Lammastide/Lughnasadh LightFest, Lionsgate, Two Full Moons in August +Tropical Cyclones & Hurricanes
LAMMASTIDE/LUGHNASADH LIGHTFEST, LIONSGATE, TWO FULL MOONS in AUGUST plus TROPICAL CYCLONES and HURRICANES
AUGUST EMERGING FROM SUBTERRANEAN (WATER-FILLED)WRITING CAVERN 2 GREET HEAT & then DIVE BACK DOWN BELOW SURFACE for MUSE-DIRECTED COOL
Euro Heatwave Hits All-time High, Ocean ‘HotTub’ temps in Florida
While tourists dive into Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain to keep cool, and Florida residents stay indoors w/ air conditioning on full blast, rather than take a dip in the Ocean at their local beach, then you know something weird is controlling our weather.
So, what’s up in Paradise?
Even Paradise Island resort-a short boat trip across the Florida Straits in Bahamian waters, connected by bridge from Nassau-reports their young honeymooners-along with older patrons-are hogging the indoor bar, rather than luxury poolside deckchairs on the lanai outside.
Music festival-goers are struggling to hear performers on stage from their ice-filled coolers set as a barricade under umbrellas to ward off (mosquitoes &) heat!
“June too soon; July stand by; August come it must; September remember; October all over”
Old Bahamian hurricane rhyme, now outdated
Helping Wildlife in the Heat
Meanwhile Europeans are struggling with triple digit [Fahrenheit]temperatures in a summer where many have agreed to conserve/enhance natural wildlife in farmland & natural parks-pix top middle: wilderness Glenfeshie rewilding preserve & lower l. Aberdeenshire private Scots pine replanting, w/protected 1826 Douglas Fir, upper rt brought as seedling from Pacific NW by David Douglas, given as gift to Moderator Church of Scotland whose residence it was at that time. Other pix top include protected species-wren; honey bee, w/ local shared beehive within same garden; Kirkton of Bourtie, ABD. Harvest, usually the domain of combine harvesters end August/September top lower rt, in full swing before end July 2023.
Irish god of Light, Lugh—from whom derives August fire festival of Lammas [Lughnasadh] is celebrated still, albeit camouflaged as Nevada desert’s Burning Man; but in ancient times the last handful of grain/sheaf of barley, oats, wheat was woven into a ‘corn dolly’ and hung on doorways & celebrated with bonfires after a field was cleared. The Lammas fire festival is still held by some communities in Scotland’s Northern Isles: it lasts for six weeks— from 3 weeks before>3 weeks after August 1st.
Lammas is happening NOW.
Unst in Shetland holds both the record for longest-lasting Lammas fire festival AND Hermaness, most northerly cherished headland of protected sea-birds, including puffin, greater & lesser kittywake, cormorant, black-backed gull, herring gull and guillemot.
The Gertrude Jekyll rose, top centre, bred by David Austin to commemorate the British horticultural genius & garden creator in her work with architect/life-long partner Edwin Lutyens. Together they designed English formal gardens, including Lindisfarne Castle, N.umberland, the Cenotaph,London.
Harvest this year progresses a month ahead of schedule in Scotland—c.f. winter solstice pic from 2002-20yr ago humour-farmer only just finished baling November, rolled them into position round RSC Kirkton of Bourtie ABD in lieu of missing megaliths -author photo aligned SSW to midwinter sunset viewed from Manse Glebe
Two Full Supermoons, August 1 & 30, 2023 Bright as Daylight
First supermoon of August—the full “Sturgeon” moon, according to Native American lore, is August 1st full moon, with its sister full Blue Moon (two occurring in one month) on August 30th, after the sun moves out of summery Leo into autumnal Virgo. A supermoon is one which nearly coincides with perigee—or, the closest the (full or new) Moon comes to the Earth along its elliptical orbit.
During Lionsgate-8/8 starting July 28 thru August 12, this year’s full Sturgeon Moon coincides w/ Delta Aquarid meteor shower which, because of the moon’s brilliance, may only be visible as sparkles in the sky, or completely outshone altogether.
Our Oversoul Shining thru 8/8 Lionsgate
Those who believe in the opportunity given by the Universal Consciousness to us hoomans in opening the Lionsgate on August 8th each year call themselves followers of Telosians—invisible beings who live in a subterranean cavern inside Mt. Shasta, accessible from a pool in central Mt. Shasta City-itself the source of the Sacramento River; and from snow-lined slopes of the great peak herself near Weed, CA.
Lionsgate 2023 is open between July 28-August 12th, with its peak on 8/8/23. Astro chart 11:11a.m. EST/03:11p.m. UT 08:11a.m. PDT/05a.m. Hawai’i ST Hilo,HI
Astrotheme chart shows detailed focus at midHeaven/MC Cancer with potent cluster round Sun, Venus retrograde in Leo. Grand trine of planets Mercury/Mars in earth sign Virgo with Jupiter, Moon & Uranus in Taurus & Pluto R in Aquarius-sign of ‘Great Awareness’ aka ‘big picture’ ❤
Saturn Retrograde awash in watery Pisces can inflict no harm in his solitude rocked by fellow Uranus R in its topsy turvy orbit.
This year Hawai’i & mid-Pacific islands e.g. Midway, Guam, French Frigate Shoals (pix below top & bottom rt) receive 8/8 energy first, with California, Oregon, WA, Alaska & Mexico next in line.
Significantly, Lionsgate opens end July, strengthening until its climax 8/8 & then diminishes until it closes on “Glorious Twelfth”.
