What the Raven said – Tower of London

Friday November 27, 2009:

We’ve come to the tower of London, my raven appreciating friend and I. It’s a lovely November day. Behind the snapping wind, the winter sun warms our faces. We move through the courts in search of ravens.


We’ve timed it just right. The Raven Master, a beefeater who rears and handles the birds is about to feed them. We are amazed to learn that the ravens think he is one of them!

Three ravens are in the aviary. One (Gwillum) is elderly, another (Elizzie) almost blind and a third (Merlin) is recovering from some illness or injury. I want to go to meet the blind one, but the aviary is on the other side of the lawn.

I stand by the fence and sing deeply in my throat. “Guarg-guarg” I caw.

“Oh” says my companion excitedly, “Here comes one!” She describes his hopping gate as he bounces across the grass. I begin to hop and flap, but find it too much hard work and stop.

I speculate on how we could fashion a raven dance which imitates (respectfully of course) their gait. They hop one foot raised delicately off the ground. They bounce, clipped wings flapping. They masterfully stalk, head held high and proud.

But we’re here to do ceremony, I remember at last. Outcome our raven masks and we begin our call to them with our attempts to do the raven dance. Sure that we look silly, and attracting a certain amount of attention from both ravens and tourists, we subside into seats and allow ourselves to connect more decorously.

It is windy on this crag, but the sky is blue and clear above me. I sit and wait.

“Guarg”, says the big black bird standing before me. I sit still and gaze at him, dark as the dark rock on which he sits, his head held still as he eyeballs me.

In a moment he is closer. He leans his head against my knees. WE are silent as I force myself to keep still. It is a huge effort of control to stop myself reaching out and touching.

He turns and offers me his back, his great wings outspread. I see this for the invitation it is. Carefully I climb upon his back. It seems hardly possible that he can take my weight. We soar suddenly into the sky.

The black rocks spin beneath us. We climb high into the pale blue sky, and the land takes shape beneath me. The rocks are edged with a pale glistening sea sparkling in the sunlight.

We fly across a dark cliff and into a deep cave. Out of the wind, if feels warm, if not dry - I can hear dripping water somewhere.

In front of me, a deeper darkness moves. I hold my breath as my eyes become adjusted to the gloom. There before me stands an enormous raven.

“Guarg-guarg” he says.

I bow my head. My beak touches the rock before me; my neck is stretched out in supplication. Something touches my head. The heavy beak gently strokes the feathers. I feel soothed and gentled.

“Mine, mine, you are mind” says the raven.

I am still. He is still. Time moves on.

I am alone. Behind me I hear the scratching of claws on the rock. The raven who brought me has returned to take me away.

“guarg-guarg” bubbles a rasping voice behind my still companion. “Guarg-guarg” I say out loud. My companion responds, for this is our signal that our journeys are ended.

We talk of our experiences. I am clear that the raven has asked me to pay more attention to him in my spiritual work. I rfeflectwith some trepidation how that will turn out.

My companion tells of her encounter and the work she will do to honour the Corvus family including helping others to find their particular crow family totem. We discuss devising and demonstrating the raven dance as a way of connecting and other work we might do in their honour.

I stand by the fence and sing low in the back of my throat. A raven caws; I like to think it is in response to me.

The sun is low behind the buildings now. The air has definitely cooled. I shiver.

The Raven Master appears; it’s time for the ravens to go to bed! He begins to call them each by name, whistling to them, tapping the top of the aviary, walking about the grass toshepperd them safely to their night boxes. One by one, they come, some eagerly, some grumblingly, hopping, bouncing and stalking, cheerfully, dignifiedly, reluctantly.

All birds gathered in, we stand for a moment in front of their boxes. We call to them in thanks. Our work done this day, we turn into the warmth of a nearby souvenir shop for a bit of post ritual retail therapy. Every good ritual should end with a bit of shopping, I think. It’s almost as grounding as chocolate!

Crow circles – Highgate Cemetery

Tuesday November 3, 2009:

The sky softly arches overhead as we walk through the park. Beside the lake, ducks quarrel amongst themselves. Overhead, crows caw in the turbulent air.

