Back to the old path behind Wood Dalling church yesterday evening. It's becoming quite a resonant place for me, and I wonder what is accumulating there with each visit.
This was the second of the three midsummer bonfires, collectively known as 'St John's Fires', but this one was actually for the eve of St Peter and St Paul's Day. The bonfires would have been rowdy social occasions with plenty of drinking and merriment. Mine was more reflective, but I was interested to see the juxtaposition of the primeval excitement of fire with the sombre church walls and (nowadays) peaceful graveyard.
St John's Wort was the herb I cast into the fire this time to make 'magical' smoke – as would have been done in the medieval period. I'd spotted lots of it flowering along the old railway track close to our home and planned to stop off to pick some on the way to the church. We just turned the car around to park on the distinctly unpastoral road close to the start of the walk – and I was surprised to find some St John's Wort right next to the car door!
No visible owl babies this time, but plenty of noise issued from the unglazed window where we saw them last week. Bird books describe the sound that barn owls make as 'hissing or snoring' and I'd put this into the former category … nice to have some company, even if the Fire wasn't going to be quite the communal event that it would have been 600 years ago and more.
After last week's Fire, I'd had a few ideas I wanted to try out with the filming, including circling the fire and jumping over it. This was great fun and I was definitely starting to feel that something was happening.