Oldies from Scotland [‘Olde Countrie] may recall this was a day when lairds & their visitors to estates from Aberdeenshire thru Banffshire, to Moray & Inverness [also Argyll, Perthshire & thru Devil’s Elbow by way of Braemar & Cabrach in Highlands, to Caithness & Sutherland] took elaborate picnics-carried by servants-to remote shooting grouse moors; men of the party supplied with guns/women champagne while they wantonly massacred every flying creature in sight—from black grouse, to ptarmigan, even accidental crows, buzzards, eagle & blackbirds if they got in their line of fire. Subsequently, rich purple heather moorland [food source for grouse] was burned to ‘encourage’ a new crop for next year’s sport.
Polynesians & Hawai’ians Celebrate British Return of Sovereignty- mid-Pacific ‘Independence Day’ Festival La Ho’iho’i Ea
Seafaring Polynesians discovered Hawaii as early as A.D.200 by paddling double-hulled canoes across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean, pic below rt. When in 1778 British explorer James Cook became the first European to arrive, several chiefs ruled over different parts of the archipelago. Yet by 1810, King Kamehameha I had united Hawai’i’s eight-island chain as one kingdom.
During first half 19thC, British missionaries arrived & began to convert a population seen by them as heathen savages. American and European businessmen, hearing that the islands’ climate & landscape were perfect for growing sugar cane, began buying up plots of land.
La Ho’iho’ai Ea‘s origin links to King Kama-hameha III who on July 31,1843 succeeded in reclaiming his Hawai’ian kingdom after the British had occupied the Hawai’ian Islands for a period of five months. King Kamahameha III achievement is celebrated as Hawai’ian ‘Independence’ Day ❤
Queen Lili’uokalani took the throne in 1891 & attempted to restore rights of her people solely without interference from U.S. business interests, which her brother had allowed under duress, along with a free trade agreement that greatly favoured the islands’ Brit/U.S.sugar planters who by then controlled four-fifths of all farmable land.
In 1894 U.S. Minister to Hawai’i, John Stevens headed a conspiracy to overthrow her, ordered a nearby naval vessel to land troops ostensibly to protect U.S. residents, but surrounded the palace & told U.S.
“The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it”
John L. Stevens 1893 leading white militia Honolulu Rifles to depose Queen Lili’uokalani
The Queen agreed to step down so long as the U.S. recognized her sovereignty under law. Instead, President Grover Cleveland opposed the coup after learning she had been overthrown, and as most Hawai’ians opposed the coup, Cleveland’s administration urged for restoration of the monarchy. Instead the provisional government dug in its heels, establishing a Republic of Hawaii in July 1894.
The British did not go along with U.S. annexation, but the Queen agreed to abdicate in 1895.
When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, the islands became strategically important for U.S. troops fighting in the Philippines. Annexation of the islands happened August that year. Statehood was the next step.
There are 4,000 Polynesian residents currently in Hawai’i & both nationals celebrate La Ho’iho’ai Ea together.
Hawai’ians’ Abandon Ohana/Home for Las Vegas NV ‘Ninth Island’
Thus it is no giant leap for [Polynesian/Hawai’ian] Mankind that between 2011 & 2021, the mid-Pacific population of Clark County, NV grew by 40% to 22,000 people.
Since Covid passed, both Spring & Fall Pure Aloha Festivals have resumed at the Craig Ranch in N.Las Vegas, with authentic Hawaii’an music & dance, ukulele ‘slack key’ [open tuning in D], hula contests & more.
2023’s 17th Annual Pure Aloha Fall Festival will happen September 29th-October 2nd
Many native Hawai’ians-who grew up in the islands in simple outdoor-lifestyle homes akin to shacks at the bottom of grandpa’s garden on Oahu-have returned to their ancestral homes to visit, but have found economics of their Las Vegas life more achievable. Many now have bought homes, where ownership would have been out of reach in native Oahu or Maui, Hawai’i.
While Hawai’i governor Josh Green works hard to encourage local landowners, farming, & homegrown fruit/vegetable homesteading, Hawai’i is still considered the U.S.’s most expensive state to live in, as economics dictate importation of common household items-—from toilet rolls to automobiles—a luxury.
Dragons & Monsters—Hiding out for Centuries Waiting…Waiting…
A little light fantasy before we creative writers, Insecure scribblers, penwielders, pencil scratchers head back down our personal [rabbit hole] subterranean hideout for another session with our Muse.
Reflections of the gleaming sacred monstah icon above midpage,top l.& here, bottom rt. kept by anonymous warlock spellcaster in undisclosed [secret] location, or exposed for all to see on an historic dragon-shaped headland on 21stC Moray Firth at entrance to famed Loch Ness, above middle l., the dragon is a potent & intriguing symbol we are all drawn to.
Dutchsinse—see his Youtube channel—is an amateur volcanologist, with years of experience finding surprise geological events (& now surprise geographical ones) where the professionals forgot to look. In his latest discovery, he focuses on position of 18thC military Fort George sticking out like a #dragon’s head at the point where Loch Ness spills into the Moray Firth. On the ground it’s famed for its Garrison kirk & its founder King George IV [“fat Geordie”] who is traditionally credited with being wheeled to hunting grounds in Scotland [too hard for him to hike] & killing the nation’s last wolf.