In the deserted cemetery, we move silently amongst the graves, laid out in rows all around us. Not far past Marx’s tomb, a riot of wreaths is piled high on a newly covered grave. A large hammer and sickle tells us, we are at the right place.


We’re here now because I couldn’t be at the funeral. We’re also here because it’s the full moon and we’ve been working with the issues of illness and death these past two moons.

According to my personal bird calendar, we’ve now entered the time of crow, raven and owl. The earth has turned and, in that time past Samhain, where we move into ourselves, to reflect, rest and be still, it is a kind of annual dying. It is for me certainly a time to die to what no longer serves me.

A comrade has died unexpectedly. His influence has shaped a lot of my public work this last eight years. His life focus on socialism and justice reminds me that my work is not yet done, although his is.


My companion and I circle the grave, casting the circle and calling up the directions. We walk round and round, singing revolutionary songs in his honour.

The trees shake in the wind. The moving air brushes my cheek. A crow circles above and caws roughly. A young woman appears from somewhere and stands silently for a moment before moving on. I don’t know who she is. I stand still and wait in the quiet.

And I am a crow flying above the graveyard. I see the mounds spreading out, row upon row across the hillside. I see the figures by the flower clustered grave. They are very small.

So many dead. All gone. Nothing remains but the plot of land in which they lie. Amongst the well-known dead, this cemetery is the resting place of a number of comrades from my life. I think about my neighbor who died of AIDS. I remember a colleague who had a brain tumor. I remember another whose voice in the words she wrote expressed so much. All have affected me, changed me because they were in my life, deeply, daily, occasionally.

I stand by the grave and breathe in the sweetness of the flowers, and the richness of the recently turned earth. “Thank you”, I say to the comrade who is no more. Our work done. We open the circle and I bow to the grave and we move away.

Walking amongst the graves, we come across George Elliot’s. My companion reads her stone and the inscriptions on the graves around her.

It is late. If we’re not careful, we’ll get locked in as the cemetery is about to close. Hurrying now, we make our way to the gates. , a crow caws as he circles high in the sky above the silent cemetery.

26 The fallen warriors

Saturday October 31, 2009:

“Veiled by clouds, the moon shines down.
Across the undulating belly of the earth,
A snake of silent people move.
Connect, remember, honour
Our fallen warriors; our dear beloved dead.”

“It’s an ash tree not a lime”, Declares one of my companions as we stride across the tussocky heath. The sky fizzes with fireworks. The moon peeps out from behind hazy clouds.

We circle the tree, make sacred space and call our ancestors.
We light candles and place them at the bottom of the tree. The smell of the wax reminds me of the smell of the air of Trafalgar Square last night and the hundreds of candles burning at the foot of an impromptu stage. Another gay man has been murdered. The community gathers to say “no more, enough is enough!”

I call the spirits of our fallen warriors, my brothers and sisters in struggle from all communities. AS we stand in circle around the tree, I feel them walking across the heath towards us, streaming in from all directions, from all communities.

The snake of silent walkers swings round the tree, moves through the veil (a piece of blackpaterned net swinging from a branch of the tree. Foot in front of foot, we move, connected with silvery ribbons, we move as one behind the drummer.

The grass hisses on either side of me. I feel the presence of many feet. Without speech, connected heart to heart, they tell me their stories. I learn of their lives and how they were ended.

At first they tell me, it was the names, solo initially and then a hail of hate. Of course it was never to end there. A blow, a blade, , a brick, a boot, a blaze of searing light; shit covered nails, arching through the air, smashing into flesh. In the moment before oblivion, the inconsequential thought and then the heart-stopping spasm of fear. Disbelief turns into certainty back into disbelief again.

My flesh shrinks as though it receives the blows; I feel my anger rise and the tears come. “Why” I say to myself, “how can we be so hated?”

“It’s because we are different”, the dead ones whisper. “It’s our very existence which challenges the status quo, the acceptance of normality”, they say. And of course I know this and know too that it has been so since the beginning of time.

”Say no to hate crimes” I hear the dead whisper. And I know that this is what I must do. I must use words to fight the hatred, to change it, stop it.

The walkers swing round and through the veil, circle the tree, hold hands and connect. Behind its sheltering branches, the dead of my community stand and wait until it is time to go.

