old cards and new scenes: an activity for rainy January days

 

 Old cards and new scenes
a festive activity for a rainy winter season

Having a bit of a fidget?

Nothing to do?

Bored?

And it’s raining again?

I first posted this activity last year but thought it would merit repeating. It's that weekend. Holidays are sort of over, decorations piled up in corners waiting for boxes, January uncertainty is rising. And then there is that pile of greeting cards. Here in Buxton in Derbyshire (UK), it is raining (again). Not really a weekend for wandering in our woods or being intimidated by the ducks who are over-confident about plundering snacks from visitors pockets in the Pavilion Gardens. So, pause. Find some cards and make your own wintry scenes for some January decoration and bring the winter woodland and some wild scenes home for January

Why not dig out some old greetings cards from the bundle at the bottom of the cupboard, or stealthily purloin one of last year’s Christmas cards, or the birthday cards you don’t quite want to throw out, or use a cereal packet (good card for making and folding, just maybe not as exciting in images as cards)

Make a little winter a scene to hang on a tree, a branch, a hook on the wall, to stand on a shelf, or make a box to put that extra special present  (or maybe just the key that makes it go) in

We call these storyboxes as they almost always seem to end up encouraging little stories…

• of Santa’s Present Dog who runs away with gifts and tries to eat them,
• of the owl who had hiccups
• of the hare who could run faster than even the wind and ended up running across the sky and was lost in the stars

Instead of reading the guide below, you might prefer to watch a short film....

You will need: 

a card or two

sharp scissors

a ruler, pencils or pens

glue (PVA is good here) and glue spreader

stapler or paper clips

bradawl (or something for making holes – a pair of compasses would work) 

a small lump of modelling clay

thin string

1. Cut the card in half along the fold – keep the “plain” half, you will need it later

2. Using the picture half of the card, on the reverse, draw a margin maybe 2 cm from each edge of the card

3. Where the lines cross at the corners, carefully cut along one of those lines to the point where the lines meet (we cut the scribbled lines)

Before you fold the box into shape, 

• you could make two holes in the top side of the box for some string (easier when everything is still flat). Sit the spot where you want to make a hole on the modelling clay and pierce with the bradawl or compasses point
• If you might want a branch reaching across the top part of the box (or maybe a flying reindeer) use a craft knife to make a careful slit where you would like a branch to go

 

4. This card usually folds quite sharply, so now (use the ruler for a straight edge if you want to) fold up along each of those lines and where you have cut in, fold the short bit to make a corner

5. Before glueing it all together, decide: if you are making a scene, keep the picture on the inside of the box. If you are making a box: you might want the picture inside or on the outside (you could always line the inside with some spare wrapping paper, or make a bigger box to become a lid.). Reverse the folding if you want to change the position of the picture

6. Making sure the sides of your box are sharply upright, glue the corner tabs onto the next side. A staple will hold it all in place. If the outside is too plain, you could colour it in or add some coloured tape. Or sprinkle it with glitter!

Glitter: plastic glitter is one of the ongoing irritations and challenges of an environmentally responsible life. There is however biodegradable glitter available (and other glitters are sold as edible) ...go hunting for some

7. While the glue dries, prepare the scene to go in the box. Using the other piece of card (from stage 1 above), you could make a little tab to fix a figure to (we used some “embellishments” bought cheaply in a local craft shop), or you could draw your own character. Fix by glueing the tabs into the main scene. Again a staple might help. You might want to colour the tab so it fits into the background of the scenes. Some extra glitter might help again.

A branch can be pushed into place through the slit you made in #3 above and a tab glued into place on the outside of the box

Think about what is going into your scene: could the pieces and the picture become a story?

8. Thread a piece of glittery string or ribbon through the holes, knot it and hang your scene.

Experiment with papers, colours, tapes, sequins. 

Try different places to hang them: from your ears? on your fingers (and create a fabulous dance around them)? a snowman’s nose?

Send us a picture and

we’ll post a gallery of scenes!