Lying a stone’s throw across the Moray Firth at the mouth of Loch Ness-N of Inverness & the spit stretching out from Roseisle on the Black Isle across the water, the stark outline of a dragon/monster stands for all to see. Only we didn’t-until young Dutchsinse, above pic middle l. pointed it out. He elaborates how close to being the real Loch Ness Monster it is—with examples!
From my perspective, as a Pictish fanatic & believer in genealogy of the Pictish Chronicles & their Anglo-Saxon copies, it might well be the site of Pictish King Brideii whom Saint Columba [521-597] visited to try to convert to Iona version of Christianity. But the king’s chief Druid, Broichan dissuaded the king from listening and chastised Columba because in his exalted position, he should have had the [heavenly] power ‘to raise & still storms’. Columba was sent on his way without achieving his goal.
But there’s another hint for dragon-monster fans.
No modern historian has ever been able to identify Pictish king Brideii’s fortress. Urquhart Castle mound, on the W shore of Loch Ness is suggested, because of its extreme antiquity and proximity to [the monster &] Inverness; that’s in the Chronicles.
Nobody so far had proposed Fort George.
In Garrison kirk where military battalions guarding an 18thC fort gathered to worship, a miraculous stained glass window shows St.George piercing his angelic staff into his defeated opponent-a [dead] dragon. St.G is England’s patron & any six-year old can recite he killed a dragon. But how cosmic to find them here, hidden within a private chapel on a dragon-faced promontory on the edge of Monster territory.
Wildlife…and Wolves
In 1999, Dr Martyn Gorman, senior zoology lecturer at University of Aberdeen & vice chair of Mammal Society called for reintroduction of wolves to the Highlands and northern English countryside because at that time 350,000 young trees in commercial forests were being damaged by red deer.
Recently philanthropist & rewilding laird Paul Lister who bought Alladale Caledonian Forest in Sutherland North Scotland in 2003, has plans to reintroduce large carnivores into his wildlife reserve, such as wolves, lynx, and bear. He says farming interests [sheep farmers not keen] are not affected, as there is little agricultural activity in this far Northern county; and he affirms his type of reintroductions would be beneficial both to Scots tourism & economy-as it has been in the U.S.
Yellowstone Park recently reintroduced wolf into its forests.
Elk, CA is famous for its free-roaming Elk, above. One guy breathed heavily into my nostrils when I opened the car window ❤
Before we Submerge2 WritingCave, Moon Message from Dragons
Reminder: last night’s full Leo/Aquarius Moon is still 99% full tonight, only beginning to wane over the next few nights. High tides feature more than ever because Earth’s companion is so close & aligned to stir strong ocean movement. Surfers-enjoy! Beachgoers don’t bathe without proper equipment. Nature always wins.
Post scriptum
A Hawai’ian bumblebee stumbled into my medical bedchamber—its dimensions unbelievable: minimum cupcake size. But then it demonstrated that Mother Nature pairs intelligence with size. It flew [heavily-it was a hot day] towards the light of my [screen] window, put on the brakes as it got near enough to see no bee exit. Then, curving in best NASCAR style, it circled, found a gap in my cubicle curtains big enuff to buzz thru; kept on humming, aimed for the corridor with its outside glass sliding door &—clearly a highly bright boy—hovered. Could almost hear him thinking: “hoomans come in & out here”.
Sure enough, within two seconds, a nurse appeared from another ward with a bag of rubbish for the outdoor bin, punched her code into the door & yanked it sideways. Monsieur cupcake bee took off like a jet. Did I imagine it or did he turn & give me a black & gold blink from his huge eyes? Bless his little pollen socks ❤
p.p.s.
With gratitude to my much-appreciated followers<3
Bees & wolves & monstah thoughts preyed on my efforts earlier [last week’s draft prep4 blog] & my Firefox itchy finger pressed the publish button by mistake. Some of you will have read an opening title with several enormous unedited images before I managed to delete & do this one instead. Thanks for your attention-and patience. Hope this one makes up for it. Happy Lammas summer. Stay cool. ©2023MarianC.Youngblood
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Atlantic Hurricane Season Echoes Pacific Cyclone in GUAM/MARIANA Is. Heralding Earth’s Hottest Summer Yet
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U.S. Groundhog Day, pre-Celtic Candlemas Focus on International Rewilding/Reuse of Old Farmland w/Solar Assist
U.S. GROUNDHOG DAY, PRE-CELTIC CANDLEMAS FOCUS ON INTERNATIONAL REWILDING/REUSE OF OLD FARMLAND w/SOLAR ASSIST
First Wednesday Creative (& Insecure) Writing Celebration of Indo-Euro-Brit Support for Rewilding Old Spaces w/Solar Panel Technology
Getting Carried Away by their own Animal Festivities
Americans do seem to take Groundhog Day a little too literally sometimes—Pres. Biden’s staff getting rather more worked up about holding the poor animal (ground squirrel/marmot) on high for the cameras this year, rather than low for the (poor beast’s fodder) grass & wood-fiber—beaver cousin pictured below top left). And it is the magical creature’s flat-tailed beaver cousin, that Europeans (bar a few Scots purists) think will save the Day—or at least some of our blessed days in the immediate future of the planet and for all of us grateful inhabitants—if we’re spared!
In U.S.A., February 2nd is usually reserved as a fixed date for the miracle animal’s so-called peep out of his underground hideaway—very similar to us obscure writers, hidden away in our Muse-bower or whatever serves to give us undisturbed solitude with our keyboard—before he theoretically pronounces the weather forecast for the coming month [traditional six week gap]. This year’s Candlemas-Beaver-Groundhog Day got a little complicated by Chinese New Year’s being celebrated early with the beloved #Wabbit—aka Hare—coinciding with the last week in January 2023—so they can celebrate a candle-on-water floating ceremony; but the end results appear to come together as February—ancient Candlemas—begins.
