Ritual

I find myself sitting by a fire, one of the regular fires I raise to mark the full moon or the important points in the transit wheel of the year, and again my mind wanders down a familiar path...ritual. Ritual is something that I've been mulling over for years. I recently read William Ayot's book 'Re-enchanting the Forest; Meaningful Ritual in a Secular World', it was a fascinating read, using ethnographic and anthropological examples to show how ritual, which remains alive in other cultures, has been lost from our culture and that we are possibly worst for it. We had it, but we lost it, sadly the story of British culture in general. I like ritual, I'd say I'm a person who naturally ritualizes activities and looks for deeper connections. I enjoy the group events I attend with local groves, and the communal rituals up on Glastonbury Tor or at the Henges. I enjoy participating and take a lot from those events, as well as the words and practices therein. I dig the acknowledgement and affirmation of natures cycles, the natural world and our place in it. Although I want to develop rituals and practice of my own, the group ones don't always feel natural when I'm on my own. I want to create something more personal, though keep/adapt some existing aspects, maybe. Tonight under the moon, warmed by the fire and enthused by Ayot's book, I resolved to create my own personal rituals.

Early adopters

It's only a matter of time now, the forests trees are preparing to burst in to leaf. Some of the early adopters are already pushing their first leaves out, ready for the big cover up, when the woodlands close in on themselves. You can feel the lands about to shift into a new gear; the wild inhabitants know it.  The air is thick with bird song, so many different calls, the canopies are alive with activity.If you don't get out into the woods much, make time to do so now, it's electric.

Carlton Melton Mind Minerals

West Coast psyche-rockers Carlton Melton (Andy Duvall, Rich Millman and Clint Golden, all masters of psyche) are a band of consistency, they're constantly producing top quality sounds, you know, the good shit. Release after release the band produces music of the highest quality which has the power to transport you, open a door and let your mind fly. Take their most recent release 'Mind Minerals' (I picked up a copy at their recent Salisbury gig), it's the 'dogs', man, and I can't get enough of it. It's an album that makes you sort of greedy and selfish. Greedy because you want more of it, you seek out opportunities to listen to it. I've been particularly enjoying listening whilst out walking, its expansive soundscapes suit the outside, it's great walking music (it's great lying down music too, mind, and of course there's the added warmth of the record). And selfish because you really don't want to be disturbed while you're listening to it, you just want to immerse yourself, savour every morsel. It may be a double album, though its time altering qualities means it feels as if it's over far too soon. There is an easy solution though...play it again. Mind Minerals seamlessly swings from driven psyche rock riffs that have your head bobbing and feet tapping to powerful droney hypnotic soundscapes which have you pinned against the walls of your mind like a centrifuge, building the pace before propelling you out into space, or wherever your mind takes you. Don't take my word for it, listen and know. It's a groovy meditation, man.

Buy yourself a copy here https://www.normanrecords.com/records/168824-carlton-melton-mind-minerals

Neither or both

It was a revolving themed walk today, it was coat closed coat open, hood up hood down, repeat. Driven by high winds the clouds scud across the sky, banks of grey sodden cloud dumped their chilly loads, sometimes heavily. These banks of cloud were regularly broken by expansive patches of clear blue from which a growing spring sun shone. Both weathers blended at their seams, and both were quite intense when established. The sky resolved itself so frequently. I found myself buttoning my coat and putting my hood up to protect from the cold rain, only to have to unbutton my coat and put my hood down as the sun came out and I heated up,  only again to be buttoning my coat and putting my hood up to protect from cold rain, only to........you get the picture. The day really couldn't decide what it wanted to be, it just kept repeating it's options, and I had to go with it. 

Mossy Throne

The abandoned mossy throne of a woodland monarch.

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) reminds me of asparagus spears with dandelion flowers on.  Round these parts they flourish on the unstable mud slides of the Barton under-cliff, and around now swathes of yellow/orange flowers are opening to the spring sun. Their leafless stems (the leaves will form later)  have pushed up through the grey mud of the Eocene sea bed slowly making its way home, to dot a monochrome landscape with spots of gold.  Years ago we used to collect flower heads here to make a white wine, nice it was too. We used to use the leaves in other ways too, mostly as a constituent of herbal teas, we were right into that.   The German government banded the sale of Coltsfoot, still a popular herbal remedy, after recent studies showed toxicity causing liver problems, though they mainly appear to have been in infants. Still, worth bearing in mind. Can't hurt you looking at them though.

