Fiery cheer.

We do have some traditional fire rituals that take place in January up this end of the country. For instance the Burning of the Clavie, a fire festival at Burghead which greets the New Year. It is now celebrated on on 11th January. When the Julian calendar was reformed in Britain and the new Gregorian calendar was introduced people rioted, demanding back their 11 days - but not in Burghead. Brochers decided to have the best of both worlds, by celebrating New Year twice - on 1st January and the 11th January.

Therefore, every 11th January the flaming Clavie (a barrel full of staves) is carried round the town followed by a large crowd until it is set into a sturdy frame on the Doorie Hill on the ramparts of the ancient fort. After refuelling it's allowed to burn out and fall down the hill. Whilst the embers still smoulder the more intrepid onlookers gather them. Possession of a piece of the Clavie is said to bring good luck for the coming year and pieces are sent around the world to exiled 'Brochers'.

The year I took the children to this it was extremely windy and very impressive. It takes some courage to carry that flaming barrell around the town.

One I haven't been to yet but would love to be present at, is Up Helly Aa, the celebration of the Viking heritage on Shetland with a torch-light procession of Viking warriors known as the Jarl Squad lead by the Guizer Jarl, the Viking Chief, and culminating in the burning of a replica of a Viking longboat. Much quaffing of strong ale and merrymaking follow throughout the night.

The Laughing Babe.

It's very nice (re Chillsider's blog) to see pictures of tiny babies laughing. I've heard my three month old grandson chuckle on Skype. My own babes did't giggle and laugh much that early and I wonder what that says about my parenting. Bit too tense probably. My first-born spent several months sizing me up dubiously before she decided I was reasonably good parenting material and could probably be knocked into shape with a bit of work. I'm full of admiration for these mothers who are relaxed enough to just enjoy it all.

Browsing

I was browsing through the condemned books in the garage yesterday and discovered that with the pressure off to sell them they're not a bad bunch. If I had been wandering through a small secondhand bookstore containing only those books I think I would have found something to buy. The scruffy leather pocket book volumes of poetry and literature, the 1930's dustjackets as above, the jacketless hardback of 1900's novels, social commentaries, theories of education, farming, industry, AA route maps and so on all took on a much rosier glow so I saved a few.

Valentine's Day ...

... is obviously a splendid marketing opportunity that can be linked to almost anything nice and a bit luxurious from flowers to chocolates, to expensive jewellery, to holidays in romantic places. From simpler, possibly less cynical days, I have these nineteenth century Valentines put together by lovingly hopeful if occasionally wobbly hands from Scraps.

Ash Wednesday

I'm not sure what made me think of this except possibly the coming of February and the turning of the year.

"At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair." Ash Wednesday. T.S.Eliot

I have completely missed Pancake Day the last few years. That's entirely the fault of the supermarkets of course on whom I rely for my heads up on the celebration moments of the year. The greetings card industry hasn't found a way to profit by "Happy Pancake Day' cards or 'Have a great Mardi Gras' and the food outlets haven't quite got their head round the way to encourage people to 'eat up all the fats and rich foods in our store today and you will (perhaps) ensure yourself a place in the Hereafter.'

Failed again..

...to get my comment posted on Gillian's blog. Blah! I keep forgetting my password. What I wanted to say was - delicious shoes, where are you going to wear them? They will enhance a well-turned ankle very fetchingly I think! What a pretty cottage; I do like your curtains. You're very clever at finding nice houses and what a lovely little lane. It reminded me of the ones around the village where I grew up although there were no stone walls and no sheep to peer over the hedges. There were ponies and goats but it was mostly market gardening in our part of Essex. I do miss the flowers that used to grow in the hedgerows and those rather evil looking red berried things that lurked poisonously - what were they called? Nothing is allowed to grow at the sides of roads up here.

I love my flat screen TV. I think it was one of the real pleasures of last year to suddenly find I didn't have to squint at the programmes I wanted to watch and could really enjoy the DVD's.

It does feel a bit like spring although it's still cold here and there isn't a lot of daylight yet. Maybe it's just knowing that it can't be too long now that makes it feel better (or my anti-depressants of course!)

"It is better to remain silent..

... and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

I came across that today.

I have paid attention.

I would like to know for sure who said it first though. It has been attributed in various places to Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and, at Pink Kitty's Scratching Post, to Samuel Johnson.

Judgement v discernment.