Candlemas, as we learn repeatedly from our ancestors, is traditional Feast Day of Bride; Bridei; old British Brigantia; Forest Maiden & Earth Mother—identifying with Ancient Egyptian ISIS [‘Eset’], above far rt., Egyptian Queen of Heaven & Mother of the World. As Patron of all women, she has in recent years (with feminism rising) become world icon for International Women’s Day. It’s crazy in the Shetland Isles as they, too, are celebrating Up-Hellya amid gale-force winds!
It’s Brazil & S.American Carnival time also—traditionally an end to winter with street parades taking over every town.
Chinese New Year tradition—in nations like S.Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, mainland China, Burma & Philippines include a prayer-float from shore towards the open ocean, pictured left.
Hawai’i, particularly in winter months, is dominated by an increase in numbers on the southern route of migrating Whales—most vivid & entrancing, the Humpback whales, who often give birth in these tropical waters before returning to their northern grounds in the Salish Sea(B.C.) to overwinter.
Mid-Pacific technology appears already to be able to outstrip Western thinking—perhaps increased hours of sunlight have something to do with it—a Hawai’ian farming project, given Local Government funding & support, are offering farmland acreage on Oahu, HI, complete with installed solar panel-covered roofs—like glasshouses w/built-in sun—so their solar panel technology will be used to maximum, gathering rays while simultaneously covering useful greenhouses.
British Weather Used to Max for Windpower
As a Scots ex-Pat—grateful for no longer having to endure the rigours of the wintry North Coast [Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Moray Firth], I’m proud to see, not only restoration of my personal tree glade outside my walled garden, pic top rt. but the continued appreciation of the stand of hazel, wild & domestic cherry (gean; morello; pear & alder, bottom 2nd l.) to supplement plum, birch & previous century’s copper beech. Foregound Redwood [Sequoiadendron Giganteum] planted to celebrate the birth of my son there adjacent to/obscuring the two-century-old Douglas Fir [Pseudotsuga Menziesii; gifted by David Douglas as a seedling to the then Minister in residence in 1827 at the Old Manse who was designate Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, at that time. Scots pine aka Caledonian Pine abound.
It is also truly amazing—and fairly Scots in nature—to know that the little kirk below the Manse in the farmland of the Kirkton continues to celebrate a Sunday service once every two weeks!
Nevertheless, weather & human nature being relatively constant—although increasingly wild conditions appear to be taking hold, the winds of the North are being harnessed—following a lead by radical innovator Burnett of Williamston family, led by daughter ‘boss’, with their Culsalmond/Colpy windfarm. Now wind & wave harnessing is occurring through the Glens of Foudland as far as Maggieknockater in the Buchan peninsula to electric generator power centers in the Black Isle, Cromarty; reaching into Sinclair territory in the Far North.
Easter Island Facial Traits Show Influence on Other Pacific Island Residents
Many Europeans may not notice, but there is a noted characteristic in Hawai’ian, and other mid-Pacific island residents like French Frigate Shoals, Guam, resulting in a less-circular “Caucasian” round-headed appearance, and more flat-backed, almost sheared-off shape for which Easter Island’s gods, below—and presumably their ancient resident population—were known. It is remarkable that the Hawai’ian Royal House, headed by King Kamakameha whose statue stands in downtown Hilo, HI overlooking Lilli’ewa Bay, (bottom rt.) took pride in this trait.
Last of the Royal Hawai’ian line, Queen Lilliuokalani, died last week, aged 90. Her hand-sculpted coffin made of local koa wood is currently lying in state in the Royal Palace, Honolulu. She was the daughter of Queen Lydia Kamakameha (1838-1917) who was the ultimate sovereign of the Islands and who lived during the annexation of Hawai’i by the United States in 1898.
Hawai’ians are not only proud of their facial characteristics and unique Pacific heritage, but on special occasions—during hula dance festivals or fire & light ceremonies, they dress with leis (orchid garlands w/mix of tropical blossoms-frangipani, plumeria, hibiscus-in their hair) usually tied in a “topknot”, shown above left. Easter Island topknots were a feature of all the gods aligned on the island’s shore. They were carefully chosen from local volcanic rock, sculpted into the topknot shape.
Many are now lost.
Hawai’ians are not only expert hula dance performers—using hip movement which Europeans take years to learn. But their body shape—maybe considered large to Britiish eyes—in particular with current mountain-climbing madness gripping a (mostly male) muscle-bound population.
Body movement, however, reveals a supple quality within waist & hip gyration that Caucasians are hard-pressed to emulate. It takes years to learn.
Access 2 balmy ocean temperatures have a lot to offer, & many Hawai’ians bathe once or twice daily in local pool. Pictured here rt. within a literal stone’s throw of downtown Hilo, is fave Lilli’ewa Bay. Its easy shallow sandy beach makes it popular not just with locals, but w/Oldies visiting who may have found volcanic black rocks difficult to negotiate elsewhere!
It’s also the single most sought-after go-to pool for that Pacific anomalous practice of Doolah-tending: South Seas (Bali, initially) assist within water to help young mothers prepare for giving birth.