Silently, we bid farewell to our dear beloved dead. I turn and bow towards my brothers and sisters in struggle, still standing silently watching, beyond the tree’s shelter. They turn and move away, walking in all directions. Long grass swishes beneath their feat as they move back into the night.

25 … And the feathery nest …


Tuesday October 27, 2009:


On top of one Tree Hill, we stand and face the curving river. The sky is mackerel, according to my companion, who with nerves of steel has just made it up the deeply cambered steep path in her electric wheel chair. But One Tree Hill is not the place for us we decide.

With relief I lie down on the grass on top of a burial mound on the other side of the park. I raise my face to the sun. The sky is now a clear blue. Only the caw of the crows can be heard on top of the whispering trees in front of the deeper hum of the traffic beyond.

“Goodness!” I say to no one in particular, as something seizes my feet and swings me up in the air. Above me, the down draft of huge beating wings ruffles my hair. Grasped in sharp curving claws. I see her dark wings against the pale sky as she soars towards the sun.

It seems like I am drifting. Gently, I am laid down on a bed of the softest, silkiest feathers. I sigh, sinking deep into them and am content. Time moves on.

“Oh” I gasp as I am swung up into the air again. The claws, the great dark body, the same pale sky rotates as we rise. She lies me down again on the curving bank of a meadow and I relax back until once more I am swung into the air.

Now I lie under the sheltering branches of a stout chestnut tree. All is quiet. The tree leans over me as though watching. The sky changes. I am returned to the bed of soft feathers until removed once more to the grassy bank.

The trees lose their leaves, become skeletal and then begin to bud. The sky thins and whitens until with the sharp winds of winter’s end, I hear the blackbird sing. All winter I sit still in nature or lie cocooned in feathers.



Last week, I remember as I become conscious of the burial mound upon which I am lying, I was encouraged to dance in nature to get me through the winter. Now the birds invite me to sit in solitude and stillness in silence. Perhaps I’ll do both, I think, rolling over, preparatory to getting up.

“I’m going to buy a duvet”, I say as I get slowly to my feet. I stretch and yawn, raise my face to the warm sun. “This is the life”, I think, bowing to the birds and the sky and the undulating land.

24 Swallow Dance

Saturday October 24, 2009:

Invisible wind, cool and moist
Dance the trees, Sing the leaves.
Dapple my cheek with soft wet kisses
Lift me,
Exquisite wind
Fly me hhome.

“Ah” I sigh, the sound catches in my throat and I feel a movement in my chest. The drizzle is gentle, tapping lightly at exposed skin. It is the wind that draws that sigh of heartfelt contentment, southerly, soft but firm. Cooling rather than biting, it arrives, says “hello” and hangs around to be appreciated.

Today’s companion is full of knowledge about Alexander Palace Park, in North London. We walk from tree to tree, appreciating, respecting, and saluting them one by one. I never knew the park held such lovely spaces, places where those who love the land have worked for years, small groves, curving hillocks, curious trees whose spirits, watch, welcome and allow. I am filled with gratitude for her, this place and the day.

We’re here because I want to find a high hill on which to dance with the swallows. At this time of migrating birds, I want to discover and then bring forward for appreciation what it is that will sustain me through the winter. It seems appropriate therefore to do this with the birds that are now flying south to the place that will sustain them for their winter too. The swallows are flying across Europe to Africa. The turns are arriving from the north to overwinter in these more gentle lands. Everywhere, the land makes preparation for the winter.

We climb to the highest part of the hill. Facing south, the Thames valley spreads out below us. Through trees, the buildings set themselves out in their accustomed places under the grey sky. St Paul’s, Canary Warf, the Dome and beyond them, Crystal Palace and the hills of the North Downs are revealed to me through my companion’s description. , my city lies before me, my home.


“Come feathered ones, dance on the breeze,
Wings beat the rhythm of the turning world,
Come!
Come dancing ones, soar to the sun
Gilded bright upon your outreached wings,
Come!
Come gliding ones, turn and eddy on the wind
Circle, spin and flow,
Come!
Come powerful ones, muscles strong and flexed
Cleave through the eddying air
Come!”


I let the wind move me as I stand, feet apart, strong and grounded on the curve of the earth. My arms curved like the wings of the swallow, I rock.

