to the river calling me to come sit
with it.
I settle beside the fast moving stream, under the trees to sit and be. I am
holding a stag's antler and lightly drumming on it. Soon I begin to sing:
""His hooves on mud, his hooves on mud, his hooves on mud are dancing.
The river flows, the river chuckles, river tumbles laughing.
Standing stones, guardians watching.
Cawing crow, circling skywards.
Listen to the wind moan, listen to the wind grown, listen to the wind
singing in the trees.
Running through the greenwood, running through the greenwood, running
through the greenwood amongst the trees.
A single ray of sun slants through the trees, gelding all that it touches.
The sailing moon beams down from the sky through a lattice of silvered black
branches."
Accompanying myself on the stag horn drum, I sing my new song to my
companion. He is not only gratifyingly impressed but being a singer, soon
joins in. We carol harmoniously under the trees with the river singing along
with us until called by hunger to lunch.
The sun strikes lower through the gloom of the forest. By the silent fire
pit, we gather to praise trees. We sing lustily and happily:
"Trees grow tall in the heart of the forest,
High in the sky and the roots grow down to the deep dark earth.
I am held by the forked oak, leaning into his embrace as I sing. I stroke
his strong limbs and send my love of trees out to all trees everywhere, for
never have they been in such danger as they are now.


In the roundhouse, a small fire smokes. We call on Cernunnus to help us work
to protect badger.

I follow the stag through the trees to meet a large milky white cow standing
alone, shining under the silver moon. I am her and she is me. Heavy with
milk, we lumber around. I moo, low and deeply richly maternal. I call to all
the calves I will ever have and all the calves stolen from the milch cow to
keep her milk flowing for humans to consume. , .
Tonight, stimulated by the bright moon, my milk flows. Badger comes to
suckle. All the badgers come to suckle, and sated, make way for the next
one, moving in a river of black, white and grey.
Like a wave shattering, the drum thunders. Cernunnus takes me riding round
the world showing all cows and badgers lying down together. There love and
appreciation shining out under the full moon. Their connection stays the
hands of badger's executers.
"If we can love and give sucker to those who might be our enemies, we can
unite to fight the outer evil", they tell me.
I crawl from the roundhouse and return to the fire. I am cold. I remember
the gentle milk white cow and feel her love for everyone.

Sunday September 30, 2012:
Beyond the stooped shouldered mossy standing stone grows a tall three
trunked sycamore tree. It guards the clearing in which a round green pond
lies. I sit down in this quiet place to be with the trees.
I sleep. I dream that I watch the clearing a whole day and night through.
Dawn light shows the leaves on the ground distinct in all their new autumn
colours. High in the trees, the twittering robins chatter with the doves.
The forest is waking up.
At noon, sunlight reaches into guild the green pool. A woodpecker cackles
and a thrush answers. The wind in the trees makes the tree tops dance.
The Evening sun casts great dark shadows beneath the trees. The blackbird
sings his evening song and the crow calls for night to come.
The sky grows dark and the moon sails out, casting silver and black shifting
lacy patterns across the water. Above, owls hoot and shriek, swoop low and
then fly off, wings beating into the branches above.
Leaves crackle under hoof as something moves out from the shelter of the
trees. A light form, ethereal and delicate steps out into the moonlight. A
white hind bows her head down to the pool to drink, her loveliness mirrored
in the water. She raises her head to look up at the moon and suddenly is
gone.
The clearing is empty. The sky begins to pale and another day dawns.
I can't move. Something has feasted on any flesh I have left carelessly
exposed. I scratch my hands in irritation. The trees say to me that they
want people to sit under them and experience them. They ask that all trees
are respected whether they are the noble oak or the humble sycamore.
The fire blazes on despite the pouring rain. The only thing to do in weather
like this is to dance. My companion and I dance in the stone circle watched
incuriously by two horses. I can only think they're used to humans behaving
like this.
The ground is waterlogged. The soft importunate mud pulls at my boots
insistently. I stride, feet heavy with caked mud in a ritual of physical
leaving of the land I have dreamed, sun and danced on for 3 days.