Wild Church gathered for a special Remembrance Sunday pilgrimage this year with local poet, Roselle Angwin. Roselle was brought up in Cornwall, where sacred springs abound and in recent years has developed her own well keeper course, so it was a particular pleasure to have her join us as a guide for an afternoon centred around the recently restored well pool in Dartington Gardens.
Following our familiar four fold pilgrimage pattern, about fifteen pilgrims first gather under by the old church tower and ancient yew at the heart of the Dartington Estate. Roselle encouraged us to also gather ourselves inwardly, through some silence and opening of our senses to the sounds, sights, scents and more around us. I (Sam) was inspired by the voices of the jackdaws who nest in the tower and by the strange sight of a community of shaggy ink cap fungi flourishing under the yew. Soon Roselle was leading us quietly into the gardens to gather again by the well pool with its flowering water hawthorn.
Here we passed round a talking ball and each took their turn to speak of what had drawn them to gather together for this afternoon. Everyone spoke in their own way of the importance and power of remembrance, both the international marking of the centenary of World War 1 and personal needs to acknowledge loss and to hope for healing and for peace. Roselle spoke also of the symbolism of sacred springs within the Arthurian grail myth tradition and as a motif within depth psychology of the feminine principle that exists within us all and the need to remember the wisdom of the heart in balance to that of the mind. This inner re-membering was beautifully expressed by one of her own original poems that she shared with us and has kindly agreed for us to publish here:
The Lost Well
is always closer than you imagine,
simpler. All these years. So here
a step into belief is all it takes –
the hidden is only the secluded to the seeker.
Part the thicket of yellow irises, step
gently through foxgloves, and there – a drift
of shingle, tumble of ancient stones, and
her water of course the purer for being lost.
Soon we were journeying on into the second movement of our pilgrimage and starting to engage with the water and the land through creative writing, with Roselle’s experienced guidance. Our poetry walk took us around four natural ‘stations’ where we paused for silent contemplation and writing, based on Roselle’s advice that we try to express at least two lines of observation and one of reflection. Our wanderings took us along the witch hazel walk to the statue of Flora, Roman Goddess of love and flowering, placed here in remembrance of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, the visionary founders of the Dartington Trust, whose commitment to promote a ‘many sided’ life resonates with the work of Roselle and of Wild Church. We walked on through the crimson fruited crab apple grove and down to the twisting trunks of the centuries old chestnut trees, where the earth was layered with golden leaves and prickly nut cases. Our journey continued, to cross over the stream which flows down from the spring, before we circled back to the well pool for the third movement in our pilgrimage, to share a silent communion and our reflections and poems from the afternoon.
This month our communion bowl held rosemary for remembrance, gathered from my and Roselle’s garden and brewed into a refreshing tea with local water. There were so many moving memories, music, thoughts and writings shared around the circle. Here is just one, by Schumacher MA student, Adam Skerrett, shared with his permission:
In the Crab Apple Grove
Caught red handed
In the crab apple grove.
You have been scrumping away the autumn.
We hear your footsteps,
Turning over the leaves;
As the earth begins to mulch down
The bones of our ancestors.
And something nameless
Peers down from the silver lining,
To catch the scent
Of our silent scriptures.
Here falls the greenness of your knowing,
There beneath
The golden red gloaming
Of the breast.
And as the bitter berries of your wisdom
Absolve their sins and ripen,
The crimson coated grail
Makes its home
Inside a Robins heart.
His thirst is sated
By eternal waters,
Bubbling up from the sacred well;
And God’s true angel sings out,
And I find the one I behold
Is my long lost brother.
We vow, you and I,
To waste the land no further;
But tilt our vision
To the heart yard,
Where the grail castle calls us
To re-member,
Where our love went missing
On the 11th of November.
The rain is softly falling and the dusk closing in as we finish with the fourth and final movement of our pilgrimage, which to bless this particular sacred spring and give thanks for all that has been received. Roselle speaks a closing blessing and I speak that of Wild Church, such that in dispersing, we go in peace to love and serve the world…
For further poetic delights from Roselle, have a look at her journal here and for more details about her retreats, courses and books, visit here website here
Words (except for poetry as credited above) and images by Sam