“Those who in youth and childhood wander alone in woods and wild places, ever after carry in their hearts a secret well of quietness.” W.B Yeats
In preparing for this pilgrimage, I (Sam) found myself unexpectedly drawn back into my own youth. We had intended to head off to Holne, named for the many hollies that grow along the River Dart there. But January is not always the easiest time to get a group of people safely gathered on Dartmoor, so it seemed wise to stay closer to home. As I pondered which local hollies we might journey to meet, I remembered a deep encounter from my youth, when I wandered alone in woods and wild places around my home in my early twenties at Venton Manor near Brooking.
So on Epiphany Sunday I was back in St. Barnabas, a really beautiful small church near Brooking. For me it’s a both a special and a sad, sacred space, as it was here that I was married many moons ago. I love its golden stone walls and local ‘marble’ pillars full of fossils, and most of all I love the churchyard, which is ringed by trees including a small community of hollies near the lychgate. Here our group for today gathered, after time spent wandering and wondering, by a young holly with the pale points of early snowdrops pushing up beside it.
From here we set off along the roadside & down a winding lane to the old ford and humped back bridge at Brooking and then along Bidwell Brook and into Venton woods. Along the way we were blessed to meet the current human stewards of the upper part of the wood (which is private) and to take the tiny track that I last walked thirty years ago into the heart of the hollies. Here stands a rare, old holly tree, with a great wide girth and tall crown. Most of us tend to meet hollies in hedges or as a Christmas decoration and so may not realise what a great tree it can become.
It was very special for me to share this sacred space and holy holly with today’s band of pilgrims. It was painful also because these two places, beneath the holly and within Brooking churchyard, have born witness to two of the great meetings and losses in my life. I came to Venton following the suicide of my then fiancé and years later I was finally married there too, though sadly that also was not to last. I vividly remember sitting deeply still in meditation under this very holly and opening my eyes to meet those of a hare, who was quietly walking past, just an arm’s reach in front of me, and what a blessing it was to feel held by that wild gaze at such a painful time in my life.
Today’s pilgrim’s had their own memories and present experiences to share after our holly leaf tea communion. Many were struck by the light reflecting qualities of holly’s evergreen leaves, such that even in the deep shade of the wood and winter, we were surrounded by a life giving green and brightness. Re-visiting evergreen memories also highlighted the spikiness that we can feel when a tender place within us is re-visited and some noticed how it is the young growth and young holly trees that especially need their protective spikes. All in all it felt that holly had much wisdom to share with us and I think that we each, in our own way, carried home a secret well of quietness from our meeting with holy holly.