Hawai’ian Paradise Wins Hands Down, Despite Weather Woes
Bottom Line:when all else is said, locals may complain about the weather; Californians about drought alternating with hurricane disruption; New Zealander Kiwis about people raiding their carefully-guarded environmentally-protected reefs, but it’s relative.
Pele—Hawai’ian goddess of fire & ice—continues to reside atop the Mauna, pic above l, holding the world’s largest telescope array [extra-large telescope, ELT] in her sacred grasp, while anchoring her watery toes 29,000ft into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest trench below. She is revered from ocean fringe to Mariana Trench; from coastal California—earthquake roadblock above top rt.—to Bali, Indonesia, Fiji and beyond. Like the Phoenix, ISIS, Egyptian Queen of Heaven, pic top far rt. she may fade but will never die. Even the world telescope symposium atop her sunset summit, above l., keeps touch with local Hawai’ian ‘guardians’ adhering to their policy of no unnecessary disturbance/development at her summit.
It is sacred ground, after all.
Meanwhile, despite record dry rock-bottom water supply (not) in drought-ridden No.Cal (pic 3 above rt.), organic rewilders and other gardening/planting enthusiasts continue to allow the ground around the sacred mountain and its new farmland project in Oahu to prosper—as it will even more when planned solar-panel-roofed greenhouses are erected.
And what about the workers?!
Yes:we writers, IWSGers, NaNoWriMo-ers, Muse-driven regular bloggers, insecure or otherwise, are fortunate to have such a neighborly friendly heritage right on our doorstep. Whether we’re groundhog fans or not, whether we’re just monthly First Wednesday bloggers with a leaf of fresh mint or homegrown lettuce to chew on [lucky us]; let’s agree we are a fortunate lot.
Some people never get past the comic section in their local newspaper—confusingly, Hawai’i’s own is Bahamian (Herald-Tribune) in reverse:Tribune-Herald! See what happens when you let the fritillary (above bottom rt.) out of the chrysalis!
And meantime in authentic Hawai’ian lingo, may I again wish all Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! Happy New Year. Keep on writing!
©2023 Marian C. Youngblood
Wayback Window—Room with a Vintage View
WAYBACK WINDOW—ROOM WITH A VINTAGE VIEW
Advantages to Having #Vintage Boomers’ Writerly Perspective —First Wednesday from Beyond Time Barrier
The good writer/artist is a vehicle for truth, s/he formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can then no longer be ignored.
Iris Murdoch 1919-1999 Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature
SEPTEMBER Northern Hemisphere Switch to ‘Autumn’ Thinking…Planting
September wasn’t always the ninth month: its name septem means seven. Roman calculation before the Julian calendar reform in 46BC began at March equinox. Julius Caesar changed Roman lives by changing how their year went. By adding days and months (January, February), he created a mode of reckoning which survived until the Reformation. It went into Roman law two years before he died, 44BC.
His Julian calendar, widely adopted in remarkably short time within the Empire, survived in the Western world for more than 1600 years until 1582, when a correction was made [Pope Gregory XIII instigation hence ‘Gregorian calendar’ revision] to correct Julian calendar’s drift against the solar year of 365.25 days. Most of Western world adopted it, Roman catholic countries before, Protestant countries after the Reformation.
Eruptions of rebellion broke out in Scotland, when the Reformed Calendar—backed by the Reformed Church—went into effect in 1752. Bemoaning their eleven ‘missing days’ in tinkering with leap years, adding and subtracting at will, making a mockery of a lifestyle usually ruled by the Ocean, they did it their own way.
Some coastal ports of the ‘North Coast’—ocean-going villages & fishing communities in Banffshire, Buchan and along Moray Firth in Northeast Scotland—protested the loss of eleven days; maintained their own rhythm by holding their own fire festival : not at New Year but during Aul’ ‘Eel (Old Yule) in second week of January. Burghead burns the Clavie Stonehaven swings man-size fireballs around the coastal town.
Other North Coast towns (Forres, Pennan & ‘The Broch’ (Fraserburgh) also kept similar rituals up until WWII, discontinued after 1945.
Burning the Clavie on Aul’Eel, left: oak whisky barrel soaked in tar set alight and carried around the town of Burghead by Clavie King and Clavie Crew Dying firebrands then hoisted up on to Doorie on castle ramparts to burn rest of night. Clavie King Dan Ralph
Rhythm of the Seasons Guides the Human Machine
Much weight has been placed in these recent times on living a healthy life, cultivating an outdoor lifestyle—walking, hill-climbing, gardening—back-to-nature open air pursuits. With increasing use of social media, charitable rewilding groups and some landowners are committed to restoring wild spaces, with plans to reintroduce extinct species. National Trust (former Royal property) Mar Lodge, top rt. before&after rewilding 2011 & 2021.
The movement has become enormously influential: countries in the former European bloc are now proud to reveal their reintroduction of (formerly endangered)rare species like wolf, boar and marten. Pacific NW and Canadian forests are responding to replanting; with activists halting clear-cut felling of ancient woodland
Scotland’s last wolf was shot in Braemar in 1720 by a Royal.
Rewilding Restoring Forest builds on Earlier Spiritual Initiatives
Present-day Royal estate of Mar Lodge (top rt., now administered by NTS) plans to follow a lead set in the ‘Sixties by the Findhorn Foundation, in their organic garden, at a time when spin-off miracle Trees for Life treeplanter-cum-earth wizard founder, Alan Watson Featherstone was bringing ancient Caledonian pine forest (and related understorey wildlife) back in Glenfeshie, and Dundreggan, near Loch Ness. Mindful of ecosystem fragility, TFL offers instruction and accommodation to volunteers in its wilderness locations.