“What is it that will see me through the winter?” I ask myself.

Oh how the earth spins. Below, the trees, buildings, grey snaking roads and grey glistening rivers whirl giddily. I feel the power in my shoulders and pound the air as I soar up towards the pale golden glimmer beyond the opaque clouds.
The land below parts and allows the glimmering grey green sea to spread itself widely. I see in its reflection a thousand curving dark shapes surrounding the curve that is me. We are all swooping and soaring. I am flying with the swallows!

We fly in a great flock, wings beating pattering vigorously as they chitter-chitter-chitter-chitter-chitter-chee-eek!” cheerfully to each other.

I laugh, throwing back my head and reaching out my arms and am precipitated into a roll as I “chitter-chitter-chee-eek” back to them in sheer delight. My stomach drops and I gasp, rolling again, just because I can.

Down on the earth, I begin to dance. I dance with the wind, turning, bending reaching out my arms. Bending my back. I am elegant, joyful and flowing. I dance, moving my feet, turning with the wind and the toggles of my rain jacket swing wildly as I move. I gather up the air and waltz it around, tenderly embracing it, then letting it fall; I dance my heartbeat, my breath, the wind and the soft gentle rain.

“Wearing my bright winged feathers as I fly,
Wearing my bright winged feathers as I fly,
I circle around,
I circle around,
The boundaries of the earth.”

I sing and I dance and I know that this is what will get me through the winter. I will dance on the land to the song of my body. This will be my life dance and my gift to the day.
A second voice joins with mine. My companion steps into the circle. Together we dance the space of our casting, laughing and singing, our voices weaving in and out of each others as we weave in and out of the space.

In time, we are still. And the dancing birds are thanked and we move off to find lunch.

Later, we stand on the edge of a lake whilst the turns, newly arrived from the north, shriek and fight over tossed bits of bread. My companion marvels at how they don’t get their tails wet, at their round buoyancy and their determined snatching of food from under the beaks of the swans. I shriek, honk and quack at the cheerfully importuning waterfowl at our feet and am happy.

Later still, I hold a slim birch tree in my hands as she sways with the wind. Shifting and moving oh so gently against my tender fingers, I am moved by the simplicity of her dance.

“Beautiful wind, aid the migrants as they fly home. May they arrive safely and return to dance in our skies once more when the sun is reborn.

“Ah” I sigh stroking the elegant birch. Thank you for the dance, Lady of the Woods,” I say, and turning, follow my companion through the cops and back to the road.

A mother’s harvest

Saturday September 19, 2009:

“Above the rustling russet trees,
Starlings ride the autumn breeze.
Curve-winged against the pale fall sky,
They turn, circle and southward fly.
At summer’s end, the nights draw in.
Our harvest’s safely gathered in.”


The gentle warmth of the golden sun slants low between the trees, nuzzling my cheek as I walk with others down the steep incline to our ritual place.

“I love this time of year”, we say to each other.

My companions feast their eyes upon the turning leaves, the soft yellows, russets and reds against the still dark green of the holly and the softening browns of tree trunks. I breathe in deeply through my nose; savor the smoky, damp, mushroom richness of nature full and sweet with summer sun. In the deep shadows, in the cool hollows I can smell her as she allows herself to begin to break down and fold silently into the waiting welcoming earth, ready to sleep till the sun is born again at Yule.

And as I walk, I think about what Starhawk writes of this time of year and how it relates to my own life. She says:
“This is the time of harvest, of thanksgiving and joy, of leave-taking and sorrow. Now day and night are equal, in perfect balance, and we give thought to the balance and flow within our own lives. The Sun King has become the Lord of Shadows, sailing west: we follow Him into the dark. Life declines; the season of barrenness is on us, yet we give thanks for that which we have reaped and gathered. We meet to turn the Wheel and weave the cord of life that will sustain us through the dark."

We gather amongst the trees and lay out our alter. In circle, we give up what no longer serves us, weave our web of community, and walk the spiral to bring balance in to our lives. That done, we dance and sing our thanksgiving.

AS we work, I listen to the woods. They rustle and crackle around us, like a lazy autumn fire. Beyond the shrieks of children playing nearby and the joyful barking dogs pounding through the undergrowth, I listen for the birds.

