By Bernie Bell.

Around Halloween, I had a yen to go to Maes Howe

https://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=17561

On Sunday, 1^st of February I was thinking, thinking, thinking that the 1st February is a special day – but couldn’t for the life of me think why.

On Monday,  I realised that this is the time known as Imbolc – tho’ it will have been known by other names before that.

Halloween/Samhain mark the year moving into Winter, Imbolc marks the year moving towards Spring.

On Monday night I was un settled – couldn’t sleep and in the early morning I had a yen to go to the Stenness Stones and make contact with them. For some reason we haven’t done that for a while, we tend to stomp round the top of the bank then walk on to Brodgar.  My idea was to pay attention to the Stones, touch them, maybe lean on them.  Then go to the nearby Barnhouse settlement to say ‘Hello’, maybe step into the structure which has a hearth in the entrance-way.

The weather was harsh – yet another day in a succession of wet and windy days with a wind that sucks the energy out of you.  But when we were ready, we decided to go for it as my instinct told me to  – honouring the time, and Brigid

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/imbolc-celtic-celebration-brigid

Sometimes I think  this being sensitive lark isn’t all it’s cracked up to be –  it doesn’t make life easy, but on the other hand following my instincts, my ‘yens’, has led to and resulted in some extra-ordinary experiences.  I was thinking of C.S. Lewis poem ‘In Praise of Solid People’

In Praise Of Solid People

Thank God that there are solid folk
Who water flowers and roll the lawn,
And sit and sew and talk and smoke,
And snore all through the summer dawn.

Who pass untroubled nights and days
Full-fed and sleepily content,
Rejoicing in each other’s praise,
Respectable and innocent.

Who feel the things that all men feel,
And think in well-worn grooves of thought,
Whose honest spirits never reel
Before man’s mystery, overwrought.

Yet not unfaithful nor unkind,
With work-day virtues surely staid,
Theirs is the sane and humble mind,
And dull affections undismayed.

O happy people! I have seen
No verse yet written in your praise,
And, truth to tell, the time has been
I would have scorned your easy ways.

But now thro’ weariness and strife
I learn your worthiness indeed,
The world is better for such life
As stout suburban people lead.

Too often have I sat alone
When the wet night falls heavily,
And fretting winds around me moan,
And homeless longing vexes me

For lore that I shall never know,
And visions none can hope to see,
Till brooding works upon me so
A childish fear steals over me.

I look around the empty room,
The clock still ticking in its place,
And all else silent as the tomb,
Till suddenly, I think, a face

Grows from the darkness just beside.
I turn, and lo! it fades away,
And soon another phantom tide
Of shifting dreams begins to play,

And dusky galleys past me sail,
Full freighted on a faerie sea;
I hear the silken merchants hail
Across the ringing waves to me

—Then suddenly, again, the room,
Familiar books about me piled,
And I alone amid the gloom,
By one more mocking dream beguiled.

And still no nearer to the Light,
And still no further from myself,
Alone and lost in clinging night
—(The clock’s still ticking on the shelf).

Then do I envy solid folk
Who sit of evenings by the fire,
After their work and doze and smoke,
And are not fretted by desire.

C.S. Lewis

Arriving at the Stones, I realised that I tend to take photos of them as a group, but this time as we’re connecting with them individually, I decided to photograph them as individuals – which they are.

Walking  clock-wise round the interior of the circle

And…as a group

I went and stood in the hearth among the Stones, as the day felt to be about life and warmth retuning to a cold land

Approaching Barnhouse Neolithic settlement, we saw Odin’s Raven by and Brigid’s swans on the Loch of Harray

Having stood in the hearth among the Stones, I stood in the hearth in the entrance to the largest of the Barnhouse structures, then walked through to stand in the central hearth there, too

In the entrance there were shimmering droplets of water

And on the bank nearby, a flame-forest of moss

Finally, walking back to the Stones – the Hoy Hills with a light dusting of snow

And then we went home, to our own hearth.

St. Brigid’s Blessing

May Brigid bless the house wherein we dwell.

Bless every fireside, every wall and door.

Bless every heart that beats beneath its roof.

Bless every hand that toils to bring it joy.

Bless every foot that walks its portals through.

May Brigid bless the house that shelters you.