Trees for Life is some thirty years ahead of the (top) Mar Lodge project: Before-and-after views are invaluable in locations where locals remember the treelessness—sadly almost 70% of Cairngorms National Park is still treeless—long way to go. Next decade’s #before&after pictures should be stunning!
‘We have lost most of the larger predators in Scotland. We used to have elk, auroch (wild cattle), brown bear, wildcat, wolf and lynx. We could restore all these species—there is enough space—but we do need to do a lot of habitat restoration as I don’t thihnk there’s enough habitat for them.’ Andrew Kitchener NatMusScot
‘Britain has one of the lowest forest covers of any nation in Europe at only 13%, less than half the Euro average, 38% across EU, with an increase of only 1% in the last quarter century.
‘For Scotland, most northerly of 4 Brit.nations, expanse is proportionally higher, rising from 5% to 19% in last 100 years., Much of that forest is commercial plantations—which contributes $1.4billion to the national economy, but according to rewilders, are less biodiverse.
‘Only one-fifth of Scotland’s forests are native woodlands.’
Author/Photographer Kieran Dodds &Curator of Vertebrate Biology, NatMusScotland, Andrew Kitchener
There are advantages to being a (tick one) Boomer, oldie, vintage, organio; Wartime Land Girls worked with pick & shovel. Townsfolk work garden allotments-nothing new. Some of us even remember harvesting without machines.
Trying Harder Isn’t Enough: We Have Serious EarthCare Work to Do
We’ve been experiencing another year of highest-ever temperatures, and unprecedented snowmelt of world’s most reliable glaciers. Most alarming, however, is severe drought expectancy in five States in the SW United States, fed by the Hoover Dam and Sacramento valley’s Oroville Dam (under forced repair).
Mount Shasta, below, has no snow—first time ever. The Yurok are still insisting that Atlas-Copco remove and restore dam damage on the River Klamath. Oil pipelines have been halted in B.C. and Midwest USA.
With another year of enforced isolation upon us—but with benefit of breathing fresh air—EarthFirst movements are gaining ground. More supporters provide more resources for restoring land health. Group consciousness spreads urgency on the need to replant-rewild-restore our patch of Earth so it can look after original species, us included.
Mount Shasta, iconic source of the Klamath and Sacramento rivers. Sacred source well in downtown Shasta City, CA is dry. Successive dams report low water level or-as at Oroville-inoperative; salmon hatcheries are failing.
Sacramento basin water supplies Bay Area of San Francisco & Peninsular home to most of world’s hi-tech companies Silicon Valley.
Hoover Dam provides H20 to 5 U.S. southern states, water levels below record low.
Writers’ Cave Resolution: Keep on Keeping On
Insecure or otherwise, we writers do need help occasionally to keep our nose to the grindstone. Inspiration from such New Age visionaries as Findhorn’s founders Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean who started a spiritual garden in 1968 only to see it become a world ecovillage of global influence. are invaluable in reaching our own comfort zone —albeit head-down. Some scriptorial caverns have MILES of subterranean tunnels and false passages to keep us in solitary company of our Muse. All right. Admit it. We thrive in solitary. Writing feeds the introvert scribe.
Muse speak: You may play in the sunshine; then—back in the box. Happy Kalends of September, sacred to Jupiter the Thunderer. May he see us through this dry spell and unleash his life-giving waters in time. ©2021 Marian Youngblood
Arbor Day and Earth Week
Trees: without them and our wilderness, we as a species are lost
We used to call it Arbor Day. On the hinge between Aries and Taurus, when the Sun enters this celebratory earth sign in the western zodiac calendar: that’s the day John Muir was born in 1838. A native Scot who emigrated to the United States and changed the face of a nation, Muir was the original arborist: lover of trees.
Wolves being hunted to extinction following a change in legislation to the US Endangered Species Act
Muir had similar adversaries. A naturalist and explorer of nature, his favorite wildernesses were in northern California, and it is there that his perseverance eventually paid off.
His activism was instrumental in saving swathes of western wilderness which eventually became the National Parks of Yellowstone, Yosemite Valley and Sequoia NP. The Sierra Club, which he founded in 1892, is now the most important (and vociferous) conservation organization in the United States.
His essays, letters and books have been read by millions.
At first, however, his petitions to conserve large areas of natural beauty were ignored. In the USA, it was a time of railroad expansion, the explosion of large cities, and big business in politics and in agriculture.
In his opinion, the high Sierras and other wild mountainscapes were being ravaged by livestock grazing (especially sheep, which he termed ‘hoofed locusts’). He personally spent weeks, sometimes months, in this high country, documenting and writing about the need to allow areas of such magnificence protection from grazing and (by analogy, its later counterpart,) the human and vehicular footprint.
He was persistent and he was inspired. The wild nature of California captivated him, from his first moment of exposure to its awesome grandeur.
Yosemite by Ansel Adams
“We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us” John Muir
He had, after all, grown up in rural (but ‘tamed’) Scotland, where the wildcat was close to extinction, where wild boar no longer existed outside zoos, and where in his grandfather’s time a royal patron, King George I (‘Big Geordie’), had commissioned a granite bridge over a tributary of the River Dee at Invercauld, so he could be wheeled from Ballater to the hide to shoot; and where, incidentally, he is credited with killing Scotland’s last wolf in 1722.