Gone are the hurtling ones, those who dodge through the undergrowth, across the gorse covered heath, who perch high up in the leafy trees calling to the sun as the red legged partridge calls across the flatlands of East Anglia. Sacrificed to an incomprehensible blood lust, they have been hunted down across the heath lands and woodlands of these isles. My heart heavy, I know that this festival is their wake and wish I’d incorporated this into what we are doing.

I think about my summer’s harvest and am sad. Somehow, amongst the green hils of Wales and the sunny glades of Spain, I lost something. Summer slipped between my fingers, like a moving sunbeam and before I knew it, my dreams of relishing the long warm days had gone. I never went to meet the game birds and now it is too late.

“Hold this moment of sorrow”, I tell myself. It is time to take leave of summer and all her trappings, of the sunshine, the warm breeze and of those shrieking, dancing ungainly game birds. They are a symbol of the earth folding in upon herself and allowing the decay, for from death comes life and the circle turns.

And as I think this, a picture of my old Mum comes into my head.

“I’m going to outlive the lot of you!” she declares stoutly as she battles with infirmity after infirmity. Grinning widely, like a frog, her eyes magnified behind her glasses, she does her exercises with diligence, takes her medication and makes plans for the future. In the autumn of her years, she shines like the sun on a late September day, surprisingly warm, heart-warming and uplifting.

“Let go of regrets”, I say to myself, “the past is gone. Live for today, for now, for this moment.” I breathe and smell again the sweetness of autumn and am comforted for I am here now and it is beautiful.

I take a feather; it is black, white and grey, surely a magpie’s, I think. I wave it gently to and thro and hear the quiet swishing, the gentlest of wing beats. In my mind, I see a blue autumnal sky filled with turning circling forked tailed starlings, heading south, riding the brisk breezes of September, and searching for the constant sun.

I think about my mother’s life. Since my earliest days I’ve wanted her to have a better deal. Wanted her to have a husband that appreciated and respected her, a careering which she felt truly fulfilled, for her immense talents to be recognized and for her children to be a credit to her.

The clearing looks as it did before we came. Only a brightly colored woolen spider’s web swings from the branches of a tree, flapping gently in the early evening breeze.

The circle opened, we move in different directions through the woods. I take a handful of smooth acorns. They are warm against my palm. I imagine them filled with the sun. Now they are still, resting, waiting for its return, waiting to burst forth, a new life, a new tree.

And I think as I walk through the trees, surely too I am part of my mother’s harvest? I know she is proud of me. I am who I am partly because of her example of strength and independence. Her life goes on through me. Though she falters, may I walk with her along this next part of her life’s journey. May I lighten her load by lifting her spirits so that we may dance in cheerful optimism, no matter what comes next. For all we have is this day, this hour, this moment.

Blessings to the mothers.

22 Sylven Dove

Friday August 14, 2009:

Soundlessly and carefully we walk across the damp grass to the central fire. The rest of the camp sleeps beyond their tent walls. Stiff from lack of sleep and damp camping, I am tottering, rocking from side to side as I put one foot in front of another. Finally, I stand by the crackling and snapping fire, a centre of comforting heat against the chill morning air.

We’ve gathered to meet the folk of the land and in particular to communicate with beings who have revealed themselves to one of our party. More naturally a lark, I am happy to be up at this hour, even if my body protest. I am eager to know more of the spirits of the land.

WE walk into the other field, it is empty of tents bar a shrine and the workshop yurt. It feels damp and cool, solitary and a little bit unwelcoming. WE stand in a circle as one of our party speaks of his experience and invites us to call to the folk he has met.

His folk are an ungentle people, fierce and earthy. They are noble too. Tall and horned, through him they dance and stamp, growl and snarl, and we do the same.

The circle we have made breaks as others rush off in all directions. I stand still, beating a tattoo with my feet on the ground, growling a welcome and an invitation to these folk to come to me.

A presence stands before me. He or maybe it is a she, is tall, very tall, perhaps about twelve foot high. I crane up and see the face, lit by the grey morning sky, pale and thin. Wild hair or a main frames it, horns poke through from amongst the hair. We gaze silently at each other and I am transfixed. I stop growling and hold my breath.


