SummeR Solstice, 2000, NumôeR 71 OU

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CONTENTS Reminiscences of Jill Smith and Callanish Callanish and the Mountains of Lewis (three drawings) Demonstrating in Washington The Rose and the Sun (poem) Returning to the Source — Callanish (drawing) Willowitch Plus reviews, miscellany, letters, etc. Front cover by Poppy Palin. In addition to being an illustrator,

Poppy is a professional tattooist and has written books published by Capall Bann. She can be contacted by mail at 3 Conference Close, Warminster, Wilts BA12 8TF or by phone at 0780 845 9748 or 01985 845160.

Monica Sjoo Monica Sjoo Starhawk Denise Margaret Hargrave Jill Smith Poppy Palin

© Daniel Cohen and Jan Henning 2000. Individual writings and drawings ' write to Wood and Water for permission to reprint.

by their creators. Please

MOONS and SUNS to Autumn Equinox (London GMT)

July July August September

July 31st August 1st September 21 st September 22nd September 23rd

Full Moon

16th 13.55 15th 05.13 13th 19.37

Sunrise

04.24

05.47 05.48

New Moon 1st 19.20 31st 02.25 29th 10.19 27th 19.53

Sunset 19.50 19.48 18.00 17.58

Sun enters

Leo 22nd 12.43 Virgo 22nd 19.49 Libra 22nd 17.28

Equinox 17.28

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ADDRESS, c/o Daniel Cohen, 77 Parliament Hill, London NW3 2TH, or c/o Jan Henning, 18 Aylesham Rd., Orpington, Kent BR6 0TX. E-mail: dcohen@cix.compulink.co.uk.

Wood and Water, volume 2, number 71. Summer 2000. A Goddess-centred feminist-influenced pagan magazine

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&^£# U-É I Editorial, Summer Solstice 2000

I was pleased to read that this year's Summer Solstice at Stonehenge passed off peacefully, with English Heritage permitting open access and around six thousand people present.

Not that I am particularly keen on Stonehenge myself. Indeed, on one occasion I just said to my friend with whom I was visiting the site "Get me out of here as quickly as possible", and I did not feel safe until she had driven a fair distance away. Many of the other sites, such as Avebury and Callanish, appeal to me much more.

I thought our readers would be interested in two reports from the 1960s, which give some perspective to what has happened in recent years. I found these accounts in Glyn Daniel's Writing for Antiquity, a collection of his editorials for Antiquity. A fascinating book, but he is very rude about the Druids.

Daniel Cohen

Last summer spectators forced their way through the boundary fence and a large crowd assembled in the centre of the monument. Many individuals climbed the stones to use them as vantage points. As much of this activity takes place in darkness, we fear that there is a serious risk of accidents to a supremely important monument. There is no excuse for anyone at any time forcing their way through the fences and there should be an absolute prohibition on climbing the stones.

Annual Report of the Ancient Monuments Board for England, 1960.

Nearly 3000 people, it is estimated, watched the dawn ceremony on this day of longest light. As on previous occasions, unruly elements sought to lessen the dignity of the proceedings by their behaviour. More serious was the litter of broken bottles — eight barrowfuls were later removed from the enclosure — and the groups of jeering louts perched on top of the stones. Strenuous attempts by the police kept the dawn ceremony moving, but lack of number prevented them from keeping more than a watching brief on earlier antics, which began in the late hours yesterday and continued until after the dawn broke. A strong force of military police was also on duty.

The Times 1961

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REMINISCENCES OF JILL SMITH on the occasion of the publication of her book "THE CALLANISH DANCE"

During the many years I have known Jill we have shared many magic moments and experiences as well as journeys. Her book therefore feels very familiar to me and I'm glad to find that Jill's inspired and poetic voice can be heard speaking through it so clearly.

I remember many years ago seeing articles in avant-garde arts journals and in The Ley Hunter (an Earth Mysteries magazine) about Jill Bruce and Bruce Lacey and their water-earth-fire and other rituals at festivals and arts events. I was therefore quite daunted when I first met Jill at around the time she was splitting up from Bruce. We met through our mutual friends, the Australian artist Lynne Wood and John Sharkey, Irish poet and author of Celtic Mysteries. Very soon Lynne and Jill started to visit me in the cottage where I then lived (it was the early 80s) close to Fishguard in Pembrokeshire. The hamlet where I lived with my partner and my young mixed-race son was also close to St. David's and its beautiful and sacred St. Non's Well. Nearby was Pentre Ifan cromlech, the Preselau mountains, and Nevern churchyard with its miraculous 'Bleeding Yew' and awesome Celtic cross. Many sacred places for us to explore — we were all steeped in Earth mysteries.

