The first week of July and there’s a feint scent of Autumn in the air this morning.
The morning brings a quiet and gentle beginning to the day, untouched by the continuing perplexities of man.
“Man has drawn artificial lines on the chest of the Mother Earth, which have no significance, except for the sake of war and clashes between countries. The soil seems to be the same, the trees the same, the grass the same, and the fragrance of the air, the smell of the earth the same.”
~ Girdhar Joshi
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Yes it is…all the same…at most times hard to believe when one watches the circus of life on MSM.
Bread and circuses, but we all know and recognise real life.
It has a colour and fragrance all of its own.
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“The earth is a mosaic, and most fail to notice the gossamer tesserae floating down from the realm of the mind that form its images of beauty and horror.”
~ Lawren Leo
I often receive letters and emails from those who have visited Bealtaine Cottage and Gardens.
I treasure them as the words therein inspire me to keep on this busy path of sharing Bealtaine and caring for the Earth.
This evening I have taken more photographs to share with you, as I share the words penned by Christine, who visited Bealtaine some days ago.
“Thank you dear Colette for the wonderful time with you in Bealtaine Cottage yesterday.
We felt so nourished and inspired, your inspirational company, wise words and delightful home so full of beauty, vitality, and a healing presence. Almost like a dream for me waking this morning and feeling – wow – I was actually sitting with you yesterday in your garden, stroking Jack, enjoying our conversation, my eyes feasting on the plants, flowers and trees, the sounds of the light rain, the chimes, the birds and your soothing voice…a real treat. (Of course eating your gorgeous vegan brownies too). We all feel very grateful to you.
It’s a total inspiration having you create and share Bealtaine Cottage and being not far from us here, a ‘wake-up’ and an eye opener!
We each felt so comfortable, at ease and at home…of course many questions bubble this morn inspired from our visit. And also some grief…some of what you shared about deep sadness for how we are living as a civilisation, how we have lived with such lack of respect for the earth, the animals and plant kingdoms and also each other.
Such disconnection…and some of that being reflected in the challenges we have to face… We went up to the Queen Maeve Cairn at Knocknarea after leaving you…such breathtaking views…
I felt very grateful and blessed for good souls like yourself, living from the heart, soulfully, passionately, the warrior energy to follow one’s own heart-calling and live it, a real warrior path…takes courage tuning into one’s own heart, not that of the tribe or the need to be accepted and fit-in. So thanks again dear Colette. Much love to you, to Jack and Sammy Bear and of course your beautiful space and it’s healing spirit. Christine x (Nick and Raphael xx)”
On this night of the first new moon of Lughnasadh, I am content to be compared to a warrior.
For, in so many ways, my journey to this point has been a battle at times…not with Mother Earth, but over the twelve past years, on my own, when I have had to motivate myself to stay with the project.
There have been times along the way, when I have felt nurtured by others, the kindness of strangers on the internet who have supported me when I have needed it most.
Serendipity has played a huge part in the Bealtaine Project!
You know who you are…and my blessings are many and often as I think of you!
This year has witnessed a beautiful maturity in all I have planted and continue to love. I, in turn, feel nurtured by Mother Earth… There is a lot still to be done as we move into uncertain times.
There are important messages to share that empower us to act in support of Mother Earth, such as I share on my Twitter and FaceBook accounts…
Digging Mother Earth releases #carbon into the atmosphere…and why I don’t dig! Likewise…#Plants absorb #carbon from the air, through the small holes (stomata) present on the lower side of #leaves.
We are putting out double the amount of #carbon that can be absorbed by plants on Earth…Plant more!
Carbon is a gaseous food absorbed by plants…so let’s plant more!
Social Media is a powerful tool and can be used for great good in getting simple messages like these out there!
And, like all old warriors, I’ll just keep on keeping on!
Bealtaine Cottage Good Life membership is 12 euros per year and allows me a small income to continue to grow the Bealtaine Project both here in Ireland and in the hearts and minds of good people all over the world.
It was some time coming…but those of you who have followed the Bealtaine Cottage Magical Gardens site on Facebook are aware of the proliferation of material I posted on there.
I was so passionate about spreading a message of optimism and love for Mother Earth, that I ended up with little or no time for the work I need to do here at Bealtaine Cottage!
I write and photograph for two blogs, upload to FB and Twitter, make a video and upload that as often as possible…the most recent one was almost an hour long!
I haven’t been able to find time for Soundcloud, and, as for enjoying the occasional day out or weekend away…not possible with such a busy schedule.
