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Transcript

Beltane Blast · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, hello, welcome to Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thanks for coming, thanks for listening.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my, oh my, oh my.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh thanks everyone that listened to the first one and have encouraged me to make a second one.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's just gorgeous of you.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the first podcast I talked about Little Red Riding Hood and storytelling and
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: My friend Lise, Lise Wilde, said she wanted more wild.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think she's right.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really talk so much about
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm feeling it rising up in me as I think about it even.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't talk so much about our connection to nature and our connection to the wild
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: and how these stories have been contorted so that they manipulate us and rob us
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: from our rights and our freedoms.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to see these guys called the Open Storytellers a couple of years ago.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're a day service that do storytelling with adults with disabilities.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they did this amazing show.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And every now and again, they would ask this question, where is your wild?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Where's your wild?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And my first instinct is I see woodlands and I see my hairy armpits all at the same time.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where's our wild?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: How tucked away is it?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: How often do we go to it?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm thinking about.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that reminded me of a poem by Lucille Clifton that I'm going to read to you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a girl inside.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: She is as randy as a wolf.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: She will not walk away and leave these bones to an old woman.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: She is a green girl in a used poet.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: She's waited, patient as a nun for the second coming.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love knowing that green, fresh trees don't burn.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: When she says she's a green tree in a forest of kindling,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: that those trees must be old and dry to be called kindling.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I'm recovering from Beltane, from May Day in Glastonbury.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Recovering is quite the right word, but it was certainly an exciting place to be.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought I'd talk a bit about Beltane here.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling tender.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of like my first podcast,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt like I was riding it,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: like riding it like a horse through,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: like a wild horse through the pastures and meadows.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm like feeling more, more like I want to listen and talk at the same time.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I woke up at three on Beltane, which is may day, which is, it's a, it's a fire ceremony.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of our pagan fire ceremonies, our pagan ceremonies from the year.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this one is fire.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's when we dance around the maypole,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: but I think I'm going to take you through my day and then I'll talk bits about,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: about it as they,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: as they approach.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: I got up at three and I went to,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: the moors to Dartmoor because a woman called Hannah Toluki was going to sing the
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: dawn in and that felt very sweet for me.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd driven up over Haytor.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: The Morris dancers were already there and they were banging their sticks to wake up the earth.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a gathering.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was really beautiful.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole herd of them across the road.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure I could get past at first, but in the end I wiggled and waved around them.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then we got to this gorgeous place, Southcombe Barn.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was just listening to the sound of the birds.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: We went on a walk, a kind of circular walk, and the land was a big bowl of a place.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful trees blossom everywhere.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cowslips.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love cowslips.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I see a cowslip,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know that,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: they're an endangered species,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: cowslips,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: and they're protected.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're a protected species.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you just know that the land's old and the land's wild.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're so soft, their little dangling heads.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were listening to the birds as the sun came up.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was a voice in with the birds that sounded so bird-like, but so not at the same time.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it was Hannah.
• 5:57
  Thank you.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a little piece of the first piece that she did, which was called Cuckoo's Calling.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think Cloud Cuckoo Island.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, and it was so precious, so precious to hear her singing, to hear her
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: expressing such a unique and um deep way of um being creative and being with nature
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: it was just gorgeous and then um i recall that the last thing that she she made a
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: sound like a bird summer is here summer is here
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing it justice but it really touched me.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So then I sat around the fire for a bit because it's a fire ceremony and I wanted
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: to get back to get to the chalice well so that I could jump over the fire and
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: jumping over the fire is a great Beltane tradition where you you know imagine our
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: ancestors they were would have been in their long johns wrapped up all winter you
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: know in this
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: ceremony of the summer you jump over the fire and just get that spark um up your
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: genitals then it's uh um you know and you're ready for the summer but when i got to
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: the chalice well i was too late for the fire probably just as well because i'm
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: pretty incontinent at the moment i probably would have put it out so i um
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I sort of just watched them unravelling the maypole.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So beautiful.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: The maypole, so many different colours and so, such an old and inclusive thing to do.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there were children and cross generations all there jumping and laughing and smiling.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I had another job to do.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to the Market Cross to sing with a choir.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't get a chance to,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: go around that maypole and i was hoping to get a chance later i thought it won't
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: matter because later on there's another maypole up at the bushy coom so i sang and
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: then i went to see the bards because i'm one of the bards of glastonbury and i went
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: to see the current bard johanna
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I listened to what she said.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was so beautiful that I asked her to give it to me and I've got it here.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to read it for you.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: The trees are full into delicate new leaf.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: The blossoms of the may tree are so heartbreakingly beautiful.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: It is unbearable.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: The weather is balmy and the blood runs hot.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sweetness of desire fills us with lust and love.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Beltane is not only about summer arriving,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: but also about the masculine and the feminine,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: the opposites coming together.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We make light-hearted risque jokes without shame and talk openly about sex with a wink.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is precious and liberating and therefore sacred indeed.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I've sometimes wondered whether,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: with all the rough and funny talk going on,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: with the women wearing energetic red clothes as if we are all fiery and forceful,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: we're not forgetting an aspect of love,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: especially when it's the first time,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: as something frail and vulnerable and subtle,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: like a flower opening her petals to receive the rays of the sun.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: This month of May is about the warming earth and the incredible power of the plants