Jill's son Taliesin (Talie) was born on a June full moon in Talley valley, the tipi village in the Black Mountains near Llandeilo, where I had many friends. I was to have been one of the 'midwives' at the birth, but it was not to be as it was overdue and my son Leify wanted to go to London for his half-term break.

During the time we were there it 'happened' to be a partial solar eclipse, and the people at Talley built a large labyrinth of stones with a fire in its centre, facing a sweatlodge. My tipi friend Eveon grabbed my hand as well as Jill's and we danced wildly and naked — Jill's belly enormous — through the labyrinth to the rhythm of the pounding drums. Definitely and incredible and high experience.

Jill came to our cottage with Talie only six days old and we went at dawn to St. Non's Well to 'baptise' him in the holy waters of the Mother.

A magical relationship built up between Jill, me and Lynne (who now lives back in Australia but remains steeped in the Celtic mysteries — she has recently had a book Creatures from the Mist published by Capall Bann) and sometimes one or the other would come into my dreams as guide or healer. It wasn't just the sacred land in Wales that brought us together but also experiences at Callanish on Lewis. Lynne 'called me' to Lewis for the summer solstice in 1982. She, Jill and John Sharkey would be there. I hitched up with Pia Laskar, a Swedish friend, and our journey took in many sacred sites such as Glastonbury and Avebury on the way, becoming a true pilgrimage. In Scotland, on the way to the Hebrides, we stayed with Cathy Dagg on Scorraig, and she, together with Lynn of the MRRN network, came with us to Lewis. This was again a journey full of magic. It was only possible to reach Scorraig, which is a peninsula, by boat. As Pia and I had arrived late on the mainland facing Scorraig we had to sleep in a van on the pier, and in the morning Cathy arrived to fetch me, rowing furiously on the choppy waters.

The land up there is beautiful and wild with high mountains and lochs, with eagles and deer. The land reminded us of the north of Sweden, and we felt quite at home. To get from Scorraig to the ferry at Ullapool that goes to Stornoway on Lewis we had to walk for many miles carrying heavy rucksacks on wild high paths overlooking the sea. It was both exhilarating and exhausting.

We finally arrived at Callanish to set up camp and to await the solstice with Jill, Lynne and the others. I vaguely remember sitting among the Callanish stones on the dark moon night with Pia, Cathy and Lyn wailing and singing, calling on the ancient Hooded One.

We watched the Sun go down standing with the stones — as Jill writes, it hovers just below the horizon and rises a few hours later. Never have I seen a sunrise like this, so primordial and the sun so huge. There are no trees on Lewis, and there is nothing that separates one from the sun, the sea, the stones. Of course I am used to the light midsummer nights in Sweden, but this was another experience again.

I remember the long track taking many hours up onto the Silver Maiden (also called the Sleeping Beauty) mountain the next day. Again this was an experience so primordial and ancient that it felt like a

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processional path high on this sacred Mountain Mother of the Moon. There are cairns made of pebbles up there that look like nipples on Her breasts. Even though it had been hard work climbing up, and the wind was strong, I suddenly felt an incredible surge of energy, and I walked on to Her 'neck and head' only to be stopped in my tracks by a sudden feeling that I should not walk on my Mother's face. I remember standing crying and howling in the wind. It is possible that traumatic memories of Silbury, walking on the Mother's pregnant belly, came back to me. Whatever the reason, my feelings were shared by Pia and we walked no further. It occurred to me that here, as on Glastonbury Tor, one loses one's sense of Distances, perspectives, and directions.

Jill came to live with Talie in a tipi we had in the garden of our cottage. Soon after that Jill and I, Jill carrying Talie on her back, hitched to Avebury- and Silbury to take part in the walk across Salisbury Plain in early May 1985 which was led by Greenham women. We were a hundred or so women, and we walked for days across Ministry of Defence land. We were heading for Stonehenge. I remember standing by Jill's side, watching the lunar eclipse as we chanted and hummed amongst the stone which we women had 'liberated' for a few days.

My young son Leify died that summer, on a full moon in August in the south of France. I could no longer live in the cottage or even in Wales. There were too many painful memories for me, everything there reminded me of my son. As my oldest son had by then been diagnosed with lymphoma cancer I went to live with him in Bristol where he was receiving treatment by cancer specialists.

He died two years later in July 1987, the year of the so-called Harmonic Convergence. To avoid all the hype with the Convergence, I went to the tipi village in Wales where I unexpectedly found myself taking part with my friend Eveon and others in a two day fast and Sundance.

I was seeking healing wherever I could find it, and in September that year I travelled to Lewis to be with Jill and Talie. Jill had moved up there by then and had bought a house at Gravir. She had brought my large painting Shaman Goddess at Callanish, which had been inspired by the Summer Solstice in 1982, with her to Lewis, and had included it in a permanent exhibition of art inspired by Callanish, held in the hall attached to her house. That same painting now belongs to Genevieve Vaughan who lives in Texas. It has travelled a long way, from Lewis to Texas.