Something had to give!
So I decided to take a break from FaceBook and Twitter and have left a small statement on both sites informing my followers.
My page on FB quickly built up to almost 14,000 Likes, so I do feel a sense of abandoning so many good people, but do hope that they remember where I am and that I have not gone away!
Yesterday and this morning, following my decision, I have felt a lovely calm descend here…a sort of ability to breath deeper and exhale longer!
The story of Bealtaine Cottage began 12 years ago.
No-one in this part of Ireland was much interested in what I was trying to do…so I began writing and blogging about the generosity and energy of Mother Earth, in fact I felt compelled to do so.
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”
Anne Lamott
So, life at Bealtaine has come back in a circle, as I find myself happily snapping pics., eager to share them with all of you through this website.
“I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.”
― Raquel Cepeda
I know that the best way I can be of service in these troubled times is to share Bealtaine Cottage with those who seek to reconnect with Mother Earth and develop a deeper understanding of the real world…not the one hurled at us by the mainstream media.
“The human body resonates at the same frequency as Mother Earth. So instead of only focusing on trying to save the earth, which operates in congruence to our vibrations, I think it is more important to be one with each other. If you really want to remedy the earth, we have to mend mankind. And to unite mankind, we heal the Earth. That is the only way. Mother Earth will exist with or without us. Yet if she is sick, it is because mankind is sick and separated. And if our vibrations are bad, she reacts to it, as do all living creatures.” ~Suzy Kassem
Bealtaine Cottage Good Life membership is 12 euros per year and allows me a small income to continue to grow the Bealtaine Project both here in Ireland and in the hearts and minds of good people all over the world.
“We’d incorporated Asia into our bones – its colours and laughter, its smells, its rhythms, its tolerance and patience, its compassion, its lack of ageism.” ~ Jane Wilson-Howarth
Colour is important to me, as you can see from both the cottage and the garden.
I am led to infuse it into my daily life, as in the tie-dyed sheet that hangs as a curtain on the old doorway.
Sometimes it’s all too easy to go to the shops and buy what is deemed suitable for covering a doorway…usually a door!
But, as always, a cottage can be very forgiving and accommodating to whatever furniture or resources one has.
A cottage is never in competition with the big, new house down the road!
It’s more of a “make do and mend” kind of home, where anything goes, be it period or modern, or just recycled, as is the case here at Bealtaine.
As I snapped these photos this morning, my gaze was being continually led outside…and so it should be, for that connectivity is immensely important.
I recall living in an old house in Muswell Hill in London and how I loved tending the window boxes beyond the old sash windows. How just the simple act of pushing them up and the outside coming in provided a kind of release of energy both ways!
Being able to upload 31 photos is a real treat for me, and, I hope you will get a taste of Bealtaine Cottage today.
I have snapped these minutes ago and come straight in to upload and write this blog…taking time en route to give Jack a cracker treat.
As you can see he’s fully engrossed with chomping!
There is an abundance of Poppies this year…these are just outside the back door and almost ready to burst open!
Thanks and blessings to my dear friends and supporters of the Bealtaine Cottage project.
It is so very heartening to read the wonderful feedback and special messages of support.
There was enough rain overnight to half-fill the water barrels and all is looking lush this morning! Aquilegia is in full bloom and has grown well from an extra scattering of seeds I did last Autumn. Here is the perennial Yellow Poppy.
This seed sold out fast last year, so I shall be harvesting as much as I can this summer.
It’s a much smaller, more delicate bloom, but strong and hardy!
I’ve moved potted seedlings and more robust plants out of the tunnel.
Planting will be wherever I can find a space!
The symbolism of the Goddess is not a parallel structure to the symbolism of God the Father.
The Goddess does not rule the world…She is the world!
Manifest in each of us, She can be known internally by every individual, in all her magnificent glory.
~Starhawk
The Permaculture design and planting at Bealtaine is not just inspired by the Goddess, but is the Goddess manifest…as natural and intuitive as the energy that flows from Mother Earth herself.
This is the difference between Permaculture and Goddess-inspired Permaculture.
The spirit is fed as much as the stomach!
Each Summer the harvest grows more abundant. Redcurrants hang in droplets waiting to ripen and reveal their jewel-like qualities.“
Hawthorn has opened…
Garden paths become enclosed, dark, shady places…
The Spindle bush sits covered with blossom yet to open…
“I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic
and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.” – Violette Leduc
To meet it — nameless as it is —
Without celestial Mail —
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil.” – Emily Dickinson
Lilac is open…
“That beautiful season the Summer!
