Guldize part 1

The full moon and autumnal equinox was fast approaching and with it the chance for a night in a North Yorkshire forest. Fortunately there was no 'Slaughtered Lamb' pub or rumours of werewolves, just a couple of Sussex southerners going feral for the night. Of course, feral is a very subjective term but in our case probably incorrect. It was my first time glamping...
Glamping (glamorous camping) is a growing global phenomenon that combines camping with the luxury and amenities of a home. Glamping is camping in style and comfort.
It was actually in a Camping Pod (http://stoneclosecampsite.co.uk/pods/) at the wonderfully named High Rigg Farm in the middle of Dalby Forest. Guldize, the Druids call it Alban Elfen, or the Autumnal Equinox is normally heralded by storms blowing through from the South West. This one was no exception, it hit during the drive up the M1 from the South to the North with gusto providing a sketchy journey on the motorway. We kept our nerve, ate on the way and finally arrived in North Yorkshire, anxiously scanning the roads to see how much rain they'd had. Bumping along the dirt track to our pod it was all pretty grey, looking to be drouk and we unpacked the car fully expecting our plans for a couple of hours skedaddle on the Mountain Bikes to be ruined.
Then the suns bright face gleamed from the gloaming clouds, the grey mantle broke and flew from her face. We beamed and wriggled into our cycle kit.

As ever, the first sections of a MTB trail centre are a shock to the riding body. Compounded by a 5 hour hammer up the motorway and a-roads from the south. Our stereotypical belief that it must be cold and grim ooop north took a body blow by the end of the first section. We were hot, hot and sticky but the trails were good! Technically challenging riding that encourages you to push your body and skills to the limit. The sections are a blur of attempting to achieve 'flow', that little bit of Awen, Odr or Wod, the furious inspiration where man, machine, time and motion become a singularity. It is a beautiful thing when it occurs and brings a heady rush of internal alchemy; adrenal-endorphins. After the first half hour of sweat and struggle brief flashes of MTB Wod appeared - pushing down on the rear suspension to use the decompression to ping you out of the apex of a berm, an unconscious flick of the hips to slide the back tyre around a corner without the need to brake...
the aim is maximum speed, minimum braking and an even(powered) masterful effort to speed along this man made off road roller coaster.
After an hour and half we took one of the escape routes back to the Forest Road, a nice fire road blast downhill. The forest spat us out on the dark tarmac...

And now we were lost..., in the forest..., with the sun sinking, winking through the trees. Which way does the road go? We started riding in a direction, a 50-50 chance of being the right direction. We saw people..., people on bikes..., people who'd pulled up at our camp site just before we left :) Not wishing to become the feral southerners living wild in the woods we asked for directions. They too were lost, but knew where they'd come from and pointed us in that direction! We promised to send out a search party if they didn't come back. We rode up past the Adderstone, a wonderful large stone outcrop and found the trail that took us straight back to the safety of our Pod.

The Pod had a heater and we set up for our glamorous night. Comfortably sat in chairs under the eaves of the pod with plenty of tea, beer and followed by a Chow Mein supper cooked on the Coleman one-fuel stove. Marvellous! A little bit of music, some cheesy comestibles with a few snifters of cold vodka and a lot of chat. Drafts of drizzle would flow over, causing a slight tightening of the collar, pulling down of the cap and a snuggling into the jumper but not enough to diminish the vigour of being warm & cozy outside. Eventually the clouds went and the the full moon drenched the high rigg with light; a majestic moon, sailing above the cloud kites surfing the wind above us.

After a reasonable sleep, certainly better than any in a tent and on a par with many a hotel, we fuelled ourselves for a decent days riding. It would be easy to say more of the same except each section of trail is different up there in the forest. What was the same was how the forest enveloped us so that in seconds we'd lost our direction, sense of time and space and thus ourselves. Lost in biking... if the Summerlands do exist then Dalby is not far off being the Mountain Biking Summerlands. Brief views over the moorland during fire road traverses would then plunge us into flat out technical red and black runs, all the time not sure what gear to pedal in or what technical challenge would be round the next bend. With whoops and shouts our visceral selves had escaped into the woods on a glorious golden indian summer morning. Just as the intensity and effort were tiring us, it was the last section of swoopy berms and roller coaster humps dropping us back to the cafe. For lunch and a return hammering down the M1.

