Beautfil Day

Last night finished as it started really... With my stomach giving me trouble... Then I made it worse by letting the dog out in the dark and managing to kick my toe on something. Unfortunately I managed to get the one toe with a bad nail so I added a fresh cut to it.

So F came home this morning to find a tired me. We had a chat and a laugh and then he left me to sleep. I wasn't overly fussed about going out but F made it clear he wanted to so I suggested going to get an aerosol to clean my laptop. I knew something was up when he got his flip flops and the camera.

He wouldn't admit to a plan but we ended up in Mevagissey. This is a lovely tourist town / fishing village with a beautiful harbour which is still in use by fishing boats (we saw one come in laden with fish and sea gulls following it in trying to steal them). We looked in a few touristy gift shops at pictures and crafty things before heading to the harbour.

The first thing we saw of interest was a dogfish lying at the edge of the water being attacked by a seagull. We walked on round. The sea was as flat as a mill pool. The waters in the harbour were clear and allowed you to see the seaweeds turn the harbour into a forest with so many different types... We climbed the outer harbour wall and looked out to sea. We spotted a jellyfish drifting along.

Mevagissey has a lovely view of St Austell Bay including Gribben Head where a day marker stands. This is a huge stripey tower that used to be a lighthouse. The Fowey estuary drains into the bay and ferries run between Fowey and Mevagissey.

As we left Mevagissey I spotted a sign to St Ewe. This rang a bell as I had never been there but Miss*R who lives in Australia recently told me that the earliest of her ancestors on her family tree came from St Ewe. So I got F to make a slight detour...

St Ewe turned out to be a lovely village. The heart of the village is a square with the remains of a celtic cross. We entered the square between the village pub and the lock up and parked there. I dragged F into the churchyard where there was a beautiful and very traditional church which seemd at odds with the palm trees in the graveyard!

We wandered and looked at the intricate grave stones and then I spotted an opening in the wall and some steps down. I followed them and discovered a board walk a board walk through a wooded boggy area. At the far end was a stream choked with plants that obviously only flowed properly some of the time. It felt a special area to me...

It was obviously attached to the church and obviously attention had been paid to it in order tomake it so accessible. Most old churches are built on sites that were already considered sacred. In Cornwall the ancient sites were venerated and became holy themselves. This had the feel of a holy site, an ancient holy site.

The only mention of this I have managed to find online is a reference on this website to a spring rising in the churchyard. But it is there and beautiful.

So Miss*R can be proud to come from an ancient and beautiful village with a holy (probably) spring and an ancient celtic cross. St Ewe herself has been lost in the mists of time pretty much....

So we left and returned home where we grabbed Little Dog and went to the chippie before driving on to Godrevy. We ate and then took her for a walk up onto the top of the headland and watched the sun set and reflect gloriously off the clouds in swirls of fuschia and violet.

We would have stayed longer but a large insect flew towards us closely followed by a bird. The bird narrowly missed catching it because it decided it didn't want to collide with F. The insect flew on and the bird had another go but the bug flew to me and took a liking to my hair. It repeatedly flew at me even when released form my hair. It was the size of a large bumble bee but slightly longer in the body and it buzzed very loud and I didn't want it in my hair... So we left and although it hitched a ride on my back, we eventually managed to leave it behind...

Photos to follow....

Rock

I remember the first time I came across it, on a drive from one place to another, long forgotten. It seemed to rise out of the ground, dark and brooding and fascinating. I asked a friend from that area about it and my brief glimpse was fleshed out and I learnt it could be climbed....

I always intended to go back but never had. One time we nearly went but it was a windy old day and didn't the most sensible plan.

Today however, we went back and I caught maybe my third look at it. This was the first time I had ever stopped to look, let alone considered climbing it.

The nearby village is called Roche which means rock in Cornish. It is not hard to see why for Roche's Rock sits just outside. The area around it is normal cornish heath with the odd granite boulder. A low hill grows out of the plateau and on top of this hill there are a number of pieces of granite jutting. Some are like jagged knives sticking out of the ground while others are lumps of rock dumped.

Many photos make it look a dark and brooding place but I think this is the contrast between rock and sky as seen by the camera. I felt no darkness there and certainly no sense of brooding. I could have stayed there forever, on top, in the sun, with a book and a flask of soup.