Gus

There are a few places I walk that have that strange air about them, you know, there's something disconcerting about them, something that unnerves you, and you can't really put your finger on what it is. Usually I walk in mental abandon, lost in thought or in the beauty surrounding me, calm and relaxed, comfortable with the land and my place in it. Usually. Then there are some places, and I know it sounds a touch clichéd, that really give you an uneasy sense of being watched, and of unseen menace. Gus Common is one of those places. Whenever I walk through or around Gus I feel uneasy. You could say, 'man, your creating a self fore-filling prophecy', though I'd disagree. When out walking my mind will be miles away, totally distracted in thought, when feelings of unease begin to intrude, first manifesting themselves physically, like your hackles rising or that strangle tingle you get running up your spine, then on an emotional level. Chewton Common, has always solicited the same sensations in me, and in that I know I'm not alone. Why do some places effect you like that? Can a place retain emotional residue that can still be sensed? Do places harbour memory, again, that could be sensed?  If so, what happened here? The name 'Gus' (which most locals know the common as, the real name of the common being Burton Common) comes from a long abandoned hamlet which stood there. There are connections to smuggling. And, I read somewhere that a disreputable coven may have practiced here at some time. I know, that just sounds mental. Or, could it be our response to some natural phenomena, magnetic fields or some such. Other animals are able sense things beyond our range of perception. I don't know how to explain the different feelings you get from some places to an other, although I do know they feel real, and have a tangible effect on you.

Willow

The pussy willow catkins are just bursting out. Still fluffy and soft, it wont be long before the erupt in to a myriad of yellow flowers.

Snow way!

So, the snow's returned, this time with more force than before, although I think with equal transience. At 6am the snow was falling heavily, creating a white out wonderland. Though by the time I ventured out into the forest about 9am, the snow had stopped and already begun to dissipate.  That said, it still looked lovely. As I wend my way through the stands, gusts of wind dislodged the fine snow from the high boughs, causing cascading flurries to swirl in a passing blizzard. The forest is always magical, though the addition of snow, so rare, adds another dimension to the wonder. As I though, the snow had no longevity, and by the time I left the forest the boughs were for the most part clear of snow and a general thaw was noticeable. Good walking.

Opportunity knocks

When opportunity knocks it's silly not to take it. Many bush-craft skills are reasonably easy to perform with practice, though as is the nature of practice, practice is usually done under the right conditions with all the resources prepared to hand. The thing is, nature's not really like that,  the conditions can vary wildly and resources may require sourcing and preparing. That's why I believe it's always worthwhile practicing in less favourable conditions. It took about 15 minutes to gather the resources I required; a good handful of last seasons bracken, dried off in my trouser pocket, a handful of papery Silver Birch bark, a handful of dry needles and a bundle of dead Silver Birch twigs graded into three groups. I found a sheltered spot in a closely planted juvenile conifer plantation on the edge of Burley Old, and through proper preparation and execution in under 5 minutes from putting my bag down the birch bark had caught a spark and I had a fire going. I was pleased, as the last couple of fires I'd tried were slow and laborious to get going due to complacency on my part, slack perpetration and general stupidity. It was nice to sit out in the snowy forest and get a little fire on the go. I have to say, it's a lot easier raising a fire snowy conditions than it is when it's wet, most of the materials are still quite dry.

A wrinkled land

The Chase is a mighty diverse landscape, high open chalk grasslands, rolling agricultural land, dramatic wooded valleys and extensive conifer and deciduous woodland can all be found in abundance. It's diversity makes it great walking, sometimes arduous walking, mind. Walks which can take you though all the mentioned environmentally different worlds. The western end of the Chase is a particularly wrinkled and puckered landscape, like a scuffed rug. Walking you move quickly through one environment then another, the landscape's condensed, it's full of suprises.  A good number of the areas narrow valleys and hollows are far too severe for most farming, beyond grazing sheep, so many have been turned over to woodland, particularly forestry. Much of the forestry is predictably coniferous, with their relatively quick return they're a very popular choice, although still a good proportion are deciduous, and of course Hazel coppice is always well represented. Obviously taking it's name from a previous time,  Washer Pit Coppice is now planted with rows of the tall straight Beech, indicative of the deciduous plantations in the area. They may look sterile in their uniformity but they bristle with activity, the naked canopies house a chorus of bird song, groups of Roe Deer watch you from the ridges of the steep slopes, a large yellow butterfly sails drunkenly by, squirrels scurry and all around there's the sounds of movement and activity. And, it must really be spring...I even saw a bumble bee this afternoon; it looked off it's head, mind. You really are hidden away in many of these deeply cut wooded valley. I bet there's a lot of folklore and legend to these parts. This would have been a wild landscape back in the day. Right back in the day, it would a landscape you could easily get disorientated, if you didn't know it. I love it.

