Swan pilgrimages

(Nimue)

There are things I do as part of my relationship with the tuning year that are spiritually important to me, but don’t relate to anything traditional. These are journeys I make to connect to things that happen seasonally where I live. 

Locally one of the big winter events is the coming of the migrant swans. These are bewicks and whoopers, who breed in the arctic circle but spend their winters further south. They fly in guided by the stars and most of them come as family units returning to the same places year after year. Climate change means that they aren’t all heading as far south or west as they used to, but we do still get them.

Swans aren’t the only birds migrating south – the local wetland centre at Slimbridge attracts different kinds of ducks and geese as well. Seeing them all is wonderful.

There is a very particular kind of magic that happens, when the light is fading from the day. Swans who have been feeding on the fields fly in to spend the night on ponds in the reserve. The slanting winter light catches them, and they appear to be glowing against the backdrop of the fading day. It makes the swans seem otherworldly, and it’s an incredibly beautiful thing to see.

I try to visit the swans at least once in the winter – I’ve managed to see them twice this year. I might get to see them again before they leave. Their timings are variably each year – temperature and wind direction play large roles in when they arrive and depart. However, around December and January they are a reliable presence in the local wetlands and magical to encounter.

Visiting Stonehenge

(Nimue)

At the weekend I had the wonderful experience of going to a Druid gathering at Stonehenge. I have done it before, but not in many years, it’s the kind of expedition that really calls for a driver. I prefer to mostly do my pilgrimages on foot, but Stonehenge is something truly special and I really needed the connections this gave me. Two of the three of us in my party had not done this before, so that was also an important consideration.

We spent some of the day exploring the landscape around Stonehenge – not something I’d been able to do before We visited nearby woodhenge, looked at Durrington Walls and visited some of the barrows. These are considerably later constructs than Stonehenge, and shows that this site stayed significant to people long after it was built. This is especially important to me because as a modern Pagan I’m not doing what my ancestors did here, but there is a continuity in simply wanting to show up and in feeling moved by what’s in the landscape.

I hope to go back in more suitable conditions and spend some time walking in the landscape around Stonehenge. I’d like to spend more time with the barrows and to explore other remnants of ancient history in the landscape.

One of the things we were able to do at Stonehenge, was sing. Being very much on the bard path, this means a great deal to me. I have sung there before. This time I was able to share my ‘3 Drops’ which is an explicitly Druidic song, with James leading it and Keith joining us. It was a powerful, magical thing to get to do, offering that creation to both the place and the people gathered in it. I found it a deeply affirming experience.

At one point in the ritual we were invited to open ourselves to the space and seek a single word as a focus for our inspiration. What were we there to learn? To take away with us? I had quite a strange experience at this point. I’m going to take some time to sit with it and think about it. My word was ‘giants’ and has implications for the spirits of place book I’m working on.

Every time I’ve been to Stonehenge in the past, I’ve been sleep deprived to some degree – probably least so for this most recent visit. When I’m sleep deprived, I hallucinate. My first experience of this at Stonehenge was seeing a herd of wild horses in the mist. This is fairly typical of the kinds of things I see when my brain is being odd. Arguably these are aura migraines, but they make for interesting experiences and I remain open to them as spiritual experiences. 

For me, the question around magical experiences is, what do they inspire? If what I experience takes me in a good direction, then I don’t think it matters in the slightest whether it was ‘really’ a kind of visual migraine. I’ve come away from this midwinter gathering with some considerable things to think about and explore. I’m probably going to need to do some sitting out, which is challenging at this time of year. I’ll write more about this when I’ve had chance to do some of that and reflect on it all.

(Photograph by Keith Errington)

Winter walking

(Nimue)

Winter walking in the Uk presents a number of challenges. Getting outside to commune with nature in any way can be difficult at this time of year. More so if you have any body issues to contend with.

If your body doesn’t interact well with winter then there’s a lot to be said for honouring nature as it manifests in you and not doing anything you find problematic. However, the yearning for outside, for open sky and access to the earth can be an intense thing.

I struggle with the smaller windows of opportunity. With it getting dark so early in the day, options for walking are time-limited. In the past when I’ve done longer walks at this time of year I’ve had to start very early in the day. I don’t enjoy finding I have to race the light to get home. Being out in the dark in summer is lovely, but at this time of year there are too many other hazards and I need to be able to see what I’m dealing with.

