Today (or thereabouts) it’s the shortest day of the year. The long night. Gale force winds are rocking the caravan I’m sheltering in for the winter. The sun is making a low arch across the tops of the bare trees. Twigs litter the muddy, muted green of the grass. Bluetits and nuthatches visit the coconut shell stuffed with suet and seeds, clinging on as gusts spin them around.
It’s been a long time since I wrote here. I find it hard to write just to fill space and with some kind of regularity. It would feel like a chore, and I’ve reached a point where I can’t give my time to things that feel onerous. So, I write when the words come. Sometimes the words come readily. Other times, they hide like a small, timid creature. I don’t see the need to coax the words to come out of hiding, I’d rather wait patiently for them to approach in their own time.
On rare occasions, pieces arrive ready-written. A poem. An essay. A story. It feels almost like I’ve cheated the creative process somehow, but perhaps it’s a reward for waiting patiently. One such poem arrived in April this year, while visiting a land-based spiritual community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. I had spent the night sleeping alone in an iron-age-inspired roundhouse, a place of community and song, with the ancient scents of woodsmoke and raw earth. It was a wild night, much like this windswept winter solstice day. I spent some of the night wondering/worrying whether the tall timber frame would collapse around me and I’d be entombed in this sacred space. Not a bad way to go, I conceded. I lit a small fire, a gesture to light and warmth, and finally slept.
When I woke in the early dawn, this poem almost wrote itself. It seemed to be partly inspired by the place and by the artwork of an artist I do not know, who had left a few of their postcards at the community. Though it was written around the spring equinox, it feels now like an incantation for this time of year.
Lay Down at Your Hearth
Lay down at your hearth
on the ground of being
Let the wild things braid your hair
the soft-bellied ones fill your cup
the rooted ones nourish you
with berries and leaves
Listen as the feathered ones speak in song
Let the smoke seep under your skin
the earth gather under your fingernails
Watch as your old life turns to ash
and fire springs from new wood
Lay down at your hearth
and dream
May you all find some time to rest and be with the dark at this time of year, and to let the wild things in. Solstice blessings. X
stravaig 
Thank you for sharing your work, the poem is beautiful ❤
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