Lughnasadh Seed Thought - Regeneration and Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage

Going back to my post on Pagan Pilgrimage and it's reference to Druidcast's talky bit from the Pilgrimage Trust. Lughnasadh is a good time, in my experience for Pilgrimage. At the beginning of my Bardic journey, before I was married (and I don't think my wife would tolerate being my back-up driver after 15 years), I rode a Pilgrimage along the Ridgeway. You can only Mountain Bike the part, starting from Princes Risborough, the end is at Avebury. It was a 2 day journey starting with leaving early to drive upto Princes Risborough then riding to Streatley, the crossing of the River Thames where us young lovers spent the night in the back of the car. Romantically we watched the sunset backwards...rather than the sun setting we saw the creeping forward of Night drawing her blanket over the land.

My experience of Avebury was at the end of a long hot day in the saddle. I had an ear of corn that had somehow attached itself to my handlebars as my mascot. I felt comforted having John Barleycorn with me. My second day of cycling the Ridgeway had been hot and sticky. By the time I'd got towards Avebury I'd miscalculated my water and salt requirements. This meant that I was completely exhausted, perhaps a little delirious, by the time I found the Bridleway turning off the Ridgeway that dropped into Avebury.
So I felt purely personal emotions arriving there to do with my pilgrimage along the Ridgeway and the places I had visited; Maiden Castle, Weylands Smithy, the White Horse and of course the magic of watching the sun set backwards. There was no special feeling, as I passed them, from the stones. Just an impression of a West Country tourist village - with bikers, hippies, wiccans and a motley crew that appear to have crept out of one of Ankh-Morporks wizard pubs all blinking in the sunlight. I immediately loved the Red Lion, only because my love was sat there waiting for me with a pint of cold beer!
Sipping beer wondering why Avebury left me cold, a flat feeling at the end of my pilgrimage. I laughed as I overheard my favourite quote (from an individual fully regaled in heavy velvet with a skulls head staff)
"Well I was talking to this Druid down the pub an 'e sez I must be a Druid too 'cos my spirit 'ad developed enough to be one. So instead of gettin' another Athame I think I'll have a Sickle instead."
I realised that timing is everything, I wouldn't mind going back and sitting with the stones when it was a bit quieter though.

I have vague plans of riding or walking the Wessex Ridgeway section from Avebury, or Marlborough, down to Lyme Regis. Lyme Regis is not far from my paternal ancestral lands. I have the route planned, although from an MTB perspective the off-road is very broken up with road sections. Now we have the dogs maybe it should be a walking route.

Regeneration

My poem on the death of Old Man Willow a couple of posts ago was my sadness at this old tree being ripped down. However, today I walked the field I regularly walk with the dogs and noticed (and why I'd not noticed last week or the week before I don't know) the swarthe of young willow plants

The regeneration of the Willows in that area brought Lughnasadh joy at the magical nature of the Willow to regenerate. It has been a glorious, warm and still day. The leaves on the Poplar, normally creating a sea like sussuration, were silent. Just the cackling laugh of the Green Woodpecker disturbed the peace.

Pilgrimage can be a form of regeneration, it can heal and change your worldview by stepping outside the boundaries or ruts of your everyday life. When I get time I will mark up a map for a circular Sussex pilgrimage of mid-Sussex sacred places. Mid-Sussex, from the River Ouse to the River Arun, is a liminal place between East and West Sussex and because of that full of mystery, fairy tales and wonder.