As it’s wet, wilder places will also be muddy. This present hazards for the walker and makes walking a lot more arduous. It’s also a really important consideration that when we walk in muddy conditions, we churn up the ground, damaging soil and plants. At this time of year I tend to walk in places that have surfaces, for my own comfort and to reduce the harm I might cause.

It’s a lot easier to get into trouble at this time of year. There are more things that can cause falls. Unexpected weather is much more of a hazard. I tend to be cautious, because I’m not that robust. I also don’t want to put anyone else in the position of having to come and rescue me. Where I walk that would likely be an inconvenience, but in wilder landscapes if you get into trouble you can also put your rescuers at risk of injury, or worse. It is as well to make gentler choices, I think.

Ancestors in the landscape

I’ve been spending time at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland and it’s been a great opportunity to encounter ancestors of place. The Romans are very present here – in place names, the wall itself, the roads that follow their routes, and the areas of land they drained. Their presence forms the basis of a long distance walk, with walkers resulting in tourist infrastructure.

Much of the wall isn’t in the wall itself, but has been co-opted to build other walls and buildings. There’s a marker stone in the wall of the farm across the road from where I’m staying. Much of the farm is built from the wall, and apparently you can’t dig far without hitting stone. The Romans are very present in this landscape, and people who live here are very much living with them.

I’ve done a bit of walking along the route of the wall. It’s a dramatic landscape, and must be cold and bleak in the winter. In summer, being stationed here might be quite a pleasant gig, but much less so in cold weather. It must have been a bit of a system shock coming here – enough so that Romans stationed here used to wear socks under their sandals, and might even go so far as to don something resembling trousers.

I’ve had the opportunity to learn something about Roman military life. I’ve been surprised by the degree to which it was actually about building things – the wall and the roads – rather than about fighting. I hadn’t previously been aware of who it was in the Roman empire who did the building, so that’s been a significant thing to learn. I’m not especially drawn to the Romans, but I am always interested in ancestors of land, and right now, they are the dominant ancestors in the landscape I’m visiting.

As a young man, my father walked Hadrian’s wall. It’s interesting being in a place where I know he walked. We’ve done very little walking together since I was a child, so there are all kinds of interesting aspects to this for me.

It’s been a great experience for developing the Pagan Pilgrimage book I’m currently writing. It’s also been exciting having time in a landscape unfamiliar to me – not something I’ve been able to do for some years. It’s rekindled in me the desire for adventure, and to walk in places unfamiliar to me. I’ve been sorely limited over the last three years especially. However, life is opening up at the moment and I think there will be more adventures in unfamiliar places.

Pagan Pilgrimage

I have a new project under way that might be of interest. I’m going to be writing a small book about Pagan Pilgrimage, taking slightly over a year to write a chapter a month. This will initially be available to anyone who supports me on Patreon at the Bards and Dreamers level, or higher (Steampunk Druids and Glass Herons also get this content).

My Patreon is https://www.patreon.com/NimueB 

When the book is finished I’ll do an ebook version and give it away to anyone who wants a copy. This is part of the whole logic of how and why I use Patreon. Not everyone can afford books, and I believe in gift economy. If the people who can afford to support me chuck in a few dollars here and there, it makes life easier for me. Writing takes time, and it’s difficult doing that alongside other work – which I have done for many years. Writing also doesn’t pay well and success in the writing profession does not usually equate to enough money to live on.

Over on Patreon, I put up content every week. Join as a Small Thing for one pound sterling a month, and get content twice a month. Join as a Pocket Sized Dustcat and you’ll get otherwise unavailable fiction once a month as well. Bards and Dreamers get everything the Small Things get, plus one substantial piece of Druid content a month. To get both the fiction and the Druidry, join as a Steampunk Druid, and to get all of that plus physical books and other goodies four times a year, join as a Glass Heron.

If you’d like to grab one of the free books previously made feasible by Patreon, you can hop over to my ko-fi shop and help yourself. There are poetry collections, three novels and a Druidry book all in ebook form. https://ko-fi.com/O4O3AI4T/shop Pay what you like – which means feel free to pay nothing. If you like what I do with this blog and want to drop some coins in the hat, that’s also an option on Ko-Fi and I do really appreciate it. 