Once the hill has been climbed and a path wended through the rock knives to the foot of the biggest rock, you find a ladder bolted onto the rock which takes you up to a ledge. On this ledge is a wall with a doorway. This leads into the ruin of the chapel built in 1409 and dedicated to Saint Michael.

The chapel would have been two storeys high and a second ladder leads up to the top of the remains of the old stair case and then through a door, up some turning granite steps and you find an open precipice. Another doorway leads back on yourself so you can look down into the chapel and walk across the top of the granite, level with the old second floor.

I felt so at peace up there, even though I was not alone and other visitors were around.

There are many legends and it seems at one time a hermit lived in the cell of the ground floor of the chapel. The giant Tregeagle once trapped his head in the large upper window. It has been proposed by some that it must have been a religous focus long before the chapel was built. Some say the place is sinister. The rock has also provided a refuge for doomed lovers, from the hounds of hell and to many pios folk who became early religious figures in Cornwall and are remembered as local saints. I don't want to delve into the legends to far though, because they are somehow at odds with how the place made me feel...

One day I will go there on a quiet day, by myself, and sit, and watch, the clouds drift by....
From the half way up the low hill. The two stacks of granite are not joined in the middle and a path leads between the two.


Between the two main stacks, the chapel looms.
You can just see the first doorway in this photo, with it's ledge and the ladder up to it.
View from in the chapel back through the first door to the ledge, notice how there isn't much land through the door!
The top of the second ladder, in the chapel, leading to the second door. behind the wall, stairs climb to the left to the third door which is shown on the left. S climbed up the stone steps to nearly the third door but the openess up there was too much for him to continue!
View through the third door. Do you notice how there, again, isn't much land! The rock drops straight down.
From the third door the top of the rocks stretches along for the sure footed. This was as far as I went but there were climbers up there who went all the way to the far edge, twice as far as I went. You can see the second door and the window in which the giant Tregeagle got his head stuck. Really not for the feint-hearted!

Did I mention that Cornwall is so beautiful that this isn't even a major tourist attraction....

The Jigsaw in my Head (a work forever in progress)

I had a post in my head last night but the lure of the bath and a good book to finish before bed was just sooooo tempting, I couldn't resist.

The post is linked to the book anyhow. I tend to have two books on the go at a time: a bath book for when I spend time in the bathroom and a car book for reading at work during lunch. My just finished bath book was Forests of the Heart by Charles de Lint and my car book is Brida by Paulo Coelho.

Earlier this year, our wonderful British TV stations aired two series that I series linked and found very interesting: Christianity, A History and Around the World in 80 Faiths. Both of these series spent a little time in South America. I hadn't understood how christianity has been taken by other countries and merged with their older believes. I hadn't known that christianity is so much more vibrant in other countries. I had no idea.

I love the way these peoples are taking the best of both and combining it to suit themselves. I think we did this ourselves a long time ago, hence the enshrining of many of our folk religion dates in the Christian calendar. We did it when we created Celtic Christianity in the Dark Ages. Celtic Christianity was what grew from the Celts mystical roots when the Romans left and took their political Roman Catholic church with them. I believe it was a view of christianity that was far truer to Jesus's vision than the church Constantine created.

I think that the spirit of christianity that lives in South America is far closer to Celtic Christianity. There seems to be a much more mystical touch to both. The spirits of the spirit world can live far more easily alongside Celtic Christianity and the other newer, more vibrant forms of Christianity arising around the world.

In Forests of the Heart, one of the main characters is a Curandera from the Sonara Desert who also has a strong faith but manages to combine the both. I had never realised before that this combining is something common to where she came from, to varying degrees, not something unique to her character in her book.

It also helps me understand Paulo Coelho's background and writings better. I can understand now where his religious, spiritual, mystical stories draw on the growing and changing culture of his homeland. Although Brida is set in Ireland, the same energy of Paulo as a writer is there.

It also helps me fit in the writings of Carlos Castaneda which read some years ago. It is as if by understanding a bit more of what is going on down in South America, it has helped me link together several pieces of the jigsaw that is this world. I like it when things come together in my head and some understanding is reached. I find a great satisfaction in learning and an even greater one in understanding.