To some it may seem a lot of driving for a little biking, a ratio of 2:1, but to the MTB'er the intensity of a trail centre compacts 5 times the trail into a short section. To a deep ecology Druid it may seem a lot of petrol and indeed it is but there is a perspective to it; we're not flying to the Alps, or Moab or the North Shore and life is also for living. If we could get the same experience locally we probably would. To the Gewessi what did I learn about the land. I learnt something strange - I'd not been to Yorkshire much before and as I arrived there was a feeling, quickly quashed by my rational mind of excitement. The sort of excitement I only usually get at a homecoming, when I can see the South Downs of Sussex or the curve of St. Mounts Bay in Cornwall. My mum's family come from that part of Yorkshire, my friend has a Yorkshire surname and the spirit of Yorkshire welcomed us like long lost sons. The sun shone when we needed it to, the weather was warm and welcoming and the forest was fantastic. Guldize is the time of harvest, reaping what you have sown. This MTB trip was reaping the fitness we'd gleaned over a summer of riding and making the effort, knowing that this journey was the fruit of our biking labour. The Gold Days are also a time to hoard good memories that can be pored over whilst hunkered down in the dark days of winter. They are the seed of next summer's fuel to ride more, ride hard and to grow old ungraciously fighting for fitness so that next Guldize we can accumulate more good MTB memories.

Guldize part 2

Harvest Home

The garden has had the hedges trimmed, the lawn mown again now that we're properly in autumn and it's time to review and give thanks to the Landalfar for the Harvest, which is what Guldize is all about. After a cold, slow spring things turned out all right really and here's my review of the year. Was it all worthwhile? In financial, physical and spiritual terms...

• Sweet Peas - have been disappointing this year, the cold weather early then the dry warm weather seems to have just held them back
• Beefsteak Tomatoes - were slow to ripen and have finally all ripened now in mid-Oct. They've been a revelation in making tomato sauce. They cook down perfectly including the thin skin into a wonderful pasta sauce. I've had at least 5 pound of Tomatoes
• Potatoes Charlotte - first earlies have been good a nice crop of new potatoes
• Larkspur - the seeds came up, were a bit slow growing on and then we went on holiday and the Hedgehogs uprooted most of them. A plant survived, grew well and was even attempting a flower when a slug ate the whole thing in a night!
• Chard - have grown well and provided quite a few meals mmmm
• Leeks - are growing well and hopefully will provide a decent crop in a couple of months
• Lettuce - were good they all grew well, despite our holiday in July, providing a month of filling in our lunchtime sarnies
• Cherry Tomato - these grew late and have ripened late like the Beefsteaks. In flavour a bit disappointing. My neighbour gave me a taste of her Tomaberries which I think I will grow next year
• Courgette - have, as ever, been a great crop when we started getting fed up of them I let them grow into Marrows. Stuffed Marrow, in various forms, has been another cooking revelation
• French or Climbing Bean Cobra - a disappointing crop but I think going on holiday for the first 2 weeks in July meant I had to plant them out earlier than I'd liked as spring was so late. They did taste nice though
• Runner Bean White Lady - also a disappointing crop, ditto to the Climbing Beans, but they are a good Runner Bean for flavour and mostly stringless
• Sunflower - the ones planted out grew slower but produced more flowerheads. The ones in pots were a bit disappointing but that was location based
• California Poppy - no seeds germinated
• Nasturtium - have grown well in the front garden but they are better in the hanging baskets, so next year
• Marigold - did their job well, plenty of colour in the veg patch and slug food saving the other plants
• Cerinthe - self seeded in the gravel, but I must get more seed this winter
• Apple of Peru or Shoo-Fly plant - still flowering and looking great. The speed of growth when it starts is quite astonishing. Gave plenty of seedlings away and more than enough for the garden
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli - after weeks of diligently getting the Cabbage White Butterfly eggs of the plants I went away for a few days and came back to fat caterpillars. The plants are a good size though and should recover (I hope) to provide a decent crop next April
• Pumpkin Jack of All Trades - 4 good sized pumpkins are almost a nice ripe Orange colour. Perfect timing I hope for Samhuin

We've had a good summer and a great late summer fortunately which has meant that the Tomatoes and Pumpkins have ripened.So financially I think the crops have paid for themselves as well as the flowers seeds, so a big tick there with the Squashes and Beefsteak tomatoes being the stars. Physically I think this is the max I can cope with in time terms with all the the other things to do with the family. Spiritually it's good year on year to see the changes and influences the weather and natural world have, it deepens my knowledge and connection to this land. The summer has shown that I am just a caretaker for the land and my success should be measured in nature.