Walking to St Winefride's

 

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.

 

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

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.

St Winefride's Well, Holywell

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.

You can listen to the poem and meet one of our local streams, here:

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

c/o Jane Caroline Burt: frontispiece, Jane, St Winefride, Holy Well

c/o G MacLellan: Poole's Cavern well

Film: made by Aidan Rhode (Tw: @AidanRhode, Ig: @aidan.rhode)

Green leaves and stillness

 

Green Leaves And Stillness

walking in the woods of Buxton

Grinlow Woods, summer 2020

I don’t walk in these woods as often as I would like…or even as often as I intend to. There is that moment when something calls me back to a screen just as I was getting ready to go. Or when I get to my “run away to the woods” bit in the diary and the clouds fall out of the sky*. Again.

But I do get here. It’s only 10 minutes up the hill, and another 10 into the woods and a stone, a bench, a tree root to sit on.

And yes, I will plug my headphones in, and even plug them into my ears as well. Doesn’t mean I am disconnected (thank you, judgemental dogwalker). 

        

Grinlow Woods, November 2021

Now, 

• notes are leaves or tree trunks or flowers, or pebbles or ripples on a stream’s pool.
• chords are movement, or distance, a moment seen through the trees
• songs unwrap landscapes, or maybe wrap me into a landscape
• lyrics often don’t matter much, maybe the emotion is more important. It pushes

 
And silence is an echo, the pause between tracks, a breath between verses. A fading note will do it, too. Everything stops.

 

 These woods open me, draw me out, take me in.

 

A chance to observe. 

To feel.

To experience.

No analysis needed. No cataloguing of bird, birdsong, flowers, trees, fungi. 

Just being.

O, with a note book

 

Grinlow Woods are managed by the Buxton Civic Association and are one of the treasures of our town! The BCA's Stronger Roots project is working on the management of the woods and inviting greater, wider and inventive access to the woods

Winter woods and glowing lights

Winter lights
free events with a glowing promise

Buxton, Derbyshire
18th and 19th December 

 a tracery of branches, a snowy scene, some winter leaves or Santa stuck in the chimney: box lanterns and shining bottles with Creeping Toad! 

Winter has arrived and here in Buxton and we’ve been having days of rain and wind and occasional snow. Summer seems to be a long ago memory and the beauty of these cold months is dripping itself into the puddles

In our ongoing efforts to entertain, engage and delight the woodland people of Buxton, the Stronger Roots team and Creeping Toad have arranged a couple of free events in the weekend of 18th and 19th December to remind us of our the beauty of our woods and the wonders of winter.

Saturday 18th December

Winter Woodland Lanterns

10.30 - 13:00

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

Join us at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery to make a lantern and take a little of the wonder of woodlands home for the festive season

 

Made of card and paper, these lanterns will stand on a table and glow with a warm light shining through the lantern’s “windows” decorated with images of tree branches, woodland animals or the colours of stained glass leaves…join us for some thinking and drawing, colour, glue and delight

 

Venue: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

This event is free and materials are provided but tickets are limited so please book a timed slot

Booking tickets: this is the Stronger Roots eventbrite page - please don’t try to book through the Museum as it will just confuse us all!

   

Sunday 19^th December

Bottle Lanterns at the Green Man Gallery

11:00 – 15:00 

The Green Man Gallery, Hardwick Studios (formerly Hardwick Hall), Hardwick square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

Drop in at the Green Man and make your own moment of Midwinter to celebrate the woods of our town. Using leaves, feathers, drawings and glue, we’ll be turning bottles into small lanterns. Glowing like jewels, these can stand on a table or window ledge or hang from a branch and bring a whisper of the wildwood into your home for the festive season

 

The Gallery will be open at the same time for viewing the artists’ Christmas collections and the Gallery shop offers beautiful cards and unique gifts

 

Activity: takes about 15 minutes

Joining in: free, no tickets needed just turn up and join in

Materials: materials are provided but if you can bring a clean plastic bottle with you that would help

Booking: you do not need to book for this event: just drop by and join in. There is an eventbrite page if you want to check details, here

 

with dreams of poets and the songs of seals

with the dreams of poems and the songs of seals

Totem Latamat
Return to the Earth Ceremony at The Crichton

The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,

The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May….