The Faith of my Fathers

One thing about my recent spirituality kicj which has been different from past spirituality kicks is that I seem to have come to terms with Christianity. I no longer feel like I have a problem with Christian people just because I didn't feel happy with Christianity as a child. I no longer have a problem with Christianity as a whole. I can happily go into a church and have been to my first church service (except weddings etc) since my teenage rebellion.

When I was a child I went to a school that had been set up for the children of missionaries. Many of the staff were very Christian and the school was a safe place to life and practice their faith. As such Christianity was all around as I grew up. Assembly every day. Religious Studies was treated with the same seriousness as Maths or English. Organisations such as the Girls Crusader Union had a home in my school. I was a Girl Crusader and oh how that makes me cringe now I know a little more about the Crusades.

For all this religious zeal, the people seemed no better or worse than people elsewhere. Some in fact were downright unpleasant and no amount of believe in love and turning the other check ever seemed like it could change that. The history of Christianity seemed to focus only on the parts where Christians had been persecuted or the love message had suceeded. The whole bible was looked at, however I now think that the parts chosen were the nice parts, the parts that fitted with the nicey nice goody two shoes-ness of it all.

I couldn't accept it. I couldn't find a church where I felt that faith was truly the motivating force in the community. Of course I now know that I was missing the most important part of it all, community. People of no faith could quite happily be accepted in a church but sharing of faith is deemed necessary these days. When I was young, people went to church whether they believed or not, it was something they did as a community, together.

By being given a choice in our religion, we have turned away from Christianity but as a result we have lost much of our community. Obviously there are exceptions and Christian communities haven't died but the number of vicars in the UK is dwindling. Church congrgations are dwindling. Most vicars look after several churches and the childhood memory of visiting my local church each week is now an impossibility in most places.

The other thing we are slowly losing is our traditions. The political histoy of christianity shows that local communities imbued chrisitianity with their own traditions and meanings. A recent series on the BBC called 'Around the World in 80 Faiths' has shown that Christianity differswildly around the world. Much of what Christians do in some countries looks very other to me with overtones of Judaism, Paganism and a million other local traditions and variations and memories of long lost local faiths.

There seem to be two threads in the history of Christianity, the political thread and the mystical thread. The political thread is that started by Constantine's (a Roman Emperor) taking up of Christianity and using it as a political tool of unification and as a justification for the just war. This continued through Great Britain's move away from Celtic Christianity, the reformation, King Henry the Eights creation of the Church of England, the religios troubles of Ireland and it continues to this day.

Originally Christianity was a fringe faith where they really did practice being poor and loving thy neighbour. Constantine derailed all this. When the Roman empire fell, Roman Catholicism did not but it did retract it's reach for a time. Christianity remained in the British Isles, in particular in Ireland at first. The Celtic Christianity was much more mystical and reverted back to it's followers being poor and a much more basic interpretation of the Bible.

The Irish sent out missionaries to the rest of the British Isles which by this time had been invaded by the Angles and over run with paganism again. Mostly these missionaries reached the Celtic areas of Britain, such as Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. At this time the Roman Catholics reappeared in England bringing law and writing and belonging to a community of European Christian nations. This community drew Britain away from Celtic Christianity and towards Catholicism although much of the celtic areas of Britain have retained a different feel to the England.

I can't forget that my fore fathers have been Christians for generations now. They followed the traditions that I was bought up in. They bought to their faith all the things that their families taught them. The Christianity they followed contains the seeds of their earliest faiths. Christianity is mine. My community. My traditions. My religious sites since my ancestors first began to worship. Why should I have to turn my back on all these because I can not believe in the God of the Christians or condone some of the acts of Christianities history caused by it's link to politic?

It is all my heritage, every last bit of it. But my faith is my own.

Lull

I am sat here with no thought as to what to say. Big Dog decided he couldn't get through the night without going out ( a sign of his advancing years? *sigh*) and I am the light sleeping one. I am also the one who needs their sleep the most. I am tired.

Although whatever was wrong last week has abated somewhat, my ankles are no longer swollen. My skin is still awful but I think this is due to hormones. A few days before I always get a real low period. Even if nothing is wrong, I always get a few hours when I feel awful for no obvious reason. Maybe it is this short term malaise about to hit... I have never ever found a way of avoiding this. I am not sure there is one.

