Midsummer Dreamings ...

Midsummer Musings

Midsummer has passed and already the fields are turning golden and there is a hint of heather on the cliffs. I spent my midsummer day on the Lizard camping. It was beautifullly hot and we spent three days swimmming, surfing and walking the cliffs with their profusion of ice plants cascading down emerald crannies to the turquoise ocean beneath. We saw two basking sharks very close to the shore at Kennack Sands; with its serpentine rocks glistening in the sun like prehistoric beasts awaiting resurrection with the oncoming tide. The days were long and sultry and in the evening of the longest day we watched the sun die in a blaze of fiery light as we sat on a hill in front of the embers of our campfire. Midsummer is a time for celebration,bonfires on the hill tops, dancing, being with friends, lovers and enjoying the long days and starry nights. It is a time to reflect on the turning of the Wheel from outward to inward as from midsummer day when the sun reaches its zenith, the days will gradually wane. It is a time to contemplate what you have accomplished and created and brought into bloom and to dream about what still has to be completed by Lammas before the nights draw in and Mabon is upon us. The abundance of growth and fertility in the pastures and hedgegrows, woods and cliffs reminds us that the year is at its highest point and the goddess is at her most potent and fertile. In the Priestess of Kernow Wheel of the Year we celebrate her aspect as Maeve, Irish Queen and Goddess of the Land whose palace was on the Hill of Tara in Leinster, the sacred centre of Ireland and marked by the Stone of Destiny.Maeve is a powerful goddess whose name means 'intoxicating': she could outrun horses, confer with birds and bring men into the heat of desire with a mere look. Maeve is a goddess of sovereignty, she strides into our lives and asks us to be Queen of ourselves, to stand proudly in our own power and not to be diminished. She wants us to take responsibility for our lives and to stand in our own domain and be Queen of it. Once we take our power and stand strongly within it we are accountable to no one but ourselves and we can then create whatever we desire to flourish and grow. I have found her a very powerful goddess to call upon and she has helped me to walk tall and be brave, to rise above petty injustice and to walk my own path and follow my own destiny. I have had dreams of a queen and a hall of men and it fascinates me to know that her mythical hall was a mead hall. Kings of Ireland would mate symbolically with her to gain the right to rule the land.I also believe she is a good goddess to call upon when women reach their prime and as a woman in my midforties, I can feel her energy commanding me to rule my own life and to take my space and creative power.She knows her own will and mind and is confident and assertive. It is wise to cultivate this energy and to allow it to blossom as you enjoy coming into wholeness. This is a challenge for all women in a patriarchal society to embrace. What is it to be Queen of ourselves, ruler of our own destiny?

Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' personifies this energy in the Faery Queen, Titania. She is haughty, vain, extremely enchanting and sexually alluring. Men instantly fall into midsummer madness when she casts her spell and are made fools of.
Her quarrels with Oberon, King of the Faery have blasted the land with midsummer storms and created chaos in the natural world.She has banished him from her bed since he has taken Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons as his mistress; she in her turn will not give him her 'indian boy' to be his henchman. The descriptions of nature in their opening speeches emphasise the notion of the faery as powerful, magical forces animating nature and controlling it. Titania personifies all that is abundant, fertile and volatile in nature, she is proud and haughty holding her own power with her Lord. She too is a goddess of the land and exemplifies the passion, creativity and sovereignty of the midsummer season.Here is Titania's opening speech to Oberon:

''These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.''Act 2 Sc 1

There are many Queens in Shakespeare: Hermione,Hippolyta,... Cleopatra, Gertrude, Elizabeth, Margaret,and of course Lady Macbeth. All of these embody different aspects of female power. Food for thought and another day.

Blessed Be x x x