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;
and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Dirty hands, iced tea, garden fragrances thick in the air and a blanket of color before me,
who could ask for more?”
– Bev Adams
“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most
beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James
“The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head; two steps farther,
and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds – rich chocolate
earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes
of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.” – Doris Lessing
Today is an exciting and very uplifting day for Bealtaine Cottage and me! For the past year or so it’s been utterly frustrating not being able to share on this website.
Restrictions were placed upon me in relation to upload space for photographs, as I had used up virtually all of the allocated space of 13GB, which is that allowed on the Premium Plan from WordPress.
Well, today I paid for an upgrade which allows me unlimited upload space…a treat for myself and, I’m hoping one for you too!
As I type there is a lovely soft rain falling outside, refreshing and renewing the earth.
The same has happened here for me on the website…I feel a sense of renewal and excitement!
To be honest, writing and photographing Bealtaine Cottage and Mother Earth constitutes my first love!
Much as I love the interaction on social media, it can be very time-consuming and ultimately takes away from the work I do here!
The payment of an extra 200 Euros was necessary for the extended plan, but this liberates me from the strictures of what I can put out there for everyone to enjoy.
I will continue with the Bealtaine Cottage Good Life website and am working on a plan to do a sort of “joined-up”daily blog…watch this space! And so the story of Bealtaine Cottage continues, moving onwards and upwards!
“Country things are the necessary root of our life – and that remains true even of a rootless and tragically urban civilization. To live permanently away from the country is a form of slow death.”
― Esther Meynell
And so I hope to continue bringing the country to you!
Sharing this little sacred space in the west of Ireland, with the world…
The seasonal changes, garden, wildlife and Mother Earth…
The song of the Goddess and her inspired Permaculture…
Photographs (18 exclusive photos taken today) from the gardens of Bealtaine Cottage on EarthDay 2016.
Words from the Earth Day network…on Bealtaine Cottage Good Life.
We are now entering the 46th year of a movement that continues to inspire, challenge ideas, ignite passion, and motivate people to action.
In 1970, the year of our first Earth Day, the movement gave voice to an emerging consciousness, channelling human energy toward environmental issues. Forty-six years later, we continue to lead with ground-breaking ideas and by the power of our example.
And so it begins. Today. Right here and right now. Earth Day is more than just a single day — April 22, 2016.
This Earth Day and beyond, let’s make big stuff happen. Let’s plant 7.8 billion trees for the Earth. Let’s divest from fossil fuels and make cities 100% renewable.
The paid subscription website, Bealtaine Cottage Good Life allows you to support my work in return for some extra special blogs and photographs…and allows me a small, but much needed, income.
Yes, I have a mortgage and some bills to meet each month and this is my only source of income. The free website, Bealtaine Cottage, has almost reached maximum capacity at 97.8% of 13 GB allowance at a cost of 199 Euros per year. Bealtaine Cottage Good Life has the same 13 GB allowance, but with only 18% used, so you can see why I now publish new blogs on Bealtaine Cottage Good Life! My total expenditure on both sites and internet maintenance now exceeds 700 Euros.
I will continue to write about, and photograph, Mother Earth whether you subscribe/donate or not…but I so appreciate those who do! …blessings to all XXX Colette
“…the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.”
― Wendell Berry
On such a morning as this, there can only be one place to gently go…come with me as I venture down into the Fairy Wood at Bealtaine Cottage. Nature spirits are in evidence in the lush new growth. Magic abounds…
On this beautiful day in the west of Ireland…Potting on seedlings, dealing with slugs and enjoying a bit of a rant! When something is not right, then it’s just not right!
Towards the end of a perfect day at Bealtaine Cottage. The gardens are looking well tended as the evening descends. Strawberries have been potted up in hanging baskets and seedlings rescued from the gravel around the cottage and potted up. These will make fine plants for the Summer ahead! And…all the while…the birds sing!
The year in the garden is now well under way, as Mother Earth awakens in a very visible way…not that she ever slept!
Coltsfoot is one of the first herbs to come into flower, for it flowers before it leafs and a very welcome sight this is!
Bronze fennel, that most vigorous of herbs and also a brilliant addition to the flower garden, starts to produce tasty leaves that can be added to early Spring salads.
Rocket has over-wintered well in the tunnel and forms the base ingredient.
Daffodils are now up and beginning to flower.
Daffodils on the hill above the cottage, around an old abandoned dwelling are in full bloom!
