43. Poppies

Ladybird poppy

The ladybird poppies glow like hot coals, lighting up the Bealtaine  garden. They are native to the Middle East and their fiery desert colour looks great against the greenness of an Irish garden.

Poppies and standing stones

Like our native poppy, ladybird poppies were common flowers of the cornfields but are becoming increasingly scarce due to herbicide use. They produce vast quantities of tiny seeds that can lie dormant in the ground for many decades, suddenly bursting into growth when the ground is disturbed.

Interestingly, the Irish name for our native poppy is cailleach dhearg, the red crone or hag, suggesting a goddess association. And in Roman mythology poppies were sacred to the harvest goddess Ceres, who wore them in a wreath or held them in her hand with stalks of corn.

In the Garden today each poppy is like a miniature goddess and I am a happy worshiper. 

42. Rainbow

The calendar sundial - the length of the shadow tells the date

It is midsummer. The shadow on the calendar sundial moves daily along the summer solstice clock, the curved line closest to the bog-oak gnomon. It is hard to believe that in six months time in December the shadow will be many times longer, moving along the furthest clock. But now I am revelling in the long hours of daylight, the high sun and the invigorating sense of summer fullness in the Garden.

Rainbow over the old woodland

And then the rainbow came, unexpectedly, like a blessing over the Garden.  Its arc reflected the curved clock of the sundial - two celestial phenomena for midsummer.  

I can't pick up a rainbow and it might take a while to find the crock of gold at its end, so instead I gathered some flowers from Imbolc and Bealtaine and made a little rainbow of my own out of fuchsia, hawkbit and purple toadflax.

41. Woodpigeon feather

Waterlily in the Samhain pool

The grey feather lay on the grass, perfect and velvety-smooth as if it had just floated down from the bird. I am fairly sure it is from a woodpigeon, a common bird in the Gardens. I picked it up and went looking for somewhere to photograph it. I was in irritable humour, having allowed myself to be annoyed about something small and then making matters worse by getting annoyed with myself for being annoyed. Such is life.

I walked into the Samhain garden to look at the gorgeous waterlilies that have just started blooming. Pink lilies and white lilies, like Irish versions of the lotus flower with its Buddhist associations of enlightenment and purity.

Leaf woman with woodpigeon feather

I was drawn to the island and placed the feather on the hand of the leaf-woman sculpture. She rests all summer long, holding that wintry sense of returning to the earth. I realised it is the summer solstice today and how easy it is to be caught in the upward, outward, high energy of summer and lose a sense of balance. My pigeon feather looked comfortable here, snuggled in to the sleeping form. Air meeting earth, lightness meeting solidity, summer meeting winter, creating balance. My mood eased.

The Samhain pool with water lilies

40. Seaweed

In a session with a pilgrimage group yesterday we explored the symbol of Brigit's cloak. According to legend, the young Brigit had a vision of building a monastery and went to the King of Leinster to ask him for some land. The King said he would only give her as much land as her cloak would cover, so Brigit took off her cloak and laid it on the ground. The moment it touched the land the cloak began to expand and expand, magically rippling out over the fields and woods until it covered the entire Curragh of Kildare, giving Brigit a large area of rich land for her monastery. 

Our Brigit's cloak, spreading on the grass...

Reading this story symbolically one can find many layers of meaning. The cloak or mantle can be a symbol of protection. Brigit the Christian Saint was being given the care of the land, taking the role of the previous goddess Brigit into the new era. The cloak can also represent community, the embrace of the mother, divine protection and care, being wrapped in spirit. 

 

Galway Bay - the bright blue sea

The beautiful 'Brigit's cloak' donated to us some time ago is bright blue, and yesterday the image of the cloak that came to me - rather surprisingly - was of  the sea. The bright blue sea, spreading, ebbing and flowing. I walked by the sea this morning and saw long strands of seaweed streaming out with the current, and it was like looking at threads of the magic cloak as it expanded and grew.

The limestone rock under Brigit's Garden is made of mud from ancient tropical seas and is full of the fossil remains of sea creatures. The sea forms the land, the land washes into the sea, and life as we know it began in the ocean. Perhaps the image of the cloak as the sea is not so far-fetched. The bright blue water is a protective mantle for the planet; all is connected.

39. Meadow flowers 1 - orchids and yellow rattle

Early purple orchids and ox-eye daisies in Little Meadow

My idea of bliss is sitting in Little Meadow among the flowers soaking up the sunshine, the colours, the movement of the stems. Watching the butterflies and dragonflies. Seeing biodiversity in action. Allowing myself to feel a little proud that we created this meadow from a grassy field.

Yellow rattle in flower

It is not easy re-establishing wildflower meadow, but Little Meadow is doing really well. We scraped off some of the topsoil and sowed a native seed mix in 2003, and each year it changes and develops. The orchids arrived by themselves and I am delighted to see them spreading happily, looking at home.

This modest meadow flower, the yellow rattle, is the secret of success. It is a 'hemi-parasite' whose roots suck nutrients from the grasses, keeping them under control so the flowers can flourish. It is yellow rattle, along with the absence of fertiliser, that keeps the meadow multi-coloured and beautiful.

In late summer each year we collect yellow rattle seeds - yes, the seed-pods actually rattle - and spread them in the other wildflower areas to keep them healthy too. Yellow rattle is one of the meadow's little miracles.

38. Ox-eye daisy

Summer is really here - the ox-eye daisies are coming into flower. Their bright, white blooms grow in profusion in all the wildflower areas in the Garden and they will soon provide a pretty pattern on the earth-woman's dress of summer flowers.

I started plucking petals to the old rhyme 'he loves me, he loves me not', but I didn't mind how it turned out. Instead I wrote 'love' in daisy petals on the ground. Something shifted inside and I felt calmer, more peaceful.

There is something special and lovely about these simple flowers: the way they nod cheekily on long stems; the beauty of them silhouetted against a blue sky; their toughness in growing on an nearby old cottage wall six feet off the ground.

Ox-eye daisies, moon daisies, dog daisies, noínín mor, thank you, you bring the lightness and life of summer and make me smile.

Ox-eye daisies growing on an old cottage wall

37. Aquilegia, valerian and foxglove

May blossom lies like snow on the grass

June started today with a storm and a splash. The sun finally came out in the late afternoon when I was showing a group from New Zealand around the Garden. The wind was still strong, and as we stood in the Imbolc Garden we were showered by May blossom blowing off the hawthorn trees. It was like a blessing, confetti from the trees covering the ground at our feet with white stars.

Below the stone wall the sunken garden is a riot of early summer colour - blue Aquilegia and red Valerian jostling together.

Aquilegia and Valerian

And then I spotted the first foxglove of the season, standing tall and beautiful. It is thought the name was originally 'folksglove', the folks in question being the fairies. Another name for the flowers is fairy thimbles, and the tubular flowers are just like thimbles - soft, velvety ones that fit over a finger perfectly.

Foxglove's Latin name is, of course, digitalis, and the plant is well-known for its powerful medicinal value for the heart. I can offer testament to its effectiveness - even without ingesting any extract from the plant it lifted my heart and provided a beautiful end to a previously grey day.

Foxglove