Work saunters on at it's own pace and my new colleague is fine really, I guess, apart from being a bit of a neanderthal. Oh and the flirting with our lady boss, definitely made me smile a little. Especially as they are both single and my boss was flirting back...Definitely not my type but then it is horses for courses.

I would rather have a Quasimodo (not that I have) with a heart of gold (F definitely has one of those) than a hunk who feels I have to be defended by someone with that odd, slightly sexist attitude some physically tough men have. I want a partnership of equals in my relationship. I may moan about F sometimes but he is my partner and the best part of my life. Suddenly sex is present in my work environment, not just flirting but his very presence and interests have bought discussion of young ladies into my little sphere of existence. I don't like it, it makes me uncomfortable.

This is not his fault, it is mine. It is my fear. It is the source of it all. It is where my lack of self confidence, my agoraphobia started, with a man not so disimilar to him in attitudes. It is something that in all these years I have never been able to erase. It is not this new man's fault and I shouldn't tar him with the same brush. It is not something I actually agree with.

I have been thinking about all this today and it occured to me that this chap has many of the attributes of the Horned God. I have struggled with patriarchal religion for the longest time, probably because of my experiences growing up at a Christian school. I find it hard to revere the more blatantly masculine aspects. I have gotten better at this but maybe this man's presence here in my life right now is by way of a test of the green man sort...

Talking of Christianity, I have been watching the BBC's 'A History of Christianity' and it has made intriguing viewing. I find it odd that my Christian School which was able to make up it's own curriculum left so much out. They talked of persecution done unto them but not of the persecution they did unto others. They never mentioned the link between politics and the spread of christianity. It has helped me understand the things I have been learning about the early christianity of Cornwall within a broader picture. At some point I shall write more on this all I expect as I find this history fascinating...

The Hidden

Last night F and I went for a walk. Only a little one to get some milk but we went the long way. We walked places we don't normally walk. I guess I had known it was there. One day as I walked along the wall, the door had been open and I had had the merest glimpse inside. I guess I also knew that there had to be a public gate on the other side, tucked up an alleyway. We found that gate last night and the yew trees glistened with snow and beckoned me. By this time however, F was cold and hungry and wanted to go home. He also had no desire to visit a cemetery at night.

I guess I can understand that. Doesn't hold for me though. I like graveyards. I always have. My parents are bell ringers and I found myself left to my own devices in many a church as I was growing up. Churches themselves and churchyards are pretty awesome places. Full of history. The churchyards are little nature reserves in their own right and have many interesting nooks and crannies to explore. Of course I am not talking about bleak modern cemeteries, they are something else again. I had no idea at that age that although I would turn somewhat from Christianity, that I would revere some of these places in a different way as I remember their pagan roots.

One of the events that stayed with me was as follows. I was a fairly disgusting sort of a child. I liked to get mucky. So when I was poking around in a corner of a church and found some vases with mould in the bottom, I of course picked up the mould. The mould gently shook itself in my hand and a head appeared. We watched each other for the longest time. I stood still in awe, not wanting to scare this little beast I held. Eventually he gathered himself and flew off into the growing dusk to catch an early insect. Not surprisingly, I have always loved bats and never felt even slightly scared of them. In Summer while at my folks I love to lie on my back on the grass and watch them fly overhead.

This morning I received the happy news that work was closed for the day and I had no need to brave the icy roads. I knew straight away that I would head for this churchyard. The Cornish of old can broadly be divided into three categories, miners, farmers and fishermen. There is no shortage of granite to carve and because of the mining links, there was no shortage of skill. It is no surprise then that the stones in this graveyard are so very intricate. There is a plethora of crosses and carvings of flowers. The Cornish gravestones are so very much more intricate than those where I grew up.

I have no idea how many times I have walked and driven past the graveyards far wall. Only one or two of the nearby houses have a view into the cemetery. Only the supermarket that has caused this little oasis to become a backwater has a good view from their office windows. I was the first there, fresh snow all around. I could see the last snow shower being carried off and the sky was shining blue.