The garden's natural world has had the Hedgehogs, bless 'em, who do move things around. They are very cute and seeing them regularly over midsummer has been a highlight of the year. Then there have been the birds nesting - Robins, Wrens and Blackbirds are in the garden now the cats are too old to hunt. The Wren fledglings were a delight and as ever the Slow Worms and Frogs hopefully keep the slugs down. The Evening Primrose and Honeysuckle have kept the Moths well fed. Next I will be getting the garden ready for winter, tidying up all the herbs, clearing the greenhouse out and putting the pots inside to over-winter. Then I will be ready for Samhuin and the dark half of the year.

The Grove

In a meditatory mind
A dappled dolmen diem
Is formed where forest forms.

A glade bereft of shade
With flowers;
Digitalis towers
Flow o'er Bracken rills
And petal strewn hills.
Cynareae tribes
Inner vision imbibes
Helping the heart
Banishing boggart.
Golden light streams over brows
As green energy grows
Life affirming tranquility.

Filling brain, hurst and coombe,
With imaginary
Potentiality.

Gewessi Gothi

Thoughts upon what it is to be a Gewessi Gothi (with help from an Explorer)

Druidry - A Western Mystery School

As a Druid I consider myself an autonomous natural philosopher-mystic, aka a Gewessi Gothi, who discovers it all for himself. But at other times I am ritually proclaiming the power of (possibly imaginary) gods or spirits as a well indoctrinated pagan. I am flexible, and lazy, and sometimes it is handy to follow religious procedure or ritual, and sometimes it is not (and this is more a paradox than a contradiction).
Mysticism means that spiritual awareness comes from direct experience and not from what others (or books) tell you what to believe.
Wikipedia says this about it: "Mysticism can be distinguished from ordinary religious belief by its emphasis on the direct personal experience of unique states of consciousness, particularly those of a transcendentally blissful character"

Logos - A Natural Philosophy

Natural Philosopher means a person who regulates his or her life, actions, judgements, utterances, etc., by the light of their direct experience, learnt knowledge and reflections upon the world around them.
Wikipedia says this about it: "Major branches of natural philosophy include astronomy and cosmology, the study of nature on the grand scale; etiology, the study of (intrinsic and sometimes extrinsic) causes; the study of chance, probability and randomness; the study of elements; the study of the infinite and the unlimited (virtual or actual); the study of matter; mechanics, the study of translation of motion and change; the study of nature or the various sources of actions; the study of natural qualities; the study of physical quantities; the study of relations between physical entities; and the philosophy of space and time. (Adler, 1993)" Mortimer J Adler - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_J._Adler

Heathenry - a Gothi

As a Gewessi I consider my relationship to the Gods, Alfs and Ancestors of this land to be a personal one. There is no need for anyone else to administer sacred rituals or rites to communicate with the Gods or spirits of this land. Each Gewessi is his or her own priest and therefore 'owns' their relationship with their deities or spiritual energies.
Additionally, as a parent & householder, in the modern world I'm a chieftain of this nuclear family. With the progress of individualism within our society an adult householder is responsible for their household's legal and financial contribution to society as a whole.
Within Heathenry, or the Norse/Germanic lore, a priest is a spiritual leader of his group, tribe or supporters. However, this approach of delegating spiritual responsibility has (in the past) shown to be flawed as it gives away an individuals spiritual power to a priest. That priest then 'owns' and has the sole power in relationship to a God or Goddess. This can be a source of great corruption; 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'. It is where the spirituality of the relationship with the divine energies moves into a human political world of social control. This is, in my opinion, the source of the corruption. The human conflict for social power.
In my personal approach no Gewessi should ever give away, to another, their relationship with the divine. You are your Gothi and your personal Gods, Goddesses and land spirits are your Guru's.
Wikipedia says this about it: "A goði or gothi (plural goðar) is the Old Norse term for a priest and chieftain. Gyðja signifies a priestess.... The goðar are depicted in the Sagas as the religious and political leaders of their district or goðorð. In Iceland, prior to Christianization, religious temples or hofs were privately owned and maintained by a hofgoði or temple priest."