Suddenly the being strides off across the field and scales the fence. He disappears into the woods beyond. I wait, for I don’t know what else to do.
I can hear a wood pigeon cooing. Another answers and then a wren trills in the hedgerow to my left. From the woods I hear the caw of a crow and in the distance the insistent cocadoodledoo of a nearby cock.

I stand on the earth, soft yet unyielding, the tuffety grass rough and hummocky under my feet. The green freshness of crushed leaves wafts softly on the cool morning air and I breathe gratefully their sweet perfume.

From under my tongue I begin to coo, piping and round, soft and tremulous. High up in a tree an answering coo comes. We duet for a time as I stand waiting for I know not what.

The grass whispers, the presence stands before me. The cooing is close, I stop and hold my breath. I focus on the sound and see ,held in long gentle hands, a quivering soft grey pigeon. She sings softly and I sing back.

Did the being stride up to her in a tree and just pluck her out? I imagine him selecting his bird like picking an apple from a tree. I wonder if the bird had any say in coming along.


The hands come closer to me as the presence leans over and offers me the bird. I reach out cupped hands and receive the soft warmth. I bow my head in thanks as I bring the pigeon to my heart.

The pale face with its matt of hair and shiny horns watches me. My heart is warm as the pigeon nestles against me and seems to melt into my heart. I am overwhelmed with a sense of love. I sigh deeply for my heart is full. I hold my hands over my breast and rocking gently, begin to coo.

“Droo-droo-droo-droo-droo” I coo. I rock gently and the being watches me silently.

“Sylven Dove” something says in my ear. “Sylven dove”, I say to myself, “Sylven dove, welcome,” I whisper softly.

I raise my eyes to the level of the beings face, but he is gone. I have a new name! I know not yet for what purpose, I know not if it replaces any other name I have, I roll it around my mouth repeatedly, as though savouring a tasty morsel of delicious food.

Sylven dove, tree dove, wood pigeon perhaps? I speculate upon its meaning as I repeat it over and over again. I smile. It’s beautiful, it’s loving, it’s gentle, I like it!

The circle reconnects and we link hands and stand quietly, holding our experiences and dreams as we give silent thanks. The field is quiet and still. The wind rustles the trees and only the occasional call of a wood pigeon breaks the tranquillity.

21 Dancing Game birds – Hampstead Heath

Saturday August 1, 2009:

In defiance of the lowering sky, we gather on the heath to mark Lamas. We stride across the wide heath land and into a copse to find a circle amongst the trees.

“this is the wake of Lugh the sun King,” says the ritual leader, and I think of the sun gone into the grain, the first harvest, the blackberries and plums that are ripe and round an ready to eat. I think too of the game birds, plump with their feasting, ready to be harvested too.

“Eeyon, Eeyon, Eeyon” I peon as I call the hurtling ones, those who dodge through the undergrowth, across the gorse covered heath , who perch high up in the leafy trees calling to the sun as the red legged partridge calls across the flatlands of East Anglia. I hear the heavy beat of wings, feel their presence as they stalk around the circle we have made. I call them to honour them, they who will soon be chased and hunted down by toffs and their cronies across the heath lands and woodlands of these isles. Lugh has given his life as the sun has gone into the grain and the game bird will lose his life for a greedier harvest.

We dance and sing, solemnly and quietly, striding carefully on the uneven ground. Behind me I feel the birds dance a solemn dance too. I imagine them plumply stepping, stamping and bowing to each other, serious and purposeful.

We give our grief’s to the water, sprinkle it on the ground like tears. Our tears feed the earth for water is life giving too. We pass the Lamas bread and offer up our gifts and the trees watch us and the birds watch us, standing amongst the trees.

The year has turned, the days are growing shorter. The sharp west wind with rain on its breath is also cold. We are moving towards the dark, the dying.

“Bang!” the birds outside our circle shriek and rise, fluttering into the treetops with alarm. But this is a starter pistol not the first salvo of the guns. Someone is having some kind of athletics competition and some energetic souls are pelting round the running track below.

I pick up a drum and begin to sing and play. The circle of witches join in and we sing with great gusto:

“hoof and horn, hoof and horn”
all that dies shall be reborn.
Corn and grain, corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise again!”