Muir saw huge vistas of the Cairngorms, Deeside, Donside and the Ladder Hills have their natural tree populations annihilated by sheep, deer and rabbit. He dreamed of a world that might be otherwise.
Grandeur of Yosemite inspired Muir's lifelong work for wilderness
In 1872, the first National Park was created by federal legislation, on the strength of Muir’s efforts, at Yellowstone, Wyoming. It was to be the precursor of many others in the continental United States, including a total of nine national parks, now administered within the State of California by the National Parks service.
After his meeting with Emerson and over the following twenty years, Muir gathered, collated and compiled volumes of data on geology, natural history and plant and animal life populations of the Sierras. He envisioned Yosemite and the Sierra mountain range as pristine lands where original wildlife might roam, breed and proliferate, unimpeded by artificial (human) regulation. It was a difficult concept to instill. And his vision suffered throughout his life, wherever conflict surfaced between wilderness and ‘business.’
In one respect he was visionary, in doggedly hounding US Congress, and in writing for pro-conservationist magazines and organizations.
‘“Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts, and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.”
In 1873 and 1874, he made field studies along the western flank of the Sierra Nevada, on the distribution and ecology of isolated groves of Giant Sequoia, one of the few redwood groves left in the world in virgin stands. In 1876, the American Association for the Advancement of Science published Muir’s paper on the subject. In his personal essays, however, he valued nature for its spiritual and transcendental qualities.
Mount Whitney, at 14,500ft, the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail
“Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world.”
John Muir in 1907 - wildman to the end
Many wilderness areas are named after him: from Muir Woods and Muir Beach in Marin County, north of San Francisco, to the 211-mile John Muir Trail, which runs from Yosemite through King’s Canyon NP and Sequoia National Park, to the 14,500-ft peak of Mount Whitney in central California. A glacier in Alaska bears his name. He was instrumental not only in establishing the structure which became National Parks, but in the resulting expansion of National Forests, including areas with protected ‘Reserve’ status. In addition, State Parks now proliferate throughout the US. California, alone, has twelve regions of state parks (CSPs) administering 278 parks on 1.4 million protected acres.
So, what has happened in the bigger picture?
John Muir would be delighted to know that in 1964, the US government passed the Wilderness Act, to protect around nine million acres of wilderness. Arbor Day was traditionally a celebration conceived in the midwestern state of Nebraska (a treeless zone), as a springtime event to encourage the young to plant a tree. And two Earth Days appeared on the American calendar–one ratified by the United Nations and celebrated on equinox, March 21st–when both hemispheres receive equal amounts of light and dark and when the sun appears to stand directly overhead on the equator; the other, April 22nd, has gradually superseded Arbor Day; their celebrations now interchangeable.
Recently, with the advent of the blog, acceleration of internet communication and a focus on Earth-related activities, New Earth consciousness, Earth Day has expanded into ‘Earth Week‘. That, too, would please Muir.
But what of his homeland? the sheep-munched treeless wilderness of northern Scotland?
Cairngorm National Park
That in itself is disturbing.
Its ‘Angus glens’ the ‘haunt of red deer and golden eagle’; ‘heather moor vivid with summer color’, and ‘wild tundra of high mountain tops’ tell the story.
Every last vestige of hunting forest put to the torch by Robert Bruce, 1308
What Robert Bruce’s actions created – a treeless raised beach from the Grampian mountains to the sea – was not replanted. Except for small pockets on landed estates where tree regeneration was encouraged, an agricultural zeal took over the desolate wasteland, capitalizing on open countryside with few obstructions.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Highland estates cleared out their resident employees–crofters–to make way for agricultural innovation: turnips and sheep. While these ‘clearances’ were more specific to Caithness, Sutherland and the western portions of Scotland, some effects were felt in what is now the Cairngorms National Park. Where sheep were introduced, trees died; were not replanted; not allowed to regenerate. Where deer population had been nurtured and maintained in small numbers in remnant natural forests, for hunting, with the exit of human monitors, they overpopulated and devastated their own environment.
Thus, the Tourist Board’s ‘heather moor with vivid summer color’ and ‘wild tundra’.
Tree planting has begun again in the agricultural hinterland
The good news is the story of Glen Affric: and Trees for Life. This Scots charity has gradually (through donation) been purchasing 600 square miles of ancient Caledonian remnant forest west of Inverness, and has begun the mammoth task of replanting original species of oak, alder, Caledonian pine, juniper, birch and rowan (mountain ash).
Regeneraton of Caledonian pine -- a rewarding task
‘We envision our work to restore the Caledonian Forest as not only helping to bring the land here back to a state of health and balance, but also having global relevance, as a model for similar projects in other countries.’
Other small parcels–once adjacent to hillfarms, and escaping the ‘set-aside’ agricultural brainstorms of the 1980s–were maintained by individuals, and planted with pines, which are now starting to look mature.
John Muir would indeed be proud of his ancient heritage and the inspiration it has given new groups to start again.
Old growth 1000-year old redwoods felled in early 19thC lumber operations
In Muir’s time, after the (1848) Gold Rush, California was inundated with new immigrants. His beloved trees came under great threat. In the 1880s four hundred sawmills north of San Francisco were churning out lumber from felled redwood giants–a process which accelerated after the 1906 earthquake–in a need for timber to rebuild the city. In 1920, however, the Save the Redwoods League began purchasing groves that would become the backbone of California’s redwoods parks. It continues adding to this day.
