We kicked off the ceremonial year with 60 odd (by every metric) kinfolk for our annual ceremony to honour the divine dark of the sacred feminine, for winter solstice.
To celebrate this moment, and our community’s deepening of ceremonial approaches, we publish for the first time, The sun wise ceremony calendar, specific to our mob.
We gathered with candles, seed breads, pickles, chestnut and kidney bean stew, rabbit cassoulet, quince tart, medlar pie, feijoa cheese cake, elders and kids.
We paused and listened at this time of the deep dark.
We paused and listened to Mother Country and Father Fire.
Paused and listened to old sonnets,
and newly hatched raps.
Paused and listened to soulful old songs,
and vitalising ones, sung for such a hearth.
Paused and listened to stories meticulously crafted or spoken off the cuff,
and the FireChoir brothers sang Mother of Mountain. We offer it here as a little insight into the ceremonial feast that was this year’s winter solstice gathering.
Slowly one after another we departed from the fire-lit clearing, and walked back through the dark forest to begin our patient sun wise journey towards the summer solstice.
Thank you Brett Ellenport and Leonie Van Eyk for such wonderful images.
Wherever you are we wish you a merry solstice, and a goodly pause.
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NB. If you are still wanting to attend all or any of the four online sessions we’re hosting in July, there are still some spaces available but you may want to book now.
Patrick was in his twenties when he first saw the original works of William Blake in London. He spent a day in the Tate back then in a magical trance, admiring the hugeness of Blake in his small, modest works, mostly book-sized. Blake’s cosmology is infused in Artist as Family‘s, which is in turn infused in Dante’s. Radiance matters. Facing our fears is the path of radiance.
We are energised to be heading to the UK and Ireland in August to connect not just with blood and earth ancestors (especially in Yorkshire, Scotland and County Clare) but cultural ancestors like William and Mary Blake. We are currently organising screenings of The New Peasants with lovely folk throughout Albion and Bridget’s Isles, and mapping out, not so much the route in which we’ll hitchhike, but the main stops without any idea of how we will get there. This is the chance aspect we trust when we travel; stepping into the unknown, stepping up to challenges, facing our fears and being present to what unfolds.
Cricket in the Himalayas. Cricket in Campbells Creek. Hallway cricket. Cricket in London.
Woody is excited to be in London when Middlesex and Yorkshire play at Lords. A pilgrimage of his own, he is looking forward to meeting the gods of his beloved sport, and connect with his sporting ancestors. Cricket is a divine spark that motivates him.
That Meg was conceived in a caravan in Wales, her path was set early as a wayfarer. Travelling is as natural a state for her as radical homemaking. Wayfarer in a neopeasant sense means forager, and when we travel all three of us practice permaculture on the road.
So, our tickets are booked, thanks to the generosity of a dear friend who has loaned us the cash. We are busily saving our coins, making feral jerky, and working out how much dried fruit, nuts and other preserved foods we will be able to fit in our packs. We are delighted our online course sessions are filling up, and the topics resonate. A huge Thank You to all those who have booked, and to those who were able to make a monetary contribution. There are still places available on each session.
A ceremonial approach – guiding men’s, women’s and grief circles, vigils and other community ceremonies (July 2)
Ecological participation – guiding community forest education and wild play groups for children (July 9)
Community sufficiency – living within gift, non-monetary and subsistence economies (July 16)
Joyful resistance – online house and garden tour (the nuts and bolts of our systems) (July 23)
We are getting ready for our annual winter solstice celebration, where we will gather with community around a fire, share story and food, pause, and behold the significance of the dark. Wherever you are in the world, may your solstice be grand.
Hello Dear Readers, we are excited to offer our first online course and to share with you an invitation we’ve received to travel to the UK in August.
The University of Edinburgh has invited Patrick to examine a doctoral thesis and for Artist as Family to present The New Peasants and host a Q&A for students. While we ordinarily do such gigs via the internet, an opportunity to return to our ancestral places of origin to meet audiences and share story and food will be a joy we haven’t in the past permitted ourselves, due to the environmental and monetary costs. However, we are hearing the call and responding with intention.
Some of our ancestors come from the Luddite Triangle in the mid-north of England as well as from Scotland and Ireland, and Meg was conceived in a caravan in Wales.
While travelling we would like to screen and Q&A The New Peasants at community gatherings in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland, and in order to fund such a story-sharing adventure we are offering the following online mini course.
Here are the four sessions on offer, which you can either join without paying or by donation. To register, please click on the links below. You are most welcome to book all four sessions or just the ones that speak to you.
Session 1. A ceremonial approach – guiding men’s, women’s and grief circles, vigils and other community ceremonies. July 2 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they offer their experiences and processes for hosting community gatherings centred on deep listening, soul communing and connecting with the sacred.
Session 2. Ecological participation – guiding community forest education and wild play groups for children. July 9 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick, Meg and Woody as they offer their experiences and processes for stewarding a bush school.
Session 3. Community sufficiency – living within gift, non-monetary and subsistence economies. July 16 (7pm – 8.30pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they share all the ways they have unchained themselves from monetary incarceration and co-crafted local gift economies, starting with a few households and growing it to over 80 households over two decades.
Session 4. Joyful resistance – online house and garden tour (the nuts and bolts of our systems). July 23 (3pm – 5pm AEST) Join Patrick and Meg as they walk you through their home and garden, explaining all the main hubs that have enabled their transition.
If you can’t make any of these sessions, not to worry, as they will all be recorded and made available online. And if you can’t make the sessions but you’d like to donate to our August travels, or to our work more generally, you can do so here.
If you are in the UK or Ireland and would like to host a screening/Q&A or another type of speaking event with us in August, please feel free to get in touch.
Over the years people have enjoyed our travel writings, so yes we will be blogging our adventure again this time.
Whether you are fast approaching winter or summer solstice, we wish you warmth, the possibility of connection and we trust you are filing you baskets.
