Leo New Moon

The Sun, Moon, and Venus are fine and dandy, sending pleasantries to Uranus. The Sun's already shining  bright as you drop down from the High Moor towards the sea and along the farm lane the pigs and cattle are dozing in the shade. Two pounds in a box at the farm gate will get you a day's parking in a little field beside the lane and off you go, through a scrabble of hens and a waddle of ducks onto the track which drops down, down to the cove below.

It's not for the faint hearted, this track, it starts easy and gets tough if you have short legs - being hewn from the cliff face by miners and fishermen with no consideration of 21st century pleasure seekers. Often the cove is deserted, but today is different. Intrepid families have braved the mile long, rocky path and the separation from phone signals,shops and electricity to spend a good old-fashioned day on the beach. 

It's rarely safe enough for swimming here - there's no lifeguard and the currents are lethal but today is different - little ones bob about on bellyboards, a snorkler circuits the cove and teenagers try to swim to the headlands -nobody is in any danger at all.  The eager collie swims out and back a dozen times, finds friends to play chase with, no-one stops them, no-one worries, everyone is safe today. Families swim, blow bubbles, pitch tents, play cricket and picnic. No-one  gets drunk, nobody cries. Fathers lift tiny kids onto huge rocks and they are king of the castle, they laugh and do it again.  A seal comes in close,watching this extraordinary day. The children are fascinated by him and by the incoming tide which surprises their sandy feet.

You sketch a bit and take a photo or two but it's a day for just being part of the place for awhile. The spring tide is rushing in. Presently there will be a scurry for the long climb back and you're a bit slow so you leave now and take your time. Climbing back up the hot and dusty hillside, the sound of children having fun echos around the cove and up the valley. You stop and look back, resting a moment and it's then that you notice  the angels..... 

thick as a bag

Hereabouts they describe fog as 'thick as a bag' and that is what we encountered  on the cliffs at Morvah when we took our painting stuff out at the weekend. So the painting's a bit impressionist - fine by me. It was still nice; quiet and still - the sea way below just shushing onto the rocks and a baby skylark in the bracken behind me frantically calling for his Mum and food.

       Humbling reminder that nature is the better gardener and has the best hard landscaping! A lesson to observe how plants interact and always look harmonious together in the wild...Look, look  watch, learn....

 Off to try again today - the sun looks as if it may shine awhile - I badly need some sparkly sea and some blue.

Here today....

More sadness these late days than the throat can swallow.More violence than the skin can flinch from. More tears than my eyes can cry.

 Fly away Amy, lighter and brighter

Bow your heads Norway, your children are gone

men an tol

 The Men an Tol or 'stone of the hole' lies in open moorland a mile or two inland, surrounded by heather, white grass and low growing Cornish Gorse that flowers in late summer.  Dating from the Bronze Age, it is uncertain whether the stones were part of a circle or a burial cairn but it is quite possible that they have been moved from their original positions.

Many legends surround the stones, most prominently that of their healing properties -crawling through the hole nine times against the sun is deemed an excellent cure for back pain, indeed it was known as 'the Crickstone' though it is some way from the road and very low to the Ground so I wouldn't personally fancy trying this for any back pain I've suffered! Parents were said to have brought children suffering from rickets here to pass them naked through the hole and of course ladies wishing to become pregnant were advised to do the same, heaven help them!

Of course the answer may be quite different :

(apologies to those of you  who may be unfamiliar with Cornish vernacular - I hope it still makes sense!)

Old Bran from out Bosullow way, up by Penwith Moor

Cut stone to make his living, 'twas in the days of yore.

With blade and mallet sparking and his strength and skill aflame,

hearthstones,querns and lintels from within the granite came.

Now Bran was past the flush of youth and often he would groan

on damp and murky Cornish days a heavin' of his stone.

"There must be easier ways" he cried "for us poor feeble folk

to move this bleddy granite,'tis got beyond a joke."

Invention from necessity was still a new idea

so he set to work on carving out a different piece of gear.

The rolling sun was round and travelled easy 'cross the sky

so he copied that and sure enough it rolled as sweet as pie!