I remember sitting with Jill and Talie on a magic full moon night that September, watching the Moon travel over the Silver Maiden mountain and entering the Callanish stones which looked like ancient matrons in the moonlight. As Jill writes, the moods and energies of the stones are always changing. They are the most graceful and delicately coloured stones I have ever seen, Salmon stones indeed.

We voyaged around the islands in a hired car, visiting many hidden and desolate places, often in pouring rain and wind — tiny little chapels at places named after the Dark Hag, the Catlleach or Ancient One of the highlands and islands. We visited the Dark Hag mountain on Harris, which indeed looks like a dark old woman resting on a sarcophagus high under the skies.

My experience of Lewis is one of extraordinary and Otherworld powers, a place of high inspiration and wild energies. I found myself writing long poems there. Before returning to Bristol, we all visited Bride's holy-well in a field by the coast further up north from Callanish. There I had the experience of 'out of mind', as if entering a trance state, and I decided there and then that I would have to return to this well with Jill and Talie on Imbolc which is also Brigid's/Bride's day.

So, at the end of January 1989, I found myself travelling to Lewis in the middle of snowstorms, floodings and gales. Friends thought I must be out of my mind to go there then, but the sea was calm and the moon was shining as the ferry went to Stornoway even though there had been gales for weeks on end, and this can be a very rough sea indeed.

It was an encounter with Yoruba priestess Luisah Teish in Oakland, California, that had made my mind up to travel to Lewis. Luisa had told me in a trance that I would have to transform into the Maiden if I wanted to survive my sons' deaths. My urgent sense was that for this to happen I had to be at the well of Brigid, the Maiden of Spring, on her holy islands the He-Bride-s.

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Jill and Talie and I travelled yet again in a hired car in which we also slept overnight by Bride's well. At dawn in the drizzling rain, in layers of clothes and raingear, we huddled by the beautiful and blessed well to welcome in Bride with the first light.

Later that day we travelled past, and briefly visited, Callanish. That day the stones were incredibly vibrant and vivid and powerful. In the night we watched the Northern Lights, great shafts of lights sweeping across the skies, looking like torches or perhaps the candles in Brides' hair. We felt blessed indeed. Yes, it felt like healing and rejuvenation that time on Lewis, and I returned home inspired and did several major paintings.

Jill and I have exhibited together, with other Goddess artists, in the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury during several Goddess Conferences. It was in 1989 that we had exhibited there together with Philippa Bowers and Joanna Gorner in a show we called The Goddess re-emerging. What I would like to see in the future is a major exhibition of ours and other Goddess and Earth Mysteries artists that celebrate Mother Earth as sacred and alive.

Thank you, Jill, for writing this book. Monica Sjoo

THE MOONSTONE

Moonstone, with its mysterious white or blue sheen is one of the most familiar gem varieties of a large group of minerals called the Feldspars. These are the most abundant minerals in the crust of the Earth. All Feldspars are aluminium silicates containing calcium, sodium or potassium. Most of the Feldspars have been cut as gems, the important Feldspars tend to be translucent to nearly opaque and show interesting optical effects. All the Feldspars have a hardness of 6-6.5 on the Mohs scale, which is relatively low for a gem.

The Moonstone is considered a sacred stone in India where it is traditionally only displayed on a yellow cloth, this being a sacred colour. Moonstone is treasured as a gift for lovers and is said to give them the ability to see the future. To do this, the stone is placed in the mouth at the time of the Full Moon. It has been claimed that some Moonstones change colour and markings according to the phase of the Moon.

Moonstone is the most popular and important microchne gem. Its blue or white sheen is called adularescence and is caused by the presence of tiny crystals of albite arranged in layers within the host microchne. Moonstones may be completely transparent and the sheen can be either silvery white or a soft but distinct blue, the latter being highly prized. The adularescent sheen resembles a cloud of light, which appears within the gem when it is turned at right angles to the eye.

Some Moonstones are nearly opaque and may have strong colour such as beige, pink, green, yellow, white, grey or brown. These are usually cut as high-domed, rounded cabochons, and the sheen is concentrated at the top in a bright spot that sometimes extends across the stone as a distinct 'eye'. Such gems have been called 'cat's eye' Moonstones. Some others may have a second ray at right angles to the first forming a cross. Moonstones with a strong body colour are primarily from India. The most important historical sources for fine Moonstones are Sri Lanka and Burma. Other sources include Canada, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia and California, Virginia and Colorado, USA. Mining is usually carried out by hand and stones are frequently cut locally.