Reminders of Winter come and go, but not for long, sometimes just an hour or two of a light dusting of snow.
Never enough to hold back the advance of the seasons!
But beware the wind chill factor that comes with early Spring and wrap up warm when venturing out to work in the garden!
When the sun does shine, it is truly glorious and plants like Rhubarb spring into exuberant life!
A very hungry plant, Rhubarb eats up a generous dressing of well-rotted manure.
Euphorbia comes into life in the flower garden…here it shares a half barrel with a Fig Tree and both like each other’s company!
In fact, the Fig has fruited well year on year since getting a new bed fellow!
An old but treasured book is always at hand to delve into for advice on seasonal food, gardening and outdoors work!
I wonder if this little gem is still in print?
Beautiful catkins on the Hazel trees…flowers in fact!
The pond is filling with frogspawn and clumps of frogs celebrating the turn in the year as only frogs can!
Out in the hen-house the girls are in touch with the growing of the light as they come back into lay!
Mr and Mrs Fox are hungry and on the prowl! I often lay out food at night for the foxes, for the way I see it is simply this: we have interfered with the food chain by removing the animals that would have predated upon foxes.
This is my way of attempting to live in harmony as best I can…and ensuring that the girls in the henhouse are well protected!
Part Two of THE GARDEN IN FEBRUARY can be found on Bealtaine Cottage Good Life…
To subscribe, see the link below…
I’m happy to write, photograph, podcast, YouTube and Facebook on behalf of Mother Earth…it would be great if you could take a second or two to press the LIKE button, leave a comment, or even subscribe to Bealtaine Cottage Good Life…
You can place an order for seeds harvested here at Bealtaine cottage, from the plants seen growing here…all strong and vigorous. Click on the link below that will take you to the selection available:
“But there were certain early days in Casterbridge- days of firmamental exhaustion which followed angry south-westerly tempests-when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet.”
― Thomas Hardy
Colours emerge and birds sing out a joyous, higher note.
We are officially in the season of Spring in the West of Ireland and the new energy is tangible, from rising in the morning to the growing lateness of dusk.
The temperature seems rather unstable, as you can see evidence of in the photograph above.
The morning began very cold and in the space of minutes, the temperature had climbed by 18 F., causing the mirror on the veranda to steam up!
I recorded this as most of the only real information about climate and weather appears to be anecdotal evidence from social media!
My favourite aspect of Spring is the way the light changes.
If one simply sat in this cottage and never ventured outdoors it would be possible to map the seasons in light play.
I expect birds, animals and even insects are similarly informed.
Living in the glare of artificial light can be dulling to our senses!
“She walks in the loveliness she made,
Between the apple-blossom and the water–
She walks among the patterned pied brocade,
Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.”
― Vita Sackville-West, The Land
Elsewhere in the woodland gardens at Bealtaine, frogs have emerged from hibernation and busied themselves, as only frogs can in cold ponds!
Frogs in Bealtaine pond have the luxury of a shallow, sheltered, ancillary pond, hand dug by myself, just off the main one.
This water heats faster and earlier, ensuring maximum attention to the detail of frog mating and spawning…a sort of nursery pond!
Anyway, it works a treat and has done for the past eleven years.
As a consequence, the amphibian life force has healthily expanded!
“Woods were ringed with a colour so soft, so subtle that it could scarcely be said to be a colour at all. It was more the idea of a colour – as if the trees were dreaming green dreams or thinking green thoughts.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Frogspawn at Bealtaine Cottage, Ireland, 1st Feb 2016
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Diversity of planting not only has created resilience, but bestowed all year round colour to Bealtaine Cottage…so appreciated as Spring emerges…for with this rising of the sap, comes a much defined colour change!
“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
Catkins have appeared on the Willow…and there’s many different varieties in the Woodland. Pond and even Orchard gardens. Essential food for the bees emerging from a hungry winter hibernation.
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
This Quince grows in the Bog Garden and has begun to flower!
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
― Margaret Atwood
Where would Spring be without the exquisite little Primroses?
Seen here in the Fairy Wood at Bealtaine, surrounded by Spurge!
You can place an order for seeds harvested here at Bealtaine cottage, from the plants seen growing here…all strong and vigorous. Click on the link below that will take you to the selection available:
I’m happy to write, photograph, podcast, YouTube and Facebook on behalf of Mother Earth…it would be great if you could take a second or two to press the LIKE button, leave a comment, or even subscribe to Bealtaine Cottage Good Life…