The Pagan Pilgrimage book will be exploring ideas about sacredness in the landscape, and my thinking on what pilgrimage can mean for a Pagan. Walking has been central to my Druidry for many years, but in the last two years assorted illness has really limited me physically and broadened my perspective in other ways. I have the book planned out, but Patreon is an interactive sort of space and it means people who engage with me there can get involved with shaping the content if they so desire.

At some point later in the year I will be releasing Druidry and the Darkness – an ebook made possible by this process of writing for Patreon. I’ll post about that specifically when it’s available and that too will be free in ebook form for anyone who wants it.

To be a Pilgrim

Over recent years I’ve been developing a seasonal walking calendar. The idea is to visit the places where I can best encounter key seasonal events in my locality. This is primarily about what the plants are doing, because these are predictable year to year. Good places to see the bluebells and the spring beech leaves. Good places to see the wild orchids, especially the bee orchids. I also know the best places to see glow bugs, and some migrant birds. I also know where the herons nest, where to see ducklings, where the bats go, where I am most likely to find young owls in the summer, which paths open or close in which conditions and so forth.

This walking calendar has been built over years of exploring, and finding out how different parts of my surroundings change through the seasons. Creating it has been a rich and interesting process, and a body of work I don’t imagine it is possible to complete. There’s always more to know, and more plants to learn about and encounter.

Last year, covid limitations meant I didn’t get to a number of my key places at the right time. We were encouraged not to be out for more than an hour per day to exercise, and in some areas that was enforced by the police and by neighbors reporting each other. This had an awful impact on my mental health. What made it worse was knowing that it was total nonsense. Transmission requires people. If you’re outside and you don’t see another person, you can hardly spread a disease. Time spent outside is not an issue unless you are trying to alleviate pressure on inadequate amounts of green space. And there’s a whole other set of problems that needed better consideration.

This year I’ve struggled with fatigue, and various other bodily problems that have really impacted on my ability to walk. I managed to see some bluebells, but not the wonderful blue swathes that make the hilltops so enchanting. I may not get to see the bee orchids. These walks and encounters have been the heart of my Druidry for years, and it is hard being without them.

I’m focusing on doing what I can, seeing and connecting with what I can, and accepting my limitations while doing my best to push against them. Perhaps later this year I will be able to be a pilgrim again on my own terms. It’s something to aspire to, and to work towards.

Tiny Pilgrimages

Up until last year, what pilgrimage meant to me was a really epic walk. An all day sort of effort that would bring me a feeling of deep connection with the landscape, probably coupled with feelings of euphoria.

My ability to handle longer walks has largely gone. There have been a lot of days in the last year when I’ve not made it outside my home. Often I get about twenty minutes or so before the low blood pressure makes me too dizzy to continue. Hills are currently beyond me. Longer walks of a few miles leave me exhausted.

When I started thinking about pilgrimage, I knew I didn’t want to write something abelist and excluding. I wanted to explore the topic in a way that would work for people with fewer options. But, I also didn’t really know what that might mean. I had assumed you could just do this kind of thing at the level that works for you.

That’s not been my experience.

It is difficult to make a very small walk seem like an act of pilgrimage. Even if it takes as much out of me as the bigger ones used to. Even if it is a really hard slog. The major issue is time. On a longer walk I get time to really connect with the land, the sky, the day. I’ll have more wildlife encounters. If I’m only outside for half an hour, I see less, I experience less and the emotional impact is smaller. When walking is a struggle, the struggle itself becomes the dominant experience, not the opportunity for connecting with the landscape. Pain and dizziness are obstacles to connecting.

I’m coming to the conclusion that time spent on this is more important than how far you go. In the warmer part of the year I should be able to sit and rest more during outdoors time, and this will increase how long I can spend outside. Will that be enough? I think it could be, but I don’t know.

At this point the whole experience has me asking a lot of questions about what pilgrimage is for me, and what it means and what makes it powerful. I’m also asking a lot of questions about what scope there is for helpfully reflecting on a topic to the benefit of people whose experiences are radically different from your own.

Druidry, walking, and not walking

Walking is my primary mode of transport and is also how I engage with the natural world and the seasons. It’s a major part of how I exercise, and a key strategy for managing my mental health. As a consequence, not being able to walk is a bit of a disaster. There’s been a lot of that this year, and in the last six weeks or so it has been a massive problem.