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: pushing out and up towards the light.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: The cells multiplying,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: the mandalas of new green leaves and flowers spreading and appearing everywhere in
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: the verges,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: on the curbs and in the fields.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: The subtle colours of the flowers, yellow, pink, sky blue and purple.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Everything speaks of softness.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: The feminine movement of the beginning of May is maiden opening up to youth,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: not yet woman to man,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: that comes later,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: with more experience.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: The flower energy of this month is powerful but gentle.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: The goddess of we,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: women,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: have worked so hard for empowerment that we may have forgotten that to be
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: vulnerable is a virtue and that to be chaste or shy is not the same as to be prudish.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I took those words with me to see the May Queen.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: The May Queen was getting ready to meet the May King and get married by the Maypole.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that was very beautiful to see all the women of Glastonbury gathered together,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: adorning Katrina,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: who is the May Queen of this year.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about how needled I felt this ceremony's been going on on Bushy Coombe
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: for a long time and the land used to belong to someone else.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when a new set of people bought the land,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: they said to me,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: one of them said to me,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: it's okay for you to do your thing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: on Bushy Coon, but you have to ask permission.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it just really needled me and another part of me thought,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: that's,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: fair enough and ask permission.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I realised in that moment when I looked around and I saw
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: how many people in the community were contributing so much to this day and how we've done it somehow.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've got the village back in Glastonbury and it's a precious, precious thing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I felt like othered in that place.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: You people doing your thing, you need to ask permission.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, this is our land.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is our home.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is our community.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're all part of it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't go up.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's as huge as thousands of people,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: the Green Men and the Maypole,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: and there's amazing shenanigans in Glastonbury on May Day.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It really is a sight to behold.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And thousands of people process up the high street and around and up to the hole
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: that the Maypole is going to go into.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I snuck around the different way and went up just to spend, I just...
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wanted to spend a bit of time with the whole, with the quiet of the land, so I went up with my friend.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the hole that the women had dug the day before,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: we dug it and we'd sang and we'd prayed over it and the mead had been poured gently
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: and lightly inside it and the outside had been adorned with flowers.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It really was a precious and special day.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: was there and there were some women there already and there was a bower to enter
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: people where people could enter into the circle around the maypole and they were
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: two great bowers kind of nests created for the making and king and queen very very
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: gorgeous
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then everyone started to arrive.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, what a sight.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: People with horns and people dressed,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: all the green men dressed in green with paints and leaves all over them.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And all the red women dressed in bright reds and sparkles and glitter and furs, really gorgeous.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was very special to see.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the maypole started to go up and it didn't go up.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: It took ages for the maypole to go up.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that that has something to do with the green men and how much mead
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: they've drank and that that affects perhaps the limpness of the maypole.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: But they would say to me,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that they were edging and that that's a good thing to do when you want to
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: give pleasure with a pole like the maypole.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I had a gig that night in Bristol at the amazing Folk Tales,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: the most precious and special place that I love telling stories at on a boat in Bristol.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been doing it for 20 years.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to fag out by then because it was like I've been up since three and it
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: was about three in the afternoon and I just wanted to have a quick dance around the maypole.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: But when my friend heard that I had a gig that evening,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: she looked me deep in the eye and said,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: you need to go home and have a shower.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: She said, wash your hair.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I took myself off and I didn't get a chance to dance around that maypole.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a brilliant night on the Jonathan Sebastian light ship.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I had such a great night.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was so lucky to be sharing the bill with really precious and talented people.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: They really, they were really going for it that night.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we had a proper Kaylee and I got to have a proper dance and I felt it there and I felt
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: really like the um energy of community and the energy of of may and summer coming
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: into me and i wasn't sure how to start my story so i just kept feeling into it and
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: kind of how to start the story i wanted to tell this story about a hedgehog i'm not
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: going to tell it today but
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell it at some point soon but I'm practicing it for a gig about hedgehogs
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: that I've got and I knew I wanted to start it with some kind of longing and and
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: then I wondered to myself I wonder if I could tell the story and bring all the
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: elements of my day into it to start the story on the moors and then to go into May
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Day and Beltane and
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: all of that, the jumping over the fire, can I bring all of that through?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like as if I've got two timelines running at the same time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I tucked myself up on stage, kind of hid myself in a corner.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was introduced, I just found myself going, summer is here.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Summer is here.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started the story and it was like this wild ride of a story.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was rutting and howling and chasing around.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was so bawdy and sexual.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, whoa, really, really strong.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that a Steiner teacher had said to me once that it was the same.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: She was retiring.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was her.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe she'd retired and she was coming back.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: She said that in the spring, children play jumping up games.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in the autumn, they play falling down games like the buds and the leaves.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just felt that energy like really coming through me.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then I remember waking up in the morning.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like a lifetime ago now, but it was only yesterday.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up in the morning and I felt kind of muzzy.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of like, ooh, I thought of Elizabeth Fraser when she...
