I guess this is a kind of Solstice card – although it’s been a gloomy, cold and wet day; the kind you’re happiest to see the back of. I woke up at 4.00am with a dream in which the only thing I remember is someone or something saying “you can’t argue with a blackthorn”. I have no idea what that was about except that it’s impossible to force your way through a thicket of them because they’re so horribly spiny. Equally the fruits are completely unapproachable unless steeped in sugar and gin. The other notable thing about the blackthorn is the folk name “blackthorn winter” which according to Geoffrey Grigson in “The Englishman’s Flora” (other genders are available), expresses an ancient association of plants with seasons. The links are more often to do with the medicinal properties or with the supernatural which often overlap. Mistletoe is listed in the same book with countless properties including aphrodisiac and as a “heal all” from the time of the earliest herbals, but Grigson takes a very dim view of the druidic movement as it freely invented folklore, irrevocably clouding the real history.
There are others of course – outside the flat today we had winter jasmine, cyclamen and even a few hardy geraniums on the window ledge. Grigson’s pick included the Christmas Rose and of course holly and ivy, traditionally brought indoors in winter to protect the woodlands for spring. I haven’t got a picture of a Christmas rose, which is the white flowered variety but in the same family the Lenten rose was in flower on the allotments today and is a member of the buttercup family; traditionally grown next to the front door to ward off evil spirits.
The solstice manages to condense astronomy, folklore and pagan religion in a single moment of time which, today, was 15.03 so apologies for the late arrival of this greeting. Let’s hunker down now until the blackthorn appears.