The message in the scarves

Yesterday my basket of scarves caught my eye. I love scarves and have bought a number over the years, and have been gifted some too. I gave some away this year, because I realised that I was no longer using them, especially now I’m not working in an office, but still I have kept a stash, which I have not touched for about a year. Instead I’ve just used the same plain blue one all winter!

I thought to myself how my basket of unused scarves is reflective of what is wrong in this world – us having more than we need! This basket of scarves is just sitting there, gathering dust, being of no real value to anyone, because as lovely as they are, I don’t really need them, not practically. But what to do with them? Well herein the other thing; attachment, and not being able to let them go because of sentimentality and the idea that I may use them in the future.

This got me thinking about how many people bought far more than they needed at the beginning of lockdown, that the fear of not having enough, caused many to panic buy.  I wonder what will happen to all the extra packets of pasta and cans of soup that was bought and whether they will ever get used or sit collecting dust in the cupboards and be wasted. With any luck they’ll make their way to hampers and be given to others to use instead.

I have been giving some thought to Beltain, and how I might celebrate this cross-quarter festival of fertility. Traditionally people jumped the fire to purify, cleanse and to bring fertility, while couples jumped the fire to pledge themselves to each other. This is a time when Mother Earth’s energies are at her most active and all of life is bursting with fertility and the power of its own potential. This definitely needs to be honoured and celebrated.

Amongst other things, I thought that I might make a garland for the La Gran’Mère at St Martin’s church. I wrote about her in my book Dancing with The Moon and how I was drawn to see her the day before Eben was born and the journey that she and the moon took me on. She is absolutely worth celebrating and at this poignant time too, she holds a power, as do many of the ancient sites, that enable us to shift our perceptions outside of time.

I didn’t give too much thought to the garland after I’d made the decision to make one, thinking I’ve got plenty of time (Beltain is 1 May), but then I was walking along the beach collecting litter and a shell with a hole in it revealed itself to me. Ah ha, of course, I shall add shells to the garland! I collected a few other shells but these required me making holes, not ideal, but lo and behold the next day, yet more shells with holes appeared and more the next day!

Then yesterday, someone had very kindly woven together some grasses to create a natural string and this they had discarded on the slip way at Saints just where we were changing for our swim. I couldn’t believe my luck, and was extremely grateful not least to the person who made it, but to the universe for providing that which we need, especially when what we need is for something greater than ourselves, for the ancients, to encourage connection with the ancient energy. 

 I’m receiving strong guidance to connect with these energies at this time, through the elements, which I try and work anyway, but to step it up a gear, as I’m sure others are feeling too, especially those working in the healing arts. There is something about the ancient energy that is needed now,  perhaps the respect that this energy has for Mother Earth - you only have to consider Stonehenge and the Callanish Stones to see the extent that the ancients went to honour the sun and the moon respectively, and here too on Guernsey, some of the dolmens have been aligned with sun rise and there is evidence of stone circles, although the granite industry destroyed many of these years ago now.

I suppose when I consider that we receive that which we need, we might ask, well how about those starving in this world, how come they do not receive what they most need. I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a feeling that they might well receive what they most need if it wasn’t for greed, and for some taking more than they need so that others go without, and the flow of the energy being blocked, so that some suffer and unnecessarily too.

It is greed that has led to climatic change, and the exploitation of Mother Earth’s resources so that we can all have more than we actually need. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during lockdown (and there have been many things), is the fact we can live with much less than we think we want and need. We can live very simply, and even though I already thought I was living simply, I see now that there is an even simpler way to live.

I’m becoming increasingly aware that the simpler we live, the less we want and the more abundant and full our lives become as a result. We do receive that which we need, not always in the way we might expect it, and not always when we think we need it (only today for example did I truly notice a book about the healing properties of herbs on my book shelf, the exact book I actually now need and there it was all this time, waiting, a gift from a few years ago), but it comes in all the same, we just have to recognise it.

I’m off to make my garland and to ponder what I might do with the scarves. Maybe I’ll need them in the future, or maybe it’s time to let them go to someone in greater need, let’s see, sometimes we just have to settle into the unknown until it becomes clear, at least it’s made me reflect! All I do know, is that I am grateful to Mother Earth for all she gives, for the abundance, for the joy of the sun rises and the celebrations of the new moon energy, the growth of my medicinal plants and finding the gifts that she has left on the beach. Magic. It’s everywhere. Truly.