Caroline Tully

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DEMONSTRATING IN WASHINGTON

(This report from Starhawk on the demonstrations last April—following on from last year's demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organisation and the dangers of globalisation — is copied by permission from her Web page at www.reclaiming.org/starhawk. Comparing with the demonstrations in London on May 1st, we were particularly impressed with the preliminary structure, with its affinity groups and nonviolence training. Eds.)

Sunday, A16: We have been blockading all day in a giant spiderweb, an intersection entirely surrounded by webs of yarn that effectively prevent free movement into the street. We have been drawn here by Willow's nose, following the energy. The intersection is held by a cluster from Asheville that includes many labor union people. In Seattle, we were cheered in jail to hear that the ILWU had shut down every port on the West coast in solidarity with our action. Here on the streets of Washington DC, we are blockading arm in arm with the Ecofeminist Teamsters. In front of the police blockade, an affinity group is locked down, sitting in a line with their arms locked together. Their supporters surround them, bring them water, administer sunscreen, and hold the keys. I am really, really happy to be part of a movement that includes a group of ecofeminist teamsters. They ask us for some help in shifting the energy, which is loud, raucous and confrontational. I join the group of drummers in the center. I don't have my own drum today, just a bucket and sticks which works fairly well except when it falls off the rope tied around my waist. I start to drum with the group in the center, trying to entrain as I know the only way to shift a rhythm is first to join with it. With the help of some of the singers in our group, we manage to shift into a song: "We have come too far, we won't turn around, we'll flood the streets with justice, we are freedom bound."

I'm thinking about all the energies we'd invoked at the ritual the night before, Bngid, Ova, the Norns, the Red Dragon. At that moment, a red dragon made of cloth and ribbons dances into the intersection atop of line of smiling young protestors. It circles the intersection, and the energy shifts.

This magic is played out against a background of stark though unacknowledged fear. In all our affinity group's discussions about who to invoke and how to arrange early morning transport, I don't think we've ever simply said, "I'm afraid." I haven't said it because I've pushed the fear down so far it doesn't easily surface, and because what I'm most afraid of is that someone else, someone I persuaded to come to this action, will get hurt. And also, I suppose, because I think the group looks to me to project calm and confidence, when really what might help us all most would be to simply be able to say "I'm scared. Are you scared, too?" We're scared because we are out on the street risking arrest in a city that has been turned into a police state. Sixty square blocks have been barricaded off. The day before, six hundred people were arrested in a pre-emptive strike at a peaceful march. They weren't warned or allowed to leave. Our Convergence Center was shut down the same morning, with thousands of people arriving that day to be trained. Our puppets and medical supplies were confiscated. Although the puppets were eventually released, the medical supplies remain under lock and key.

I spent Saturday morning wandering in the rain with a group of about eighty people for whom I was trying to do a nonviolence training. The church we headed to was flanked by police and so overcrowded we could not possibly squeeze in. We set off for a park, but a runner informed us that the police were throwing people out of it. Eventually, I just stopped on the corner and said to the group, "Look, you can come back in the afternoon and try to get into a training, or we can just do it in the road." "Let's do it!" they'd cried, and so we ducked into an alley, arranged a fallback point in case we had to scatter, and did the training right there, with police cruising half a block away. "I must be a Witch," I said to Willow after she finally found us toward the end of the morning. "I just disappeared eighty people!"

We are afraid of the police: they have guns, clubs, tear gas and pepper spray, and all the power of the state at their disposal. They can beat, gas or jail us with relative impunity. What's hard to grasp is how much they are afraid of us. Some of are group are wearing black and covering their faces and they look like the

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folks in Seattle that broke windows and made the police look bad. Mostly, I think, the police are afraid of the unknown. Someone in the crowd could have a bomb. Those bubbling vats in the convergence kitchen could be homemade pepper spray instead of lunch. Those bottles of turpentine could have some nefarious purpose other than removal of the paint used in banner making.

Now the two groups, each perceiving themselves as righteous and the other side as potentially violent, are squaring off on the streets of our nation's capital.

Later: Willow, Evergreen and I are returning from a trek to the bathrooms blocks away. We see a barricade half-built across the street. A dumpster has been dragged into the middle of the street, and a few broken pieces of furniture lie atop it. Other pieces of debris strew the roadside. A couple of cars have been lifted up and set down at forty five degree angles. Our much-debated nonviolence guidlelines state that we will not damage property. The cars are unharmed, but moving them has certainly put them in harm's way. It is an action right on the edge of what the guidelines allow: but then we know many people are unhappy at having guidelines at all, and agree to them with the greatest reluctance.

Behind the dumpster, a circle of people stand engrossed in a heated meeting. They are discussing the barricade. David, my partner, is in the midst of them. As I listen, I soon realize what has happened. The young man in black, the tall Rasta from the Caribbean, and some of the others have built the barricade. David has been taking it down even as they build it up. Now they are having a spokescouncil meeting. A young woman from the Ecofeminist Teamsters is facilitating.