As I was walking around I was thinking about my latest e-life venture. I have joined a group called creativity every day. To be more creative was one of the wishes I made for new Year which I encased in a seed and flung to the wind last night. It was one wish I made as I planted a sunflower seed at the Imbolc ceremony I went to.

Creativity for me is something I lost and have had to regain. As a child I wrote huge long imaginative stories, often with chunks missing as my hand struggled to keep up with my head. The need for spelling and punctuation and shorter sentences intruded and I slowly lost much of the raw passion I had felt for writing. I liked art but this too eventually died in me when I became ill. Art was a superfluous subject and as my load had to be lightened it went. Somehow there never seemed time for art after that and although it lingered in my life, by the time I reached University, this to had left me. I also wrote poetry as a teenager and I guess you can figure out what happened to that to.

I studied science and this has trained my brain to be logical and rational and reasonable. There was no time for art while studying hard to achieve a first in Environmental Science. There was no time for much else at all (except partying). Creativity died in my life. It slowly became apparent to me that I had lost something I valued and wanted back. I took a jewellery class and slowly gained skill with beads. I have been expanding my craft repotoire of late and have experimented with papier mache, modelling and silk painting. I want more! I don't want to just be crafty creative, I want to be arty creative as well.

I feel like my creativity is a little like the graveyard. It is there in the midst of the community but forgotten and lost. There is a gate but it is forgotten and little used. Craft has been a gate but I hope to make holes in the wall with art and bring my graveyard back into the community. Unfortunately the little graveyard will continue to nestle behind walls, mostly forgotten...

CED seems like the perfect opportunity. It has links to a huge variety of crafty, arty, creative people and their work is inspiring. I consider this blog to be creative and as the starter of CED says creativity can be found in even more mundane things such as cooking. This sort of ethos fits in very well with that of my hearth craft course as well, where the mundane can be magical. So some days my blog may be it, particularly after work but on other days I will try and cook creatively or something...

One plan I have is to use a couple of pack of blank postcards. Being small and white they are perfect for experimenting with colour and form in a small non-threatening way. If I can complete a card a day, I may find that my skill and creativity grows. I would love to gain skill at drawing and painting et al. I intend to scan these in and post them, probably mostly without comment. I also intend to post once a week on my creative activities as a summary. Word Wednesday will be my creative activity for Wednesday!

Heavy Ritual

For the first time since I was a young teenager I have gone to a church service that wasn't a wedding. And my word! What a service!

F and I went to Truro Cathedral for Midnight Mass. A completely new thing for both of us. Both of us grew up attending church as was common at that time. It was a community thing and nothing else happened on Sundays. He went to a very relaxed Methodist Church and I to a little villagey C of E. Neither of us had ever been to Mass before and had no idea what to expect. I suspect that Mass at either of our childhood churches would have been very different.

There was an organist who could have played in the most fearsome of gothic horrors. With fantastic solos that were somewhat awe inspiring in their dazzling complicatedness. The old organist at my childhood church was more humorous than skilled. One time she skipped a whole page and didn't notice.

The voices of the choir were astounding! The acoustics of the cathedral threw their voices around. The highest notes soared... The technical audacity of the arrangements they were singing...

The cathedral was pretty much full with only the occasional seat empty. All the reponses were uttered by the huge crowd as one. The tone of a crowd talking together is incredible. A deep resonant sound that you can almost feel vibrate through you...

The building itself is pretty astounding. It is a little different from other ccathedrals up country. There are no huge paintings or plaster mouldings. If there is one thing the Cornish know how to work then it is stone. The pattern of the stones is so precise. The carvings are so intricate. The use of different types of stone is so intricate in places... And the ceiling floats far above...

Even the sermon was good and amusing in places while bringing a new (to me) perspective to the Christmas story... How common is that?

I guess I have grown up a little. I will no longer turn my back on the church because I can not believe or agree with everything in Christianity. The church is my heritage and the tradition of my upbringing. There is much to take from it and enjoy. If I look at it as my tradition rather than my faith then why shouldn't I go and enjoy it? It doesn't threaten my beliefs. I don't threaten others belief or enjoyment by being there.

So much in the church is pagan anyway... I can worship aspects of the Horned God... Finally. Didn't take many years for that to happen... Did I ever mention I can be stubborn?