Usually the limits on my walking come from pain, stiffness and lack of energy. I’m used to having days when I can’t do much, and fitting what I need to do around what’s possible. However, I’ve had a bout of very low blood pressure (for reasons) and it’s made walking really hard. I haven’t been able to get up hills, I’ve been able to manage twenty minutes at most, and I’ve felt awful. I’m aware that for a lot of people, twenty minutes would be a good amount of walking, but with the role walking plays in my life, not being able to walk for a few hours at a time is a real problem.

It’s meant I’ve had very little access to the landscape. Places I find spiritually nourishing – especially the hilltops – have been unavailable to me. If I had a garden, I could develop a spiritually nourishing outdoors space closer to home – but currently I can’t do that.

I’m lucky in that the underlying causes of this problem have been dealt with, and I should be able to recover and rebuild my strength and stamina. Not everyone who has a bodily crisis gets to do that afterwards. Many people live with sorely limiting conditions.

This experience has taught me that there is nothing I can do inside my flat that does for me what getting outside for long hours at a time does for me. My Druidry is so very much about my relationship with my immediate landscape. Much of the time that’s quite an understated presence – I do think about my connection with land and spirits of place whenever I am out, but that’s often so normal to me that in some ways I don’t notice it. Absence is a great teacher, and what I’ve not been able to do has taught me about what I need to do.

There’s an interesting balance around internalising things and losing sight of them. With any spiritual practice, you want to embed it so deeply in your life that it is your life. But when you do that you can stop noticing that it’s there, which is problematic. This in turn brings me to consider the usefulness of deliberate spiritual action for reminding us of our spiritual lives, and how necessary it may be to have things that aren’t so deeply embedded that they become invisible. This might mean I need to make a labyrinth once I’m back in shape. That’s a good jolt out of everydayness.

I certainly need to look at what I can do with my Druidry that is real and immediate to me, and soul satisfying, and not so dependent on being able to walk for a couple of hours. Alongside this, I have a lot of practical work to do rebuilding body strength and stamina, getting my heart fitter again, and getting back up the hills. I’ve come to understand in recent years that taking care of my body is a necessary consideration for how I do my Druidry – my body is where I experience everything else, and if I don’t keep it well and fit, I can’t get out there and do anything else. I’m very glad to have at least some options around improving wellness and fitness.

Apple blossom and seasonal walking

Seasonal walking has been at the heart of my Druidry for some years now. I have a calendar of what happens where and when and I walk to meet various manifestations of the season. At this time of year I would normally be planning a big walk to take in bluebells, wood anemones, wild garlic and new beech leaves. Lockdown aside, my body is not in a good way so long walks aren’t currently an option. I will have to find alternative places to go.

Yesterday I had a surprise encounter with apple blossom. There is a cycle path near home, but one of the stretches runs down the side of a duel carriageway, so I don’t normally walk there. However, one of the gifts of lockdown is far less traffic, so that stretch of footpath has become far nicer to walk. It also tends to be fairly quiet at twilight, and I’ve walked it a few times in recent weeks.

Last night all of the apple trees on that stretch of cycle path were in bloom, and it was incredibly beautiful. Normally this wouldn’t be part of my seasonal walking because traffic noise and air pollution have put me off. I’ve been feeling unsettled by not being able to do so much seasonal engagement through walking, so this was an uplifting gift of an experience.

Tiny adventures

I crave adventure and new experience. I have the kind of budget that does not allow for travelling, and I would not fly if I could afford to. My energy levels are unreliable. I don’t have the physical strength, stamina, balance, or co-ordination to do exciting, dangerous sports. This combination of factors does not, at first glance, lend itself to the adventurous life.

However, my life is full of tiny adventures. I’ve found all kinds of small ways of taking myself out into my locality and having intense, unexpected and rewarding experiences. Here’s an example. Recently there was a thunder storm. As it was also warm weather, Tom and I headed out into the rumbling darkness, bearing an umbrella.

We watched the storm erupt in the next valley. Sheet lightning, tinged with yellow and orange lit up the nearby hill. All around us, birds called out in alarm, and then the skies opened and we huddled under the umbrella as the cloud burst turned the air around us into water. It was dramatic, and intense, and right outside my door.

We’ve sat out in summer evenings to watch for bats and listen for owls. We’ve been on the hills to watch the sunset, and this summer we’re going to be exploring the dawns more, with a bit of luck. Our lives feel rich and interesting. We don’t have to travel far to find something worth seeing or to have a novel experience.