The people who built the barricade see it as protective. We hear rumors that the cops have been running over people with motorcycles. The barricade builders view it as our defense. David sees it as endangering us, as upping the ante of confrontation and potentially provoking violence. Most of the barricade builders are young: he is middle aged, he looks and sounds like somebody's Dad, which in fact he is. He's somebody's granddad, for that matter. He's also a man who burned his draft card in the Vietnam War and spent two years of his youth in Federal Prison. His lifelong pacifism is staunch and unshakeable, and I've never known him to back on a matter of principle. Next to him is a young, black clad, masked protestor who looks like the classic image of the anarchist/terrorist. He is listening thoughtfully to the discussion.

I look at that circle and see all the tensions, fears and hopes that have surrounded this action. I've been here for close to a week, doing trainings, going to meetings, sitting in on every spokescouncil. I know that we have deep divisions among us on the question of how this action should be conducted. In the spokescouncils, the strongest voice generally seems to belong to those who want a more confrontational action, who chafe against the nonviolence guidelines and are ready to do battle in the streets. But in the nonviolence trainings I've done, and on the street itself, I hear the voices of those for whom the guidelines are vitally important, and who want a stronger commitment to nonviolence, to communication as well as confrontation.

This is the kind of issue that has torn movements apart. Those of us who arc old enough to remember the Sixties have seen it happen again and again. We know how easy it is for this energy to turn sour and dissipate. We've seen strong organizations splinter apart around questions of tactics. Much stronger than any fear I might have of the police is my fear that this blessed wild unlooked for movement, this rising tide of rage and passion for justice will founder in the same way I've seen movements founder before, that we'll end up denouncing each other instead of the IMF, or that small splinter groups will take us too quickly into forms of action so extreme they leave our base of support far behind.

This energy is rare and precious. It's the one thing that can't be organized or created. When it's present, it's unstoppable, but when it goes, it's gone. And in thirty years of political activism, I've learned how quickly it can go.

"What's amazing," I say to the group, "is that we're having this dialogue. Under all this tension and in the middle of the action, that we're willing to discuss this and listen to each other. That may be as important as anything else we do on the street today."

The black masked anarchist, the Rasta, the Ecofeminist Teamster facilitator, the other affinity group representatives, and even David himself are all nodding in agreement. Eventually, a compromise is reached:

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David will not take down any more of the barricade, and no one else will add to it or build it up. I don't know which amazes me more: that the barricade builders agree, or that David does. By the end of the day, the dumpster has become a giant drum, a symbol both of our differences and of the process we use to resolve them, a living testimony to the true democracy we have brought to confront the systems of political and economic control.

We are in the Ellipse. The blockade is over. The march and rally are done. We are lying in the shade, napping after an exhausting day, when someone comes running.

"The cops are trying to sweep the park! There's Riot Cops massing over there in the corner!" We can't really believe the police would do something so unprovoked and stupid, but a few of us go to

see what is happening. A line of Park Police on horseback are threading their way through clumps of people seated on the grass and alarming a small contingent of the DAR in pink suits and pearls, who scatter toward their building across the way. We follow the horses, and they move out into Constitution Avenue, form a line, and begin, or so it seems, to try to push the crowd off the street. Half the crowd are panicking and the other half are shouting at the cops and challenging the horses and in a moment, many people are going to get badly hurt. It's a situation so dangerous and unprovoked that I'm ready to get arrested just in protest of its stupidity, or so I tell Dan Fireheart who is right behind me. But suddenly I know that I have to get to the front of the crowd. I catch hold of some lightning bolt of energy and streak through, checking myself as I go, "Is this really for me to do?" I know it is because suddenly I'm there, doing it, yelling "Sit down! Sit down with your legs out!" And doing it myself with enough conviction that others follow suit. In a moment, the crowd is sitting down or lying in front of the horses, who stop.

I am sitting with my legs out toward a horse whose feet stand between my ankles. One of my arms is outstretched as if to say "Stop!" I can't seem to move it or put it down. Dan Fireheart reaches forward from behind me and takes my other hand. The horse is very big. The policeman on his back will not look me in the eye. Down the line, a cop tells a young woman protestor "I don't want to trample you but if my boss orders me to move forward, I'll have to." I've been teaching people for twenty years in nonviolence trainings that horses do not like to walk into uneven ground and won't trample people if you sit down or lie down in front of them, but I've never tested it before. The horse shifts its weight. I remember that we called on the spirits of the land itself to support us. I can feel all the rings of magical energy and protection being sent to this action. They surround me like ripples in a pond, converging toward me instead of dispersing out. I still cannot seem to put my hand down. Half the people around me look like they're part of the Black bloc. In this moment, we have total solidarity. There are no more questions of tactics or style or guidelines, we are simply there together, facing the same threat, making the same stand, facing the same fear.

