Lammas I completely forgot about. Michaelmas I was vaguely aware of, but not in such a way as to do anything about it.
It’s a shame: I was enjoying marking every one.
I don’t need to worry about Hallowe’en though. Certain people in our house will not let me forget that one!
This was the sky here at dawn yesterday:
Yes, I was up and taking pictures from around 4am: I’m loving the long days at the moment. We were reading by daylight until about 10 o’clock last night in bed: we haven’t used the bedside lamp all week.
5.45am was the powerful time, according to Wikipedia and I wanted to do something with it but then didn’t in the end, for one reason and another.
We’re celebrating a birthday here anyway today: my Solstice baby, so there’s always cake, candles, feast and gifts at this time anyway for us.
I feel like the time for planting is over for this year now, but will probably be doing a little bit more of it anyway in weeks to come. My thoughts are already turning to next year’s work: building new beds and making other improvements – even before we’ve started to harvest anything.
You can see the flames if you look very closely.
Let me know when you’ve stopped laughing.
I don’t know which bit of my calendar I was looking at yesterday when I wrote my last post!
Anyway, we’re having our Beltane barbeque today, instead of yesterday due to me getting the date wrong. Still, it’s the period of time that’s important, not necessarily one particular day. I suggested a makeshift maypole to the teenagers, but they weren’t very keen on the idea, so I’ve been reading Wikipedia for other ideas.
It’s traditionally the time in which herds of livestock were driven out to the summer pastures and mountain grazing lands, but sadly they were fresh out of herds of livestock at Tesco’s, so I don’t think we’re going to manage that part.
Oh, I see the Scots celebrated May Day on the 15th, and the Irish on the 13th. This makes me feel slightly better about ours being on the 2nd instead of the 1st then.
We could light a big fire up here on the hill.. and indeed I was tempted to burn our mound of brambles, especially after one of them poked me in the eye the other week, but it’s a bit close to a certain elder tree that I’m very fond of and don’t want singeing.
I think we might light something up there though.
The Maybough of Rowan is easy enough: we’ve got that growing in the field and will bring some home to decorate with ribbons.
I quite fancy making a pilgrimage to a holy well too, but suspect we might not have time today.
According to my calendar, Beltane is tomorrow, not today!
Hmm.. I want to do some research about it though, but am feeling sort of all blogged out for today.
Maybe later.
Fires! It’s about fires, isn’t it?
And flowers?
Sort of, maybe.
Hmm.
It turned into a bit of a monster, really. The children made marzipan shapes to put on the top and we all blew the candles out. There’s something about blowing out candles and making wishes, isn’t there? We do it here at the slightest excuse.
So it’s the run up to the Solstice now. Three months of planting, watering, weeding, digging, building, cleaning and organising. We made a start on the new house yesterday and there now, still, seems to be more to do than we’ve possibly got time for, but we’ll just have to do what we can.
Today is the Vernal Equinox, or Ostara. In our house, Easter starts here. Halfway to the solstice, we’re loving the longer days and shorter nights, and there have been some glorious sunny spring days recently. I’ve managed to peg my washing out:
We’ve got spring flowers by the front door:
And of course, we’ve been planting – with much more of that still to do.
To me, this feels like a time of great energy. There’s a rush to get everything done, and it feels like there’s so much to do! But today I’m forcing myself to slow down, relax and enjoy the day. When I started this blog I said I wanted to try to feel the movements of the calendar, if possible, which means allowing myself the time to do so. Accordingly, I stayed up late finishing today’s review post last night, so that it wasn’t pressing on me today, and we shopped yesterday evening too.
Today we’re celebrating: not just the equinox, but also the first cut of Ali’s new house. Yes, today is the day: we’ve had it planned all week. I’m only glad it’s not pouring with rain! But we’d have done it anyway, even if it was.
“…as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over”, says Wikipedia
Was yesterday a day of foul weather? It depends on your perspective, I think.
From the inside of our warm kitchen, it just looked beautiful:
But if you were trying to get home on the blocked up bypass last night, it probably looked fairly foul:
That’s the chain of lights in the centre, there.
I don’t think it was a great day for “gathering firewood for the rest of the winter” either, as is also mentioned on that page. We did ours on the day before – the boys went out and cut some of the old shed wood for the stove, which burned nicely for our Candlemas feast fire, and we had candles of course:
… and candlecake…
But I keep telling myself that it’s not just a day. Imbolc is a whole period of time: the six weeks or so running up to Easter, just as Christmas or Yule relates to the weeks between then and now. It’s not so long ago that people left their evergreen Yule decorations up in the house until Candlemas eve. Perhaps a house is meant to be decorated for each festival, until the next one. We might think about doing something like that.
So, what is it a time of? Keeping warm, obviously. Making sure there’s enough fuel and candles until the winter’s end, and perhaps using up any excess supplies. Sorting out the seeds and planning the planting, as I’ve been doing this week. Preparing the ground for the new seeds, tidying up, gearing up for a busy spring.
It’s also the time of the natural hungry gap, when the last of the old brussel sprouts is eaten, and the dried pulses and the contents of the root cellars are emptied – the time called Lent, by Christians. “This word initially simply meant spring and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.” Oh yes – that’s the other thing this is the time for, isn’t it? Watching the days growing longer.
.. and it seems appropriate to get my planting schedule sorted out, which is one of the things I plan to work on today and tomorrow, and to blog about it all over there.
We’ve also got candles ready, and I’m hoping someone will cut some firewood today as well. I quite fancy making an Imbolc ritual cake too. You can put a lot of power into the stirring of a cake, can’t you? 
PS: I like this idea: “In France, Candlemas (French: La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes, which must be eaten only after eight p.m. If the cook can flip a crêpe while holding a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the coming year”!
(Not sure if I’ll be able to stay up cooking crêpes after 8pm though..)
.. that spring is not on its way!
Here’s a pot of hyacinth bulbs, sitting in our yard yesterday in the warm sunshine:
Those are green shoots. They are! Take a closer look:
So it’s Imbolc on Monday. I’m planning my planting schedule this week, and I’ve already bought my early potato seeds.
OK, there might be still some cold weather to come, but to me, it’s definitely nearly springtime.
 | lotusbirther on It’s tomorrow! |
| lotusbirther on Here is our Beltane fire |
 | Gill on Equinox |
| Gill on Equinox cake |
| lotusbirther on Equinox cake |