Around us, the birds strut and bow, encircling purposefully outside the circle of trees.
“Eeyon, Eeyon, Eeyon” A bird flies across the open heath land beyond our copse. I bow to it as it passes and hope it gets to a place of safety as it seems to be in a bit of a hurry. We open our circle. I nod to the birds watching from amongst the trees as we settle down to feast, but they are gone.

20 the slumbering Pigeons

Tuesday July 28, 2009:

I am so tired. It’s been a hard day. I’ve chaired a heavy meeting about domestic and sexual violence as experienced by older and disabled people and it’s really done my head in. I’ve chaired a another tough meeting and have then staggered around endless badly maintained South London streets, trying to find a tube station. Every hump and bump in the pavement, every change of surface and every veering around crap dumped on the path has torn shrieking aching pain from my poor knees. Now, when I really want to saunter along a beautiful nature reserve and enjoy the waning of the day, I can hardly walk.

I stagger along beside my patient companion as we move along the Parkland Walk. We’re going to find pigeons to commune with. It’s late, almost dusk. The hedgerows are ominously quiet as we stump past them.

Still it smells like summer, all green and sweet. And it’s not actually raining for once, although the sky lies low over our heads in a rather threatening manner. Blackberries are ripening on the hedges. WE pause and my companion feeds me a ripe one, small, sweet and tart all at once and intensely blackberryish.

Finsbury Park is populated with groups or individuals occupied variously in marshal arts, football, jogging, screaming at the ducks and trying to push each other into the pond (that latter group, a gaggle of teenage girls!). I grumble as I walk slowly along, wishing I’d not had this idea for one more commune with the birds but gone straight to bed. My mind is full of examples of abuse and I can feel tears not far away. I don’t know if they are for me, my knees or those who have experienced such abuse. I can also feel a seething anger bubbling somewhere inside me. I breathe and we walk on.

I have to sit down. We find a bench and sink down on to it and cast a circle.

“Come feathers on the wind, fluttering and scirring, circling and descending, gentle, soft in the dawn light, grey like you are, come fluttering ones, come!

Come gilded winged ones as you soar into the noon day sun, dark against its brightness, your wings aflame with its rays, come glittering ones come.

Come swooping and curving, fly low over the water and watch yourself shining there as you fly, cooing your liquid song. Come flowing ones come!

Come, you who walk the earth, feet firmly on the ground, strutting, bobbing and bowing, pecking curiously at anything edible. Come strutting ones come!

And you who circle and spiral, in the wind, under the sun, over water and on the earth, spiral an circle and connect. Come spiralling ones, come!”

We scatter seeds and crumble fairy cakes and sit back and wait. The shouts of the footballers pierce the air. A panting runner pelts by. The traffic on Green Lanes hums as the wind dances in the tree tops.


Nothing. Not a chirrup, a coo or a flutter. Only, so my companion tells me, the silent cautious approach of two crows, come to check out what’s on offer and to stand guard so no other bird gets it.

“go to the trees”, comes the message. We get up and walk towards trees. And then I hear a gentle cooing. My companion tells me quietly that we are near a tree upon which three pigeons sit and that there are others high up in the trees here.

We stand beneath them and scatter more seeds and cake. And we wait. The wind shakes the trees. The footballers are now charging around the running track. A dog is barking and an owner barks back a command witch is ignored. I breathe and tune into the quiet energy of the birds above me.

Slowly I relax. Slowly, I feel the pain in my heart slip away. I close my eyes and I can feel the soft fluttering wings touching, stroking me, soothing and gentling me. Softly, in my ear they coo as though to say “there-there, there-there” and I feel comforted. And I say silently to the birds:

“Stroke me with your wings,
Tender as the breeze
Feathery caress
Gentle me to sleep”



The dove is associated with love, peace and gentleness. In my bird oracle it is also associated with forgiveness. I can’t bring myself to forgive those who perpetrate such terrible acts against others made vulnerable by their situation, but I can soften my heart towards myself, forgive myself for being so hard on myself, because I too have been so hurt. I coo softly to the silent birds, now settling down to sleep.

And out of the sky, from high up in another tree, a final, triumphant deep brurring coo, “droo-droo-droo, droo-droo” comes. I bob my head, pigeon-like, and make my farewells. How fitting, at the end of pigeon time, to meet them at their bedtime, I think, as we leave the park.