There's a line of not cops behind the horses, so they can't move back. We all sit, frozen in time. I reach up, let the horse sniff my hand. The horse and I, we're in complete agreement. He doesn't want to step on me, and I don't want him to. Behind us, someone from the Committee for Full Enjoyment begins a chant: "It's not about the cops, it's about the IMF!" The crowd takes it up, and the energy unifies.

Then I realize there is a second line of horse behind our horses, facing the other way. It seems as if they've just come in from somewhere. They form a kind of open V with the riot cops in the middle. The crowd facing those horses begins to shout and panic. They're yelling at the horses and trying to push them back and throwing horse manure at the cops. The not cops get out of the way. The horses are dancing and stumbling and being pushed into our horses who will have nowhere to move and stumble except on top of us. We begin chanting at the other crowd to sit down. They don't listen. "Sit down! Sit down! Sit down!" we chant. Finally they get it. They sit down. The horses stop. We breathe again. At some point in the melee, one young man does get stepped on, and is left with a broken leg.

Now the horses are trapped. They have nowhere to go. I look up at the policeman who still won't meet my eye. "Officer, you have created an incredibly dangerous situation here, for us, for yourselves, for the horses! What were you thinking of? And how can we get you out of this?" I am fully prepared to try to negotiate with the crowd to let the horses out, but he still won't look at me. Off to the side, the riot cops move in. They begin literally throwing people around, until they clear a passage where the horses can file out. We

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scoot forward and then stand up and follow them, taking over the street, chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" On the other end of Constitution Avenue, a line of riot cops stands, batons ready. We are fully prepared to be arrested, but they don't move, simply hold their own blockade as the drums thunder and the victory dance begins.

Starhawk

0 THE ROSE AND THE SUN

«

Now is your hour, fragrant full-blown rose, Intoxicating queen of summer With your heady perfume And your blossoms and thorns. Lady of the colours of daylight, White as milk and black as ebony, Red as blood, bright as gold Glowing in the sun's rays, Joy of the light of the longest day, Sharp are your thorns but soft your blossoms Enticing honey-bees To the heart of summer's Mystery.

Now begins the decline into dark Of the triumphant king of the light And the love that moves worlds And the love that is death Which dissolves into ecstasy's song, On the cosmic flower And with blood on the thorns. Hoist your sails on the dark seas of time, Search, sun, king, for that isle of dreams Where the blossoms, the thorns And the gold sun reborn Will be one.

Denise Margaret Hargrave

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Following last year's very successful conference on shamanism, another one-day conference entitled Shamanism Today: a sense of place will be held in Milton Keynes on Saturday 14th October. Cost £15. More details from Creeping Toad, 3 Vernon Street, Old Trafford, Manchester M16 9JP.

The fifth Glastonbury Goddess conference will be held 2nd-6th August. There will be talks, workshops, music, art exhibitions, etc. Presenters include Starhawk, Olivia Durdin Robertson, Chesca Potter, Cheryl Straffon, and Kathy Jones. Full price is £125, but there are bursaries and work-exchange tickets available, as well as entry to single events. More details from Goddess Conference, 2-4 High Street, Glastonbury, Somerset BA6 9DU.

The Reclaiming Witch Camp, led by Starhawk, Rose May Dance, and Dave, will also be held near Glastonbury, July 28th to August 3rd. Cost £345 (dorm room), £275 camping. The price includes food and there are concessions available. More details from Avalon Witch Camp, c/o Liz Rudwick, 131b Huddleston Rd, London N7 OEH, phone 020 7281 7346 or phone Susan Farley on 01245 344082.

Since the demise of Source, we have been without a magazine devoted to holy wells. We now have Living Spring Journal, an online magazine with an offprint service. It can be found at www.bath.ac.uk/lispring/journal, or by mail to Katy Jordan, Living Spring Journal, Library and Learning Centre, University of Bath, BA2 7AY.

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-< *61 : Dear WW, Some confusion has been caused by a letter in Wood and Water (number 67, Summer 1999) which

stated that the book Gender Reversals and Gender Culture was the "guiding force" behind Lux Madriana. This book is not a Madrian publication. Lux Madriana is not based on modern research but on

hereditary teachings. It is not a ttansgender religion but simply has a different concept of femininity from that of Patriarchy.

The same letter also states that Lux Madriana is radical. Lux Mariana never had any conection with political movements and did not engage in protest or attempt to influence legislation. Its objective was to set up self-governing craft households supporting Madrian schools and academies.

Lux Madriana is not American. I met the most senior Madrians and they were all English. May She be with you.

David Kay-

Dear WW, I agree completely with the Seahenge editorial. Did you see the beautiful 150 year old oak cut down so

they could tell how the first one had been cut? Then the people examining the old tree came up with the same solution anyway. I felt like crying for the poor creature. What a waste that was.

