Mindfully Stylish 🌷

This year, I really, truly appreciated the Spring on my birthday. I walked in it, revelled in it and couldn’t help exclaiming with joy at the daffodils still being out, the bluebells in the woods just coming into bloom, and the colