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| on the path to Holywell |
Walking to St Winefride's
a pilgrimage for Sekwanele
In December 2021, my lovely friend Jane Burt walked from Oswestry to St Winefride’s Well at Holywell in Flint. Her pilgrimage set out to raise awareness of and funds for the Sekwanele project in South Africa.
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| walking a river-road |
Jane described her pilgrimage:
I wish to raise funds for a group of brave women in South Africa who are saying ‘enough is enough’ (Sekwanele) to gender based violence and are taking a stand. They are not waiting to be rescued or for the world to change. They have decided that together they will defend themselves, earn their own money, grow their own food and be powerful. They are asking for a community room to meet, train, share and learn with each other.
I am South African now based in the UK and a survivor of gender-based violence like so many other women. Therefore, instead of spending Xmas with my family I will be walking the St Winefride pilgrimage trail in solidarity with all women who are survivors of gender-based violence to raise money for this amazing group of women who have said, "enough is enough".
You can follow Jane’s pilgrimage on her blog, here. In the days that followed, up to the end of the crowdfunder period, some of Jane’s friends, colleagues and collaborators have been contributing a piece each day to add different perspectives to the vision of the Sekwanele work and Jane’s pilgrimage
Crowdfunder page: Winefride4women
To-day is my turn
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| St Winefride |
Jane’s Sekwanele walk, #winefride4women , reminded us all, connected us all, to the continuing fight for the most simple, the most basic, of freedoms that we are still struggling with today. When Jane chose to walk to St Winefride’s Well in Flint, she linked the work of Sekwanele to the legacy of strong women, of holy women, fighting similar battles through too many centuries. She also brought in water in a way that wouldn’t have happened if she had walked to a monument or a church or somewhere else more human. Here in the UK, we are a wet sort of land. We have streams, and springs, and rivers, lochs, lakes and pools everywhere. And we have Holy Wells, those places where the rising water was known to be special: reliable, perhaps, or warmer, or stronger or stranger than the other springs around. We don’t know how long our Holy Wells have been venerated. Thousands for years at least and when we visit them – when Jane swam in the pool at St Winefride’s - we become part of that ancient, living tradition
Dedications change and original names have largely been lost. Where I live, in Buxton in Derbyshire in the hills of England’s Peak District, 1800 years ago our town was Aquae Arnemetiae: the Waters of Arnemetia, the Goddess of the Grove (her original name before the Romans came was probably Arnemecta). When Christianity was adopted here, Arnemecta became St Anne, the Mother of Mary, and St Anne’s Well here in the middle of town still runs, is still visited, is still decorated every year in the regional Well Dressings.
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| St Winefride's Well, Holywell |
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| this isn't St Anne's but is my favourite little drip-well in Buxton |
Buxton is a town of springs: channelled, controlled, governed, and hidden for the most part, or so people like to think, but our rivers well out of limestone hills, and continue to carve beautiful caves through those hills. Our rivers still appear, sink and surge up again as they choose. Our control is superficial. The water still runs. Holy Wells remind us of the power of water: to bring life, to renew life, to maintain life, to capture our imaginations, to bring us healing in bodies and also to heal spirits, to connect us with the flowing patterns of the world. Wells remind us of movement greater than us that still touch us as individuals, remind us that when we take a drink of the water from a well we become part of the water running through the hills.
My contribution to Jane’s work is a poem and a recording celebrating the continuing power of that water and the way it touches our lives.
Or read the words for yourself, below
This poem was written for Buxton Museum and Art Gallery in 2020 as part of its BM125 project celebrating the Museum's 125 years of telling the story of the Peak District
AS LONG AS WATERS RUN
By Gordon MacLellan
Long skirts rustling on cobbles
A hat tipping, a cane tapping,
The bath-chair creaking,
A wheel squeaks.
Cross my palm with silver, lady,
Cross my palm with copper,
Cross my heart with happiness
And I’ll share this water with you.
The world sighed into warmth,
Old memories waking grass and flowers,
Remembering trees.
The hills relaxed long shoulders as the weight lifted.
And She woke as the ice melted,
As the water
Seeped, dripped, dribbled,
Nibbled itself a hollow,
A bedchamber for a fairytale,
In the darkness under the hills.
Born old, She sits on a limestone shore,
Watching waves that beat no more,
Watching rocks
Drip teeth,
Growing fangs in ancient gums.
Peacock ripples of Blue John
Shifting into the folds and pleats of her gown.
Cross my palm with silver, sir,
Cross my palm with copper,
I’ll dip a cup and offer you
Your good and growing health.
A haggard old woman
In a poke-bonnet cap,
Dipping water in a tin cup.
A chalice,
A Samian bowl,
A Bronze cauldron,
A birch bark beaker, curled, folded, pinned,
Cupped hands,
Will all receive the blessing.
Stone spirit,
Water spirit,
Goddess of the caves,
Healer to the Living,
Midwife to the Dead,
Receiving them back into the life-giving darkness.
Holy hills, and
A holy well.
A Celtic grove,
A Roman temple,
A saint’s bath for
The Mother of the Mother of God.
And then,
Old Martha offers water,
A penny a jug.
Cross my palm with silver, lady,
Cross my palm with copper,
Cross my path with happiness
And I’ll share this water with you.
And now,
Sitting on the Slopes
As the snowdrops ring in the spring
A life in bags around Her on the bench,
Gap-tooth smiling at strangers,
Welcoming anyone, everyone,
To the waters of Her well.
I take no money now, miss,
I take no alms nor offerings,
But waters flow as they have always flowed
And blessings run as the water runs
And the Wells bring hope from the dark of the hill.
Photographs
very beautiful poem, Gordon. Thank you...
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