77. Spindle berries

They look like little red flowers, but this is November. In fact they are empty seed cases from the spindle bush. The cheerful cherry-red stood out from the tapestry of threads left from visitor's wishes in the Bealtaine garden. I picked a small twig and propped it up against a stone, red on grey.

For most of the year the spindle is an undistinguished green bush that no one notices, hiding in the hedgerows. Then, in autumn, it explodes into exotic colour, displaying bright orange berries that clash wonderfully with the crimson cases.

Spindle is so named as the wood was used to make spindles for spinning wool.  Perhaps this bush can spin a moral too, that under every ordinary exterior there is a creative soul ready to burst into colour.

76. The lone apple

Dusk was falling and the Garden was quiet after a stormy week. All the leaves had blown off the apple trees in the Imbolc garden, leaving the branches completely bare - except for one lone, yellow apple.

What an apple, such a survivor! Hanging on and hanging on, regardless of the weather and the changing seasons. 

It made my day.

75. Lichen

From the magnificent..

A day of contrasts. First, walking along a stormy beach leaning against the wind, picking my way over sand littered with seaweed and sea foam, looking out over a wild, misty ocean. 

Later, in the Garden, I walked up the slope to the ring fort and clambered over an old stone wall, sheltered by clumps of hazel and hawthorn. Little wind here, just a gleam of winter sunshine that lit up a miniature tapestry of grey, brown and red; a fairy garden for the fairy fort, grey-green lichen decorated with red hawthorn berries. 

...to the miniature

The lichen had exquisitely-formed, crusty branches that reminded me of seaweed. These strange beings are neither plants nor mosses but symbiotic partnerships of algae and fungi. They are so tough they can live on bare rock and tree bark, creating their own food from air and water, sunlight and minerals. They grow on rocks by the sea too, coping with salt, gales and everything the ocean can throw at them.

There is, however, one thing most of these exceptionally resilient organisms can't cope with: pollution, the toxic products of our modern lifestyles. Healthy lichens mean clean, healthy air, and I am grateful that we have plenty of both on this Atlantic shore.

74. Reflections and shadows

Reflections...

Yesterday the Atlantic threw the first severe gale of the winter at us. It roared across the Garden, dropping heavy rain and whipping most of the remaining leaves off the trees. Eventually the wind eased and the sun came out to reveal a rain-washed landscape shining in the low sun. The remaining breeze was just strong enough to ripple the reflections of the birch trees in the Samhain pond.

... and shadows

I stood up on the earth woman's shoulder to take a photograph of the cleaned, wet Lughnasa circles and noticed my long winter shadow intruding into the frame as if I was another standing stone.

I can't pick up a reflection or a shadow so for once I have no object, just an awareness of the precious, ephemeral moments generated by this ever-changing Atlantic climate.

73. Maple leaf

Today the Garden was grey, misty and damp, the last of the autumn leaves hanging wet and limp. My eye was drawn to the buttery yellow colour of the maple in the Bealtaine garden, which radiated a soft, golden glow in the greyness. 

This tree is a Norway maple. It doesn't provide the bright reds of the American maples, but I love its subtle palette of yellows and ochres.

This time of Samhain is rich in metaphor. The fallen leaves will slowly decompose to make leaf mold, providing compost for the earth. The detritus of the old helps create the fertile soil for the new, and out of decay comes life.

72. Crab apples

The year has turned. A cycle has ended and a new one begins, not with light, but with the gathering darkness that marks the weeks between Samhain and the winter solstice. The Celtic imagination understood that for new growth and new ideas to grow they first have to be dreamed, and that darkness is the place of dreaming. In nature, a plant sends out roots into the dark earth before it can reach upwards to the light.

Samhain is a time for letting go, for endings, for clearing out the old to make way for the new. But it is also a time to take stock of all that has been harvested, of the richness that will sustain and support us as we move on.

I saw the tree heavy with yellow crab apples, little drops of summer fruitfulness packaged to keep birds and animals alive through the dark winter months. They felt like a bridge between the seasons, bringing the sweetness of the old cycle into the one that is just beginning.