The Gewessi are goðar.

Socks the Lap Ninja

who passed suddenly yesterday, she'd hidden her illness well so the vet said. Born in a chair in my wife's old flat, my wife has been both midwife and undertaker.
The Lap Ninja
We weren't expecting or ready for her leaving,
expecting her mother would be preceding.
Let the sky weep for Socks is dead.

She was a scatty lively bundle of bouncing energy;
our evening greeter
our lap ninja
our morning friend
now in turn we mourn our friend.

I prayed to my gods to take her home
her spirit to the Summer land
her body to the mother land
and the sky wept for Socks was dead.

Thor came rumbling over head
a double Rainbow flowing gold
took her spirit, one not bold,
then Frigga took her into bed
and holds her to her breast
in her eternal rest
and we all wept for Socks is dead.

Lughnasadh

This festival was in ancient times marked by rural fairs and athletic contests to celebrate the start of the harvest season. In respect of this, I left work early on a hot & humid afternoon and let the Awen take me. At first it took me out into St. Leonards forest and past the Hammerponds (or etang des forges as the French call them), which as ever, are remarkable in their beauty. From there I dropped to the source of the River Ouse. To the pagan mind springs and the sources of rivers are special liminal places where water is born from earth and meets the sky.
But the Awen took me past the source and onto the early reaches, back to my Bardic journey and a new awakening of the ancient Anderida (pron: an-Derida) forest; the Church Covert Woodland on your Doorstep project from the Woodland Trust.
A decade ago when the wood was but 5 years old I would sit there and meditate on the way back from work. It was a regular event, about weekly for the year that I lived in the High Weald. At 5 the wood was like my children at the time, small and low, more overgrown meadow than wood. There was some wildlife but it didn't feel like a wood, more an untended garden than a wild, natural space.
Upon my return at Lughnasadh what a change had overcome it. These trees were 15 years old and it feels like an adolescent wood now, butterflies congregate on the paths and firebreaks in the wood. There's a feeling of energy and wildness in the land, an anticipation that the Green Man has the upper hand and this human visitor is just another animal interloper. Spires of purple thistle congregate at the edges of the thickening trunks and the trees are recognisable as oak, ash, hawthorn and hazel. The space had an aural duopoly; to the east it was all human, mechanical from road engineering and the sound of the A23 road. To the west it was silent, peaceful with wind nestling through trees and the hum of insect activity. I supped upon these sounds in meditation of the fruition of this wooded space and then moved on.
Moving on I retraced my steps to the source of the Ouse; Slaugham (pron: Slaff'am) Pond and onto the thrill of the winter worn minor roads of the Sussex Weald that needs reactive nerves and bunny hops with fast twitches to keep my black racing hound of a bike, at high velocity, gyroscopic-ally upright. I came back aching and alive, with the drudgery of a dank basement corporate office left well behind.
Finally, I blotted to celebrate the festival with a chocolate milk shake and cleansed myself in the shower. All in all a sunny time as befits the festival.

Litha Journey :To the Sacred Ancient Land

Midsummer's morning started with an opening ritual to mark the high point of the year.  Then the nerves kicked in; a long ride always has its risks of failure through lack of preparation, accident or bad luck.  Mind you I've often felt that bad luck in these situations is the land Alf's, or trail gods, way of causing growth which can be spiritual, emotional or mental.
Preparation discovered that my big long day pack had rotted over the damp winter, after cursing an alternative to my 3 litre water bladder was implemented.  I'd use the 1.5 litre bladder and make use of the water points that occur regularly on the South Downs Way (SDW). 
I headed out  and my original plan was to sneak some footpaths to my childhood village and cross the Adur there.  Although the Summer growth has been late one look at the back footpath indicated that the land alf's would inflict much pain via stinging nettles and brambles so I stuck to the proper route.  This was gloriously vindicated once I crossed the Adur and two Goldfinches led the way procession like, by fence hopping either side, up the rise to King's Barn Lane.