Avert your eyes now if you are sick of hearing about the Toad. Coming almost a year after I decided that some of his exploits should be broadcast it seems appropriate to mention his latest extraordinary move which was to send a print-out of part of this blog to some friends who had been quoted in it as judging him to be evil. No letter was enclosed but they are RC and the envelope was addressed to ‘The Roman Catholics,’ so the judgement on them was plain: they have failed as Christians by daring to judge Him.

It’s always a two-edged sword accusing another of being judgemental i.e. judging them to have been judgemental. ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ is a useful quotation when someone has their back to the wall and the only defence they can rustle up for themselves is to try to shame the people who are seeing their poor behavior, ethics, morals, and values. Like bowling a googly it can be effective.

The phrase ‘love the sinner but not the sin’ is the the only workable way I’ve found of dealing with most darkness I’ve come across in my life, although it gets impossible when trying to relate it to child molesters and the Moors murderers. Not that the Toad can be compared to them of course.

Incidentally, with the help of the omnipotent Google god I found a hard-line ex-christian site on which ‘Love the sinner...’ was discredited as ‘fluffy thinking’ evangelism. It doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible but I supposed it to be there between the lines. Far from it.

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” Luke 6:45

That’s pretty clear. According to Luke the man is to be judged fully responsible for his evil-doing.

“...but the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

It is not the sin that is finally confined to the bowels of hell in God's loving plan, it is the people themselves. So there. If christians need to find permission to show discernment it's there in the book for them.

Anyway, all that is a bit of a deviation.

I’m happy to say that as I had always told my friends about the blog and its usefulness they have not disinvited me from their home. The print-out and the appearance in their tyre of a bright shiny nail remarkably like the ones they saw being being banged into bits of wood by the Toad have both been confirmations of everyone’s opinion of him.

Toad will never change. He sees no need to. It’s always those others who are in the wrong.

A smile from above.

The charms of the chanter.

I have earned respect from my grandson for being the only adult in the family to allow him to tootle away on his practice chanter when sitting beside me in the car. Not surprisingly the more sensitive ears in the family can't focus on their driving with grace notes wailing in their ears. I rather like it, and it keeps the rugby talk down which I find much more difficult to respond enthusiastically to although I do know to cheer when he tells me he's scored a try.(That sort of chat reminds me of journeys with my own son when he told me in endless detail about ski-ing, windsurfing, archery, and climbing with descriptions of wave and wind types, bruises caused by those poles they slalom between that look so nice and bendy and soft but aren't, snow types, crampons, belaying pins, the best material for arrows and so on and so on. Hard for a girl to keep interested in really but I did my best.)

The 'practice chanter' is used as a practice instrument for the Great Highland Bagpipe so that learners don't have to master the mechanics of controlling the bag. Possibly the bag will NOT be allowed in the front seat when it gets attached. I think I may have mentioned before that we are looking for a suitable lonely hillside for his practice sessions in the future.

Trees to books to....?

Every friday when I attend the end-of-week service at Sandy’s school I walk past a huge, evocatively gnarled tree which I’ve recently discovered to be a 400 year old Turkey Oak, and the third oldest oak tree in Scotland. Impressive. It has lived through so much but presumably only been affected by the changes of the seasons, the degrees of cold and precipitation each year, and the content of the air, which until the arrival of the RAF must have been sea-tanged and pure. Uprisings, famine, wars and pestilence , witchcraft and wizardry (there was a Laird of the estate who dabbled) haven’t touched it.
Or have they?
So far I’ve only walked past it in the dark but with the days drawing out I should be able to get a photo soon.

The weather is beautiful today but much too cold for my lungs. They react to it like frightened sea-anemones. Number two daughter on the other hand is sweating it out in Goa where she is doing a two-week Yoga course and so far loving both the heat, and the place. She sends back tales of water buffalo and bright birds. Maybe she’s in the fifth dimension I dream of.

My social life has resumed; visits from M & V, lunch with J, supper with returned travellers S & C who I am so glad to see back. They brought with them news of disappointing experiences with erstwhile friends but some inspiring travellers tales. Also dire warnings for those who might be thinking of buying land in foreign parts (which happily they weren’t.) Another friend who has settled in Croatia has told of the complications that can arise when the land is owned by all members of a family including the extended cousins. There are often 20 or 30 people to clear a sale and some can’t be traced. It’s rather worse in Croatia because the former occupants may have been driven out by the war and return to reclaim their property.