19 gentle Pigeons – Regent’s Park

Friday July 24, 2009

I have asked the weather gods to let us have a dry evening. The sun has retreated behind the clouds but at least it is not actually raining.

July is a glorious month for municipal flowers. In June the roses abound, but in July, all manner of flower turns its face optimistically towards the sun. tonight, the flowers of Regent’s Park are doing their very best.

My companion has a way with words. She paints a feast of colours and textures as we walk through the park.

The Victorians knew a bit about floridness. We pass beds of dramatic deep velvety reds, as rich and robust as a plush curtain. They stand against black purple leaves, dramatic and stark.

A great bowl, borne on the backs of griffins burgeons nay even riots with blooms. It is dark purple and pale yellow, stark and startling.

Head high thistles make us feel like the little people. I reach up and explore their shaggy heads with my long cane.

A fountain splashes noisily. Pigeons flutter on the ground, soft white and cream, navy, grey and black, ringed, barred and plain.

We head for a bench under a tree. I dance around it scattering bird seed, casting a circle in a very literal sense. We sit down and along come the birds.

My companion waxes poetically about their beauty. A huge one with light grey wings and a purple brown chest with a white collar and turquoise blue shot silk head struts magnificently and then flies off. Three hungry pigeons variously grey with rainbow collars, peck industriously at the trail of seeds. The sky lowers and it begins to rain heavily.

I pull out two umbrellas, for my companion dresses for elegance rather than protection. I spread plastic over our knees.

“oh, there’s one with pink feet” she exclaims. We’re not sure if that isn’t perhaps a curious an interloping duck, happily paddling in the little lake which is gathering at our feet as the sky lets go its Burdon of rain.

“so much for the weather gods,” I say, getting up and preparing to move to somewhere more sheltered, “I can’t have made myself clear!”. We pack up and soggily walk off in search of shelter. As we leave the circle of munching pigeons, the rain stops and the sun pushes the clouds away.

We stand in its warmth, faces turned to drink in its energy and I cast another circle for the birds. A scirring of wings, a gentle fluttering, and down they come, encircling us, feasting, bobbing and bowing as they eat as though in thanksgiving for the bounty of the seed.

Cold and hunger has overtaken us and we walk on in search of hot food. From amongst the trees, a pigeon coos. I feel myself relax and smile to hear its soft gentleness. I coo back feeling suddenly very happy.

Before we know it, we are in the rose garden. The air is sweet with their gentle perfume. We stand in a shaft of sunlight and I cast another seed circle. Pigeons flutter from out of nowhere and begin to feast.

I feel something scratching at my left ankle, something heavy an furry. A huge great fat squirrel, bold and greedy is attempting to scale my left leg. I shake him off and he scampers round me and assaults my other leg. I dip my hands in the seed bag and toss them to him, as he grumpily tries to see off the pigeons. My trousers, the seed and my dignity is saved by the appearance of a small boy, determined to stroke the little creature. We walk on.

My companion’s hip hurts. My knees aren’t feeling too great ether. We’re both damp. We sit down on a bench and I scatter more seeds and sit to wait whilst she answers her phone.
Down come the fluttering ones. Scirring and whirring, they fill the air with their soft wings. Behind me, one coos and flutters, another alights to my right with a “thwo-thwo-thwo” of beating wings.

“ah” I say to myself as I feel my heart warm. Aphrodite’s doves circle us in love on the edge of the rose garden.

I sit in circled, enfolded by winged ones as they bob and peck, bow and dance about me. I hear their fluttering wings, their sweet cooing, I feel their energy, peacefully content.

“Beautiful rock doves” I whisper to them, for that is what they are, “thank you for being here, for being all over London, for being the symbol of London.” And I fall to thinking of how the pigeon comes to me, the messenger between the worlds, the symbol of peace and forgiveness and love, and I am happy.

My companion has finished her rather difficult phone call. She tells me of the black swan that I can hear noisily bathing in the nearby lake. Ducks quack and the pigeons continue to feast and coo and bob and bow.

We are both cold. I coo at the pigeons in farewell, toss them more seeds and walk off in search of hot soup.