Bright blessings. Catherine Parker

12

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THE WHITE STONES OF HASCOMBE

The idea to build a stone circle near Guildford came when an estate there came into the hands of Ellie, whose friend Ivan had already built her a circle back in her former home in Glastonbury. He had also built another circle, and wanted very much to go a step further and make this circle using no machinery once the stones had been delivered to the site.

So the stones were chosen from the big quarry at Portland Bill, and delivered to the spot chosen on the land. Then a Beltane Camp for OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) was held on the site, the layout of the circle was established and the first stones raised. The total number of stones was nineteen, each weighing between six and nine tons, of lovely white rock, often full of fossils. Gradually the techniques and equipment used to move the stones became clearer, so that while it took seventy people to tug the first stone into place, towards the end around thirteen were sufficient. The stones took from one to thirteen days to move, so a group came to the site once a month, from Beltane 1998 to July 1999, to work on the circle. These folk became known as the M.O.D.s (Megalithic Order of Druids!), and many folk came in at different times to help in the task. It was an amazing process, learning how to connect with each stone and make many slow small moves and adjustments, gradually raising each stone and then ... into its socket, to stand happily in its place in the circle.

The circle is finished now, and already being used in various ways. Also, it is on a public footpath and so is visited by many passing walkers. Its magnificent location overlooks miles of forest, is backed by more forested hills, with a hill fort close by, and next door is a herd of white deer — well worth a visit!

If you would like to visit the site, the map reference is TQ 021381 (Lodge Farm, the B 2130 road). For help or information on stone moving, contact Ivan 01483 208658, Khi Deva 01453 447763, or Ros 07980 117796.

Ros Briagha

13

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Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius J. Holtorf (eds.). Archaeology and Folklore. Routledge 1999. Hbk. £55.

This book is a publication of the Theoretical Archaeology Group, based on papers presented at their 1996 conference. It begins with two general articles on the relationship of archaeology to folklore from the viewpoint of archaeologists. The remaining articles discuss connections between the two in various specific archaeological works; many of these articles also include a general discussion. The word 'folklore' is used here to cover the beliefs, myths, customs and behaviour of people and also the formal study of this material. In the latter sense, both archaeology and folklore have developed from the work of antiquarians from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

There are two articles on Catal Hoyuk. The first discusses its significance among the villagers of the surrounding area. The second, by Lynn Meskell, looks at how Catal Hoyuk and other sites are interpreted in the Goddess movement. She suggests that these interpretations are based on archaeological work of an earlier period, and does not take into account more recent work. She notes that archaeologists criticise the views of the Goddess movement without realising how much their own, or their predecessors', work has been influenced by the same mythological studies that still influence the Goddess movement. Unfortunately her critique of Gimbutas, while worth taking into account, is marred by a very ungracious remark.

There are several articles on the British Isles. Miranda Green writes on "resonances of the past in myth and material culture". Julia Murphy discusses interpretations of the Pentre Ifan megalith. She points out that "the evidence unearthed does not suggest funerary practices occurring there, let alone burial", and concludes that "The ease with which archaeologists categorise Pentre Ifan as a 'tomb' and readily associate the monument with spooky feelings of death and awe is really not much less far-fetched than dreaming of fairies at the site." Sara Champion and Gabriel Cooney look at the folkloric elements of the names of various Irish sites, and consider how the folklore of these sites has affected their preservation or destruction. Finally, the archaeologist Martin Brown and the storyteller Pat Bowen write about guided walks that they organise to explore and interpret the landscape of East Sussex to the participants, covering archaeology, folklore, geology, animal and plant life and people's responses to these.

An interesting piece by Ingunn Holm on clearance cairns in Norway shows how the local population's oral traditions helped archaeologists to understand the significance of these objects. Martin Schmidt and Uta Halle write on the significance of the Externsteine to German culture, pointing out that it attracts both Goddess groups and neo-Nazis.

Other articles range from Sardinia and Italy (the Etruscans) to North America (the Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago).

While the book is intended for academics, it is accessible (apart from the price) to the general reader. The opening two pieces are of especial interest. The editors say that "folklore is valuable to archaeologists because it offers us alternative ideas about the past that counter our tendency to portray everyone in all time as versions of ourselves." Folklore also indicates "what monuments and other archaeological objects meant (and mean) to people in their respective lifeworlds and how they were (and are) used in the formation of collective identities." It also reminds one that monuments have their own life histories, and "folklore reflects some of the

14

later interpretations of prehistoric sites, and contemporary folklore constitutes one important part of present-day understanding of monuments."