(Robert Burns, Winter: a Dirge)

Totem Latamat’s story began long before Jun Tiburcio and the people of Cuhumatlan approached a cedar tree in the woods of Vera Cruz. For us, this story really started then with images carved out of that scented wood, images that embodied elements of Jun’s culture and carried a message from them to the rest of the world as represented by the gathering of parliaments, countries, cultures, optimism and faiths at COP26

Indigenous artwork, Totem Latamat has traveled over 9,000km from Mexico to UK for COP26. Moving up the country, the 4.5m Indigenous Mexican response to climate change is travelling to important cultural hubs across the UK including London, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Manchester drawing powerful links between Indigenous experience and local heritage. From the Border Crossings Origins Festival news about Totem Latamat. Find out more here

There is a personal account of the Totem’s travels by Graham Harvey here. Graham visited the Totem in most of its venues across the UK

At the end of COP26, at Jun’s request, Totem Latamat was to be given to the earth: a gift from the earth of Mexico to that of Scotland. With this gesture, the Totem would invite continued reflection on the connections between communities, facing challenges and processes that cross boundaries, defy politics and affect everyone and everything: human and non-human alike.

Return to the Earth

Totem Latamat, we welcome you
With air and breath,
With fire and hope,
With stone and death
With love and passion 

 (From Welcoming, 1)

This sense of earth-reaching-to-earth and a gift that is offered to all communities informed a ceremony that came from an environmental (animist) awareness of the world. Creeping Toad, Border Crossings and other friends created a ceremony that belonged to no particular religious tradition but where there was space for individuals to find their own sense of connection and prayer as they wished. The imagery used was of these islands: speaking of weather and wildlife, of music and laughter, children playing and watchful grandparents. From fungi to birds, everyone was drawn into our reception of Totem Latamat.

Michael Walling from Border Crossings setting the scene

The Totem spent a week standing in the grounds of The Crichton in Dumfries and being used as a focus for discussions and workshops. With its expanding role as a centre for community activity, The Crichton offers the Totem a resting place where it will remain a centre for discussion, challenge and inspiration.

taking the strain

Totem Latamat, we rejoice in you
with playing children
with resting birds
with rooted fungi
with burrowing grubs 

(From Reception: how will we receive Totem)

On a wind-swept Saturday morning in the middle of November, we gathered round the Totem, speaking words of welcome and words of reception. Robbie Burns’ wonderful Winter Dirge” set the scene. Reaching out from human perspectives to the wider landscape, we invited the environs of The Crichton to embrace Totem, to welcome it into this world of wind and rain, high skies and flying geese.

Totem Latamat,
With the earth of our land,
The bones of our people,
The dreams of our poets,
The songs of our seals,
We embrace you. 

(From Embracing: a wider and older landscape than us)

We recognised the invitation and acknowledged the challenge that the Totem brings: inviting us to become our own Hummingbird messengers and challenging us to be the wide-seeing eagles with strength under their wings.

Totem under snow, late November 2021

Totem Latamat, may
Our dreamers,
Our thinkers,
Our talkers,
Our singers,
Our storytellers,
Our warriors,
Our poets,
Our grandmothers,
Our grandchildren,
All our people,
Each of our people,
Totem Latamat,
May all our folk
Be inspired by you 

(from inspiration, acknowledging and accepting )


And we toppled Totem so that when the ropes were dropped, Totem lay on the ground ready for flowers to grow around the hummingbirds, an open door for the wasps we found looking for somewhere to hibernate, an adventure ground for a cuddly rabbit and a child’s inquisitive fingers. The Totem will rest there on the lawns of The Crichton as the lawns around it are planted with wildflowers. There are already plans for a seasonal cycle of visiting workshops, creating new stories of connections between people and place, hearing of people’s hummingbird moments and their eagle resolution, of the ideas and actions they have planted of the upraised arms they have offered to their family, friends and the rest of the world.

some of the ceremony team

Totem Latamat,

Here, we offer you

Our friendship,

Our laughter,

Our silence,

Our reflection.

