Ancestors

I’m sitting on a train.  It’s like a liminal space, I’m not moving but rushing forward at the same time. Travelling through the amazing Scottish landscape, it’s always a joy.  Even though a brown, white and green dusk coloured blur beyond the window. The sound of the train, the rock of its carriage, always makes my mind drift.  It gets me thinking.  Back to old conversations and thoughts. I have pondered questions around animism and the dead a lot recently. In discussions, its been one of many topics raised over whisky, late into the evening. I thought the friendly debates and these unformed threads of ideas …

Winter time is always a time for me to ponder on those who have passed. Their missing faces from the celebration table hit pretty hard at this time of year. I don’t mean to be maudlin but it’s a reality we will all encounter at some point. It got me thinking. As this is the darkest time of the year, what those who came before us thought of at this time of year? What were the beliefs of the folks who saw fairies and ancestors as ever-present. Is it animism? Is it fairy faith? This is a thought piece rather …

The Cailleach is a very interesting figure in Gaelic even possibly Celtic myth and beyond.The above video represents some of the Cailleach’s folk stories, the first about the priest who tries to count the bones in her house and dies of old age because he can’t count them all there are that many. The other part of the tale about the encroaching of man signified by the barking dog and her need to renew herself to become young again. In the previous post I discussed some of the background to the Cailleach and some of the folk tales that relate to …

Our bones that we have on display need as much care as the bones in your body but in a different way. For this is I have created what I’m terming a Bone Balm, and this blog looks at how it is made, the ingredients that are part of it and how to apply the balm for best care.