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: sings all flowers in time bend towards the sun with jeff buckley she kind of at the
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: end she kind of makes this like noise like oh i don't know what came over me and i
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: just lay in bed with this feeling of like whoa what came over me and it felt so
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: good and so right i thought wow
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is exactly how my ancestors woke up the day after May Day,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: whether they woke up with the neighbour's son in their bed or whether they'd been
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: dancing all night or whatever had happened.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: It just felt good and right to feel like that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was feeling a bit sort of abashed by my own wildness,
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: by my own fully entering into the spirit of myself.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I got then that it's not about shagging, as I can get a bit distracted by.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about shagging this Beltane malarkey.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's about allowing the energy
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: to rise, celebrating the rising energy.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was thinking that,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: this kind of celebration of the rising energy,
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I could feel this maypole deep inside me,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: like deep in my womb.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I could feel this maypole, like as if I was a Teletubby.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I could see this maypole inside me.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: with the ribbons,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: they were all colours of the rainbow,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: and then they were red and white,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: and then they were all colours of the rainbow again.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then as that image came into my body,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I lifted my hands up in the air and I like put them together,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: held them together at my heart.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was unbidden.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think, oh, I'm going to do that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just held them together at my heart.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And these words came completely unbidden from me.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I marry the land.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Felt so good.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: It felt so good.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I could do a bit of a journey now with us.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Looking for my beater.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got a bit of rosemary.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to beat it with a bit of rosemary.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so just visualising our beautiful selves coming deep into ourselves, deep into our bodies.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Softening, softening, softening.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is there more that we can soften in our bodies that we're holding onto?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Relaxing our thighs and our tongues and our eyeballs and our shoulders.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Taking the deepest breath, the deepest breath that we've taken.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: All year, feeling the air around us just coming into our bodies.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Letting go.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And visualising our bellies, that we have a maypole.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: A maypole in our bellies.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And seeing the rainbow ribbons of that maypole flying in the air on our breath.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And seeing all these different aspects of us weaving around the maypole.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Our angry places, our happy places, our niggled places.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Places that want to just stay in bed, the places that want to get up and go.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: All the different aspects of ourselves.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: The wizard, the witch, the lover, the king, the queen, the peasant, the pauper, the devil.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And looking to the top of the maypole as these aspects of ourselves weave and move around,
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: seeing that the ribbons of the maypole weave together and that this is a chance for
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: us to be in relationship with everything inside ourselves.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is a chance for us to weave ourselves in and weave ourselves together and
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: seeing the old,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: old ancient crone in us and seeing the angels in us and all the
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: places in ourselves,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: all dancing and smiling and nodding with each other,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: waving and clapping hands as they go around and still we weave and still we weave
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: and still we weave.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And as we sort of open the circle, there's all around the maypole, there's
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone that we know and love, everyone we've ever met in our life is around that maypole.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: We see their faces and they're nodding, they're clapping, they're cheering, they're present.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're present with this dance of weaving.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're present with this moment of the summer.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's all of our ancestors, all the bones of our ancestors shimmering around us.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's all the fae folk, the pixie folk, there's the insects and the bees and the budding flowers.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's the four-legged, there's the standing people of the trees.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's all the elements of the earth,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: the air,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: the fire and water,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: all bearing witness,
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: all bearing witness to our movement and our weaving,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: our weaving and our movement.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing that that weaving is always occurring within us.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Always occurring.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: It might slow down in the winter.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: We might put our maypole away.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: We might hibernate, bear-like.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if we have,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: if we have,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: if we've really gone down into that hole of the maypole,
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: down,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: down,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: down into the caves of Inanna to
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Into the caves of Hades, into the deep, deep underground.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're rising up with such richness.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So much richness.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's the key.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the key.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Deep, still, quiet winter.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're emerging.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're emerging.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: So now that we're woven,
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: we're woven in with each other,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: we're woven in with the maypole,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: now we're ready for summer,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: now we're ready with all our different aspects all coming together.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all I really wanted to say in this pod, in the grace of the
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: echo of Beltane of the the wildness and the madness of it all and I'll do a story
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: story story story podcast next time