The whole book is informed by the post-modern understanding that "other voices and other constructions of knowledge" are to be valued, and that the dominant one is not the only one to be considered. It is also recognised that there is a need to look at how the dominant approach has been constructed, what its roots and hidden themes are.

In our last issue, Jan wrote about the attitude of the archaeologists investigating Seahenge to the locals and the pagans who were distressed by their actions. I was left with the feeling that these archaeologists would have learnt a great deal, and might have been less arrogant, if they had attended the meeting from which this book sprung.

Ken Dowden. European Paganism; the realities of cult from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Routledge 2000. Hbk. £45.

The author is a classical scholar, who bases this work on the written evidence rather than on archaeology. This means that he does not consider prehistory. Most of the pre-Christian material comes from Greek and Roman sources, and even the Christian sources are almost entirely in Latin, as the different peoples usually did not have their own written language until some considerable time after they had been christianised. One of the great virtues of this book is the many detailed quotations (in translation); most other books on similar matters quote only brief phrases.

Because the amount of material available differs so much from one people to another, he structures the book by themes rather than by country. For instance, there is a chapter on 'spring, lake, river' and one on 'stone and tree', as well as ones on pagan concepts of time and on the nature of temples. This does run the risk of a Frazerian eclecticism, gathering snippets from here and there, but the author avoids this danger admirably.

He devotes his time to look at pagan practice rather than belief, and writes very little about individual gods. He says that "paganism is not primarily credal and there is accordingly even less justification for starting from official beliefs about the divinity than there is for Christianity, Islam and Judaism; to tell the god is not to tell the religion. Pagan polytheism is in fact a very complicated ideology and we need a lot of evidence to understand why their systems of gods were configured as they were." (p. 213)

His writing is full of insights. He points out that in a Christian church the altar is within the church; but in the typical Greek sanctuary "there was the temple and the historic statue of the god within, but the altar ... was outside the temple and in front of it." (p.26) I had never realised, but it seems obvious now he has told me, that there are sacred trees and sacred groves, but a sacred grove is not a collection of sacred trees. And it is nice to learn that "it is impossible for us looking at Gaulish, or indeed for a Gaul speaking it, to distinguish between 'oak-expert' and 'truth-knower' as the meaning of 'druid'. So both oak and true are valid for speakers of the language' and it is not for us to dismiss the inevitable associations of the two by sternly-dismissing 'false' etymologies." (p.237)

He warns us that Christian denunciations of paganism are not to be relied on for information about pagan practices, as one writer will often copy another one writing at a different time and place. For instance, Augustine argues against a paganism that was already out of date half a millennium earlier (p. 152). Dowden says that "In a remarkable way Christians were unable to comprehend the variety and chaos that always makes paganism what it i s " (p. 149) On p. 152 he says that "paganism is something very unspecific for most Christian authors" and that 'The question then arises as to whether any local observations are made by-Christian writers for themselves. [Several authors] thought not. I think that if an extreme position is to be adopted, this is the correct one."

The book is a delight to read. Dowden has an attractive style, and chooses his quotations so that they illuminate the matters he is discussing. He does not say much about the history of pagan Europe — as he says, this has been done with real commitment in Jones and Pennick's A History of Pagan Europe (Routledge

15

1995). This latter book, originally in hardback, was re-issued in paperback at an affordable price. It is to be hoped that Dowden's book will also appear in paperback, as it is essential and enjoyable reading for anyone interested in what pagans did.

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Jill Smith. The Callanish Dance: the cycle of the year celebrated in the sacred landscape of the Western Isles. Capall Barm 2000. Pbk. £9.95.

Regular readers of Wood and Water will know Jill Smith as both writer and artist. They will also be aware of her interest in the stone circle at Callanish on the isle of Lewis in the Hebrides.

Following visits to Callanish in the early 80s, she moved to Lewis in 1986 and lived there for ten years. During that time she visited the circle in all seasons and in many different weathers, and it was a great influence on her life.

This book records her feelings about Callanish and the surrounding landscape, together with details of her life on Lewis. I find this mix of the spiritual and the physical in its everyday aspects particularly rewarding. I feel, as she does, that sacred sites are best visited as an integral part of one's daily life, and not on a rushed visit. As she says, "Sites need time — time to just be with them in stillness, with no expectation, not imposing anything of one's own on them, but sitting and listening and waiting to see if they have anything to tell." (p. 67.) She also refers to some people who were at Callanish at the lunar standstill who were "trying loudly to keep to some event schedule that was going awry" and comments that "You don't have to do anything, you don't have to add anything." (p. 110.)

I was interested, too, in the details of her earlier life. I had not realised that she had had an earlier career as a very different kind of artist, involved in creating ceremonial and ritual theatre for public performance.

The book contains ten of her drawings, mostly showing aspects of Callanish in different seasons, and with a fine colour cover.

All reviews in this issue by Daniel Cohen

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