In the 1950s–the post-war boom–lumber mills were cutting in excess of one billion board-feet of timber per year, a level maintained until the mid-1970s, when clear-felling vast acreage of virgin trees was still allowed.
…Until science and sense stepped in.
Science argued, but the battle was won by 1990s tree-sitters, those brave souls who camped out in makeshift treetop platforms while Caterpillars, chainsaws and chokesetters bumped and strained and devastated beneath them.
To explain:
Old growth virgin redwoods now protected in State and National Parks
They were supplied food and refreshment by allies via pulleys, by night, their hoists and ropes removed and burned by loggers, by day. Tempers ran high; lives were lost; protesters murdered. But State legislature listened and stepped in.
Headwaters Forest was purchased in 1999 by State and Federal government agencies, and put under permanent protection. Clear-felling practice was legally reduced to a 20-40-acre maximum.
The logging industry finally sat up and paid attention. Its own resource was decimated; salmon runs and ecosystems had suffered in a mindless race for economic gain, with only ‘table scraps’ left, in the view of Humboldt State University forest scientist Steve Sillett. ‘The challenge now is to improve management on the 95% of redwood landscape (felled) that is just starting into regrowth.’
Sequoia sempervirens, redwoods as big as a Boeing 707
They are on target to create new forests (in one hundred years) like the ones protected in the Redwoods National and State Parks. Muir is by now roaring with delighted laughter in his (redwood) coffin.
So, when they ask you ‘what did you do for Arbor Day, Mummy or in Earth Week, Daddy?’ it may no longer be adequate to say you took the dog for a walk or raked leaves off the driveway. With renewed focus on the Earth, a show of determination coming from youth groups and in education, we may be inspired to show our ability to replenish, regenerate and restore parts of our planet we’ve been gifted as custodians, to bring back to life.
During Earth Week at least, the gardener in us is being asked to wake up.
©2010-2012 Marian Youngblood
Nirvana & Light withdrawal: chop wood and carry water
Sunset time in Lerwick is 3p.m.
There used to be legal ‘lighting-up times’ in Britain: this wasn’t a comical reminder to smoke a cigar or kindle the wood burning stove; it was a law that drivers should switch on headlights 30 minutes after sunset and off 30 minutes before dawn. These laws no longer exist. Legally drivers must simply switch lights on in vehicles whenever visibility is reduced.
snow in time for solstice
Just in case no one believes me, here are some sunrise and sunset times for Britain at the moment: if you live in Bournemouth, or the Isles of Scilly, the sun goes down at 4pm: you are blessed to be able to have a whole hour more light than someone living for example on Unst, the most northerly of the British Isles. Sunset there is 3pm. You get it at the other end of the day, too. You have the blessing of daylight as you drive to work in, say, Dover because the sun comes up at 8am. Pity the ferryboat captain in Wick harbor who doesn’t see the sunrise until 10 minutes to 9am and has to have his lights switched on again at 3pm for sunset.
Sunset at Wick happens at three o'clock
There are compensations. Aurora Borealis, for one. Displays at these latitudes can last for hours. And, of course at the height of summer this far north, there is the most awesome array of light showered from above in a day which lasts equally as long as this winter night. Seventeen hours of light in summer; seventeen hours of dark in winter. No wonder they say the Norwegians, Icelandic poets and Scots bards have a poignancy in their work like no other, except perhaps the Russians.
Aurora can last for hours
And while that is a really poor excuse for an introduction to another poem about trees, wood, and burning logs; it’s all I’ve got right now. Days are short; birds and animals bring other demands. Night is a hard taskmistress.
I gave the wonderful wood-burning rhyme in a previous blog ‘for a Queen to warm her slippers by’. This one has slightly different meter, but it includes a more diverse array of woods.
I am particularly fond of the admonition toward the end. The writer (our perennial friend Anon) is quite clearly a supporter of the ancient Caledonian Pine, Pinus sylvestris now in short supply, although being gradually re-introduced and replanted privately.
For a country (Caledonia) which the Romans described as ‘thriving in Pine’, because the origial Caledonian Pine Forest stretched from coast to coast, we have been remarkably careless with this beautiful native tree.
Robert I Bruce, of course, was the main culprit: he burned his way from Kelso to the Comyn stronghold of the Earl of Buchan near Fraserburgh in 1308. This ‘herschip’ or harrying of Buchan was a treatment from which the country never recovered.
It is encouraging to note that the charity Trees for Life is replanting this and other native trees in considerable numbers in a northerly enclave of the original Caledonian Forest.
That little divertissement was a mere sidestep for tree-lovers. For wood-burners, here is the rhyme by our friend Anonymous.
Enjoy.
Logs to Burn
Logs to burn, logs to burn
Logs to save the coal a turn;
Here’s a word to make you wise
When you hear the woodman’s cries
Never heed his usual tale
That he’s splendid logs for sale
Scots pine, the 'Scotch log' of the rhyme
The proper kind of logs to burn.
Oak logs will warm you well
If they’re old and dry.
Larch logs of pinewoods smell
But the sparks will fly.
Beech logs for Christmas time
Yew logs heat well
‘Scotch’ logs it is a crime
For anyone to sell.
Ash worth their weight in gold
Chestnut scarce at all.
Hawthorn logs are good to last
If cut in the fall.
Holly logs will burn like wax
You should burn them green.
Elm logs like smouldering flax
No flame to be seen.
Pear logs and apple logs
They will scent your room
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom.
But ash logs all smooth and grey
Burn them green or old
Because of all that come your way
They’re worth their weight in gold. Anonymous
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