Totem Latamat,

Here we offer you

A long slow sleep on grass,

Under sun,

Under moon,

Under our wind and rain,

Here we offer

Dissolution,

The slow dance of decay

Of becoming everything else who visits you 

(from: Reception: what do we offer)

Visitors stayed. Lingered. Stopped to touch, to talk, to wonder. We found our first new residents of the Totem with the wasp queens mentioned above: looking for somewhere to hibernate. Reciprocity and respect lie within the Totem's messages and within many indigenous understandings of our relationship with the earth and it was encouraging to watch and listen and share with people their awareness of our need to give back - to acknowledge what is given to us so freely by the world around us. Without us saying anything, people left gifts: tokens from pockets and bags. People simply touched, stroked wood, felt the curves of a hummingbird's head, the folds of a wing's feathers and went away with a token in return: a red rag, a strip of cloth to wear as a bracelet, to tie up hair, to hide ina pocket until cloth, story and resolution are shared somewhere else.

Totem Latamat might have "retired" but it is still telling stories. Its hummingbirds are still sharing messages.

You can watch a short film of the totem at the Crichton on the centre's website:   https://www.crichton.co.uk/totem-latamat-has-retired-to-the-crichton/

The full text of the ceremony will be available if anyone wants to see it, be annoyed by it, or adapt it for their own use shortly. A link for a download will be posted here

A big thank you

• to the Return to the Earth team: Michael Walling, Ian Buckley and Graham Harvey
• To Alex Alberda from Manchester Museum for deft application of ideas and scissors
• To the Open University for being there, supporting, encouraging, joining in
• To The Crichton team for their hospitality, warmth and imagination
• To the Border Crossings Origins Team for drawing all this together
• And to Jun Tiburcio, the artists, and the people of Cuhumatlan in Vera Cruz, Mexico who gave us the travelling wonder that is the Totem Latamat

Photos c/o The Crichton, Dumfries and Mike Bolam Photography

Notes

1: All these verses come from different sections of the Return to the Earth. Ceremony held at The Crichton on Saturday 20th November 2021

 

The Edge of Winter

 

When the snow comes

The first day the snow comes, the first night, the first day the roads close, is always special. Mid-week, it brings those “will I get out in the morning? When do I phone and say I can’t make it” questions. This year, the snow came on a Friday night and Saturday became a comfortable “O, well, not to worry” day. All plans dissolved. The Farmer’s Market in Bakewell. A big food shop. A drive out to walk on a hill. In busier days, weekend snow would still have woken anxiety – move the car at the first opportunity, be ready to get out for next week’s storying. But while my business is still here, the busy-ness isn’t: rebuilding is slow, so the snow comes without worries for once and offers a chance to simply pause and appreciate.

 

This first day of snow becomes a morning for small jobs, frittering things that can be interrupted in a moment by the call of the world beyond the window. It’s that transformation that enchants. A world gone monochrome. And the muffled silence the snow brings. And the emptied streets with an occasional car creeping along. A 4WD goes past boldly, too boldly, and slides round a corner. But pedestrians can stride along the road where those few car tracks make for easier progress.

 

I can’t resist that call. I have to stop and simply stand and watch. Watch nothing really. The tall larch letting the snow slide off its branches. The black snowflakes of jackdaws blowing across the sky. Next door’s garden, its edges blanketed smooth. I keep an eye on Corbar Edge rising beyond the town. Cloud gathers above the hills in a backdrop and I know that if the grey spills over, a wave breaking through the trees, swallowing that horizon, there will be more snow on the way.