Then to the white road and the top ridge of the SDW which led neatly to my first meditatory pause at Cissbury via the first off road adrenalin infusing speed descent and endorphin raising climb up the eastern side of the ancient hill fort.  The meditation brought forward the theme of this soul ride; the ancestor's relationship to the sacred landscape. 
As I stood and looked at the panorama of the landscape with their eyes I noticed the dip to the Northwest in the folds of the Downland, the area of Samhuin and realm of the ancestors.  It was also a direct line to my furthest sacred point of this ride.  A spiritually significant flush infused me and this energy drove North in the clear line of sight to their sky temple at Chanctonbury Ring.  From Cissbury, Albion's 2nd largest hill fort, the wide and still well used dirt track leads to the ancient Temple site.  For centuries now it has been a well known grove of trees providing a navigational reference point to the people of the mid-Sussex Weald just as the Temple must have done for our Bronze and Iron Age ancestors.

Upon reaching the Ring the mizzle threatened by the brooding slate clouds arrived.  Just as I was wondering if, as a friend who follows a more eclectic 'heeby-jeeby' path asserts, the energy here is foreboding or, as I feel, welcoming an ancient Beech presented herself to me.  This was a tree, one of the few who had survived the great storm of '87 now hollowed with rot and the gnawings of insects.  Just like Yggdrasil suffers the gnawing of the creatures around it.  Her hollow hid my trunk from the Southwesterly wind and cold damp air to sip some water, snack on trail treats and perform my second meditation.  The initial thought was upon time and how now, 25 years later, the holes in the glorious grove have almost healed with the growth of the saplings planted to replace the trees lost in that storm.  This led to how this Grove has been constantly in my sight for the 46 years I've lived and how she led me to understand the silliness of human racial perceptions; this old Besom wise tree held me and saw past genetics...
So she asked me about  the air that I'd breathed, the food that I had eaten and the water that I'd drunk.
Where are these things from she asked?  Sussex, mostly, I answered. 
So what are you made from she asked? Sussex, mostly, I answered.
How often does your human body replace it's cells?  Regularly I answered, over a period of years.
How many years have you been in Sussex she asked?
All my life, mostly.
So why do you worry that you're not from Sussex?   Because I was not born here and my parents and grandparents and their grandparents were not born here I replied.
But you are made of Sussex she answered firmly. 
Thank you I replied.  So there's the answer to any 'folkish' folk!  It's not race or creed or any of our human petty tribal differences that decide where you are from but the air, fluids and food that make you.
To the Gewessi this means eating and drinking local organic foods.  Our ancestors knew this and between the Romans and the Abrahamic religions our culture has forgotten but the Gods of our land have not.

Onwards and it was time to slip down the gap to the land of the Ancestors after the land of the Alfs at Cissbury and the land of the Gods at Chanctonbury.  Two more adrenalin fuelled descents with a dragging climb inbetween to Sullington Warren.  Upon reaching this bowl of Barrows I can understand that our ancestors were both spiritual and practical.  The sandy soil here is both easy to dig and would be better for preserving their dead plus I would prefer to be buried in dry comfortable loamy sand over the claggy, wet oppressive clay that is the rest of the Weald.  That this, and I'm moving into conjectural territory here, is Northwest of the primary social and defensive structure in the area would seem to have been fortuitously provided by the Gods to the ancient people.  Looking at the pictures the size and number of the Barrows suggest a lot of people over a number of years.  Excavation has indicated that pagan Saxons reused Iron Age barrows which suggests a continuity of belief between the Sussex 'Celts' and the Sussex 'Saxons'.
Views around the Warren at the Barrows :

The 22 mile return home left me able to contemplate and review the meditation. which led to further questions and future investigations around my conjecture.
Were Cissbury, Chanctonbury & Sullington the focal point of the Sussex people?
When could this have happened, just Bronze Age, just the Iron Age or as a continuum?
What other large barrow complexes are there in Sussex?
How far would those people want to travel to bury their dead?
What other temples are there and how do they relate to the landscape and thus the people?
Gewessi is a neo pagan path and this sacred Midsummer's ride has taught me there is still much to do to understand what Mediterranean and Levantine  cultural veneers have overwritten.
Those Finches were a very good omen of the Gold that is out in them there hills.

Meditation

Ancient monument;
The land elf firmament.
Rising coolly through Delling's doors
Into famed fortress of Sunna's daze;
Spirit land immanent.

Bretagne

Swift squadrons over
A green gently rolling land.
Home to Lancelot, Brocéliande,
My heart is all a quimper
At the rock of Fae.