Meanwhile I ponder over the fate of the 1000+ books in my garage, mostly crisp and clean, mostly for sale for 1p on Amazon and, without a PPI, too heavy to make me any profit. I really can’t be bothered to shoot for a PPI (I confess I’ve forgotten what it stands for but the upshot is a deal whereby one pays upfront to the PO each month and gets postage much cheaper per book. It would only be only worth it if I was getting at least three times the number of orders per week and frankly I’m too lazy to do all that packing now I’m enjoying the Age of Irresponsibility. )

So, I have various choices. The Charity Shops seem to be inundated with books so that’s out. The Mole-Catcher might take some for his stall in the indoor market in Elgin; an Amazombie colleague in Edinburgh who comes through this way occasionally to visit a friend might take some. I would be happy to let them take them for free obviously.

The last option is the recycling centre but I don’t like throwing books away.

New dimensions.

I rarely dream in a memorable way these days but I’m still a believer in the usefulness of dreams for revealing subconscious desires, fears, pain and confusions, and even for pointing a way through it all, so why oh why should I have a long detailed and enjoyable dream about finding nice empty shop, inviting my friends to inspect it with me (along with a flock of other persons unknown but interesting) measure it, admire it, plan in great detail and with huge enthusiasm how it could be made into - a second-hand bookshop!!!??

I thought I’d done that.

The dream broke when I was told the rent - £1000 a month. I woke up. Seems I am quite practical and grounded even in my dreams. Still, for a longish time I remained wrapped cosily in my two duvets, basking in the warmth of creativity the dream had carried. Maybe it’s time for the next project.

Let it be known here that my daily awake self is very much enjoying NOT having to sit in a shop all day, not having to repel boxes of broken-spined paperbacks, cobwebby cartons of spore-bearing, sneeze-making treasures from someone’s great-aunt’s attic. Even crisp volumes that would be good for listing on Amazon don’t hold any thrill for me just now - unless I want to read what’s between the covers.

As to what I am actually reading, the last two weeks of feverish cold followed by wicked asthma that had me circling the drain there for 24 hours, found me rereading Harry Potter for the umpteenth time, Phil Rickman ditto, Chaucer (I like the sound of the language) and watching the entire boxed set of the X-Files through for the third time. It might almost have been called a Retreat (with the capital) as I failed to answer the phone and spoke to no-one except immediate family for almost 21 days in all. Nothing spiritual about it obviously, but I do think the rereading and rewatching have a similar effect to the TM mantra - sometimes the words disappear and clarity remains.

I’ve been through a passage like that once before when the last child finally left home and I found myself alone in a five bedroomed house surrounded by trees and owls with no-one to talk to, cook for - exist for. It was a time of redefinition which was enabled by watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer through and through.

I like the paranormal. Indeed I demand the paranormal, the supra-consciousness, the metaphysical. I like to have the paranormal present in my entertainment. I need the promise of other levels, other dimensions, of something beyond the mundane. It’s not just a comfort wish. I’ve always been able to extract deeper truths than most people would bother to look for in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. For me they are the new mythology and express the quantum leaps that human consciousness has made. When it is properly addressed the characters don’t escape the the challenges of humankind. For instance I like the moment when (in Harry P) the Muggle Prime Minister hearing of the coming battles with the Dark Lord, says in a plaintive voice: ‘But you’re wizards. You have Magic. You can do anything.’ The PM from the Ministry of Magic replies gently: ‘The other side have Magic too.’

It’s still an equal playing field between good and evil and other human qualities have to be present for Good to triumph. The role of the Champion requires the small self to be overcome, conquered for the greater good. All the best myths are in the end about overcoming the ego to find the purity of the human soul. Humour, affection, loyalty, friendship and love are all qualities the Dark is not thought to possess and they are what carry us through most of the Dark patches of our lives.

The X-files is definitely to be classed with the best of all mythology. The archetypes are there; the quest for the Truth, the facing of monsters and demons - none of which are as truly horrifying as the ruthless wiles and manipulations of evil humankind. What’s new in the mix is that the origins of the world religions, and even the gods themselves are up for serious questioning, (although Scully holds the line for those who want one consciousness overlighting all creation.) The blend of metaphyiscal, mystical, science and science fiction, legends new and old, rumours and suspicions of conspiracy, are interlocked together into a modern Grail legend. The Quest continues past the end, with the additional realsiation that we all have the Truth within us and within our grasp drawing what was once ineffable closer to being conceptualised and verbalised without detracting from its mystery.

There have been theses and Ph.D’s on the subject so I don’t really need to ramble on, but I do find it all completely absorbing!