He called it 'wheel' and made a cart to haul his stone away

and that is how we come to have wheelbarrows to this day

so now the wheel is everywhere and we've forgotten how

 a clever bloke from Cornwall saved us so much labour now.

Old Bran's long gone but watches from beyond and far away

He can't quite get his head around the people of today

He chuckles as they toil uphill and reverently kneel

to pass their little children through  the template of his wheel.

         © L.J.Foyle 2011         

Capricorn Full Moon

Full Moon Blessings to all!   After today, a respite from Grand Cross energies for a few weeks,  Breath out!

Carn Euny

        

 Carn Euny - The remains of an Iron Age Courtyard house settlement on the south facing side of Sancreed, below the hill forts of Bartinney and Caer Bran and surrounded by fertile farmland. The walls of several stone built roundhouses are clearly visible,topped with mosses and short grasses and with clumps of fern at their feet. Sprinkle the whole site with wildflowers and you have the perfect place for an afternoon of sketching, musing and dreamily watching buzzards wheeling on the high thermals above.          

           

      

In the middle of the settlement is the very curious 'Fougou' or cave built below ground and originally reached via a long passageway lined with stone and topped by huge flat slabs of granite.        

          

 Nobody knows what fogous were used for but they occur in ancient villages like this one and are built along similar alignments and plans. This one has been made safely accessable and gives rise to much conjecture and a fair amount  of nonsense regarding the ways of the ancestors!            

         

As I write, in mid-July, the site has a fantastic crop of Betony in flower. Betony was regarded as a precious herb by the ancients and it was much prized . A herb of Jupiter, Culpepper also places it under the sign of Aries for it was thought to have a great protective quality.  The juice is a fine healer of wounds, it is astringent and draws splinters and thorns; The leaves make a good yellow dye for wool and the flowers,dried with the greatest care, make a pleasant and comforting  tea which is good for digestive and nervous afflictions and especially headaches. It blends well with Coltsfoot to make a smoking  mixture, helpful against respiratory troubles.  Betony was also thought to protect against epidemics - a tonic for the immune system perhaps . 

Such an important herb was planted in physic gardens and is often found where medicinal herbs would have been grown. I like to fancy that the Betony at Carn Euny descends from such a garden but in truth the stuff grows abundantly all over the area but usually is confined to hedgerows.

         

This is where I like to sit and dream about the days when this was a busy and bustling place and I conjured up Magrid one melancholy October afternoon, this is her story:                 

       

Have a nice week!    

All text and photos © L.J. Foyle 2011

summer

seven seconds

Isn't it odd how incidents seem to proceed with their own momentum just by the participants reacting in their own particular pattern? Here's an example :  Dog and self, on the way to dig some beetroot for tea, emerge from a side lane onto the road where the afternoon migration of schoolchildren is ambling past (the general public).  Four boys - twelve, thirteenish - are loitering a yard or two in front of me when a speckled wood butterfly flutters past (innocent victim). First boy instantly claps his hands wildly trying to catch it (journalist). Second boy asks  'Wotcha do that for?' (TV interviewer). Third boy walks on feigning indifference. (police officer). Fourth boy jumps around, screeching at the butterfly which is now on the ground, wings folded. He pokes it, it opens its wings, he screams and stamps on it, grinding the insect to nothing (Newspaper proprietor?).  The whole incident takes seven seconds

                                                                                                 (Butterflies by Escher)

reverie

On  a hot afternoon there's nowhere I'd rather be than atop the carns of the Far West,. A soft breeze is just whispering in the white grass, bees are "buzzing and honeying" in the newly opened heather and skylarks flutter aloft, letting fall their cascades of silver song. The sea below lies calm at last, holding its breath between the tides and it seems for a moment possible that all the world should know this peace.

Love : Peas

Wimbledon and peas always happen together. It never seems as if they'll be big enough in time but here I am again, surrounded by bowls, peas and pods, enjoying the tennis.

     

I didn't grow any of these but what a colour fest  it is.

Don't forget to set your New Moon intentions... This guy is intending to take it easy, Hope your weekend is relaxxxxed too.