 

Tidying the library. Rearranging books in their piles. Trying to trim and failing. How do I compare a 1940s guide to “Wayside and Woodland Trees” with a book about unicorns and Bob Trubshaw’s Sacred Landscapes? I don’t, of course, I just shuffle them and leave them to watch the cold gather.

 

I don’t resist for that long. The day isn’t that long. And by mid-afternoon the temperature is dropping again, the slush growing crusts, the air clearing, brittle. It is windy and the trees on the hill sway like kelp. The wind has combed them vigorously. Twigs and branches litter the ground. Deep in the woods, there have been bigger casualties. Beeches uprooted. I feel vulnerable here, watching a new fall. Just a branch but its fall is silent. No warning. There have been other people here: footprints everywhere. The parallel scores of a small sled. A single tread. Someone rode a bike through this?

 

Now, as the afternoon fades, I have the woods to myself. The woodland edge, where it opens onto a hillside field is a sledging run with attendant shouts, screams, laughter, over-excited dogs and tumbling people. But for now, the enchantment of the woods under snow is mine and I can walk into a silence that echoes through the woods and fills me with the edge of winter.

Rabbits, wolves and deer: Totem Latamat at The Crichton

Rabbits for quickness of thinking

Totem Latamat at the Crichton

Totem Latamat came the The Crichton to share a story, to offer an invitation and a challenge

The Totem’s story started in a wood on the eastern coast of Mexico with a prayer and a ceremony to a cedar tree. The story continued through a village carving its words as images, memories, hopes and fears into the wood and sailing the tall carved Totem, across the wide seas to the UK. Over the autumn, the Totem has travelled the UK, reaching Glasgow in time to stand in the Hidden Garden throughout COP26. Then, Totem Latamat arrived at The Crichton in Dumfries.

 

This isn’t the place to go into all the details of the Totem – you can explore the wonder of its travels on facebook or through its own page on the Border Crossings Origins Festival website.

 

The Totem carries figures: a rattlesnake, a skull, a person with her arms upraised, a cluster of hummingbirds. An eagle supports the whole edifice....Every figure, from plaited rope seedlings to that climbing snake, hold their own stories, their own messages to share. Here, I want to pick up the Totem’s invitation to become Hummingbirds – to become the messengers who speak, who share, who inspire; and the challenge to become Eagles. To be an Eagle is to act with strength and honour and to see the wider picture, to see the world as a whole, not as lots of individual people or towns or countries but as a wider connected world, where everything is connected to everything else, however distant.

 

Here, we will celebrate one day of the Totem’s journey: marking the responses of the children of Holywood Primary School in Dumfries. They spent the day with us on Friday at The Crichton, enjoying the grounds (best visitor shop ever, we were told. And it’s free! Triumphant pockets stuffed with pine cones, conkers and acorns), meeting the Totem: drawing it, touching it, talking about it…...…..what is the message? If they were telling this story what animals would children choose to best embody – not the action that is needed (reduce, reuse, recycle, etc) but the qualities we need to find and foster in ourselves to make those actions viable, embedded, enduring….

 

• Rabbit brings thinking quickly, acting fast, solving problems (well, you try keep in them out of your vegetables!)
• Wolves remind us that we are strongest when we work together
• Lions, likewise, need the family, need the support of their friends
• Godzilla tells us that sometimes we need to be fierce
• Mice remind us that we can always find a way into a situation
• Deer help us be strong and know when to watch, when to run
• Hedgehogs will bring cleverness, bravery and being ready to be loud
• And the Octopus will help us be intelligent, solve problems, be strong, and as an octopus you can help protect the world

There will be more Totem posts shortly, but for now, I would like to thanks:

• the artists and storytellers of Holywood Primary School, Dumfries
• To the Open University for being there, supporting, encouraging, joining in
• To The Crichton team for their hospitality, warmth and imagination
• To the Border Crossings Origins team for drawing all this together
• And to Jun Tiburcio, the artists, and the people of Cuhumatlan in Vera Cruz, Mexico who gave us the travelling wonder that is the Totem Latamat