Posh pads

Something you notice whilst rambling about is, how many posh gaffs there are dotted around the place. The country 'piles' and mansioned estates of those to whom the exploitation of the colonies had brought substantial wealth are hidden in every nook and cranny. And, I remember seeing a program some years ago about how many of these 'piles' where abandoned or left to fall into decay through the 60's and 70's, as a result of changing financial circumstance and the loss of heirs through the two wars. That got me thinking today, did the wars have a disproportional effect on the landed demographic? Proportionally, did more toffs die than regular folk? I don't know. Anyway, what we're seeing are only the remnants of what was a far greater phenomena, one which helped shape today’s countryside. The majority of the big houses which endure have often seen a massive change in use, many may have remained in the hands of a landed family, many are now corporately owned, though nearly all have been forced to diversify in to events, holiday lets or some such. This Beech avenue belongs to West Lodge built in 1753, the last surviving royal hunting lodge in the Chase.

Dainty flowers

For years I'd never noticed the tiny flowers on the Hazel. Yeah, the male catkins, they're very obvious to see hanging down, sometimes in clusters; but not the tiny reddish pink styles of the female flowers are much easier to pass by unless you're looking very closely. The Hazel (Corylus Avellana) is monoecious, with both male and female flowers on the same tree, although they can't self pollinate and require another hazel to produce fruits. Another sign of springs burgeoning.

Archaeology is rubbish

Archaeology 'is' rubbish, no, really, that's what it is. As an archaeologist I was trained to recover, analyse and interpret the remains of the material culture (literally the rubbish most times) left behind by previous human societies in order to better understand their society, culture and technology.  From the shell middens of coastal foragers, the feasting waste of our prehistoric forebears, through domestic waste dumped in pits and ditches during the Roman and Middles ages, to the manuring of fields and the development modern rubbish tips, the disposal of waste has always been a problematic necessity and a gold mine for archaeologists. And even though it's thought of as a modern disease, throughout the ages folk have littered, just dumped their shit. When out walking I've always been  a collector of rubbish, mumbling obscenities as I stuff others discarded crap into a bag. Then a few years ago it dawned on me that I had become a sort of anti archaeology archaeologist, depriving future professionals of research resources. Hmmm. It was then that I decided not to, in most cases, collect up bottles anymore (I still collect the other shit), leave some past to found in the future.  I chose bottles as they're stable-ish and even if plain can be a good source of dating information, though they're even better with writing on. Take this bottle thoroughly wedged amongst the roots of a forest tree, it's decorated with a band of stippling and you can read 'Quencher Drinks' around the bottom of it. From that I discovered that 'Quencher' was a Southampton company, the bottle's possibly late 19th early 20th century and that it probably contained some form of 'pop'. At first I'd imagined it was left by a day tripper to the forest. Or was it?  With a bit of investigation I learned of new possibilities. Where it was found is close to Lyndhurst's old Race course, closed during the latter quarter of the 19th century, by 1891 an 18 hole golf course prospered (still does), from 1922 it was the site of the pony sales,  and during both world wars troops were billeted and trained here.  The list of possible culprits is as endless, as littering is timeless.

Winter or Spring?

The seasonal tug of war continues. We know who'll win. The question is when?

Roma Alan

There's always a story in graffiti, too often it's hidden from us, although sometimes we can gleam something. I'm going to assume that Alan was of the travelling community. Was Alan using the prefix 'Roma' so the local community knew it was him, he wouldn't have known himself as Roma Alan, surely he was just Alan. The prefix serves an identifying purpose, they always do. I think that's a reasonable assumption. The travelling community, contrary to suggestion, mixed, traded and worked with the settled population.  Clearly Alan travelled this way in 1948, '49 and '50, and would have been travelling through the twilight of a traditional lifestyle, as modernity increasingly demanded uniformity and under a variety of pressures that traditional way of life became marginalised made increasingly inaccessible to the point of untenable. Sad. The period saw travellers move from Vardo to motor drawn caravan, and saw the community buy their own land in the face of reduced stopping sites. I wonder what happened to Roma Alan, what was his story? Did he travel through this way at other times not recorded? Was he forced off the road into settled life by imposed restrictions? I'll never know.

Ibsley Battlefield Headquarters

Hidden amongst the trees on the edge of Ibsley Common, behind Moyles Court, overlooking the quarry lakes which were formally the runways and dispersals of RAF Ibsley (one of the forests World War Two airfields) is RAF Ibsley's Battlefield Headquarters and associated defences. An airfield's Battlefield Headquarters were a hardened position, an observation and command bunker surrounded by defencive works, from which to mount a defence and counter attack if the airfield was compromised by the enemy (paratroopers/gliders).  The forest had 4 major airfields, Ibsley, Holmsley, Beaulieu and Stoney Cross, although only Ibsley's Battlefield Headquarters remains intact and accessible, and from other Battlefield Headquarters's I've seen, is unique, having 2 observation cupolas. In fact, in my experience, the whole site is uniquely preserved. The main Battlefield Headquarters, although seasonally wet and full of modern rubbish, is solid, with all rooms accessible; though it's the survival of the surrounding defencive works which are most impressive. The hilltop is defended by several simple circular concrete (sections of pipe?) machine gun positions, lengths of zig-zag trenchworks with corrugated iron revetment and sandbagged positions, as well as individual 'foxholes' dotted about. Some damage was done when the hillside was planted with conifers, though more has been done since the plantation was harvested 10 years or so back. That said, but for the barbedwire entanglements, the position remains nearly complete.  I see the overall neglect and subsequent destruction of nearly all the New Forest's Wartime Airfield structures/features as a heritage crime, or at least a reckless waste of a heritage resource, making the survival of the few remaining intact features even more important. Our complacency, based on the idea that 'there's loads of World War 2 stuff about, has let to the point where most of what we thought we had has gone, and we've only recently woken up to what we've lost. If you dig military archaeology or history, you could do worse than pay this site a visit

Melt

The forest was sodden today, as the melting snow transformed into a filigree of stream-lettes all eager to find their way of the land and back to the sea. In the short time I was out walking (only walked 5 miles) Dockens Water had risen 30 cm or more. Another couple of hours and I'd imagine (knowing the stream/bridge) that the bridge would have been submerged.

Full Moon

There was no moon to be seen this evening, continuous grey blanketed the sky. It was dry though (to start with), so I constructed a brick shield around half the fire pit and kindled a fire. From the get go the fire was lively tonight, swirling gusts sent the flames licking in all directions, and periodically caused embers to erupt and take flight. It's a rare treat to enjoy a fire in the snow, so I made the most of it.  And, even though I couldn't see the moon, I celebrated its travels through the skies.

Iced

It didn't snow last night, nor did it rain, it was something in-between, though not sleet, something like tiny tiny hail or tiny flecks of ice. Whatever they were were so tiny that they made no impression on the snow, none of that stippling you get when it rains or sleets on snow. By the morning every outside surface was encrusted in a hard clear icy glaze a few millimetres thick, it was quite a sight. It was a resilient ice coating too, I watch as one of our cats (Mr Fluff), a fair sized one, walked across the snowy lawn without leaving a mark in the snow. It was treacherous to walk on though, any compacted surface was lubricious, and over covered snow it was like walking across a slick Crème brûlée top, your feet slid all over as you broke through. Interesting weather, interesting day.

Tattoo

One of my nephews asked if I could draw a tattoo combining two runes, the Aegishjalmur and Othala runes, for him (he's got a Viking theme tattoo thing going on). I played with a couple of different ideas, and he liked this one. The top image is a pencil sketch, and the lower is a very rough shaded sketch as a suggestion of a grey scale shading.  Now for the ink version, which I think I'm going stipple shade.

Spring

According to the meteorological calendar, Spring may have sprung, though winter's either unaware or just being awkward, because today was as winter as winter could get.  And so, so, cold, man.  It snowed all day, very fine snow, snow which spent quite a lot of time being swept back into the air and swirled by constant chilly blasts, and even though the snow was constant, it isn't lying that deep. Being so light, and the winds so blowy, the snow's not been settling or staying on the shrubs and bushes, consequently most of the common looks snow free on the surface. Though amongst the stands, where the winds were reduced, some snow held tentative hold on the branches. Still, it's been a weird snowy day, intense and constant, though at the same time ephemeral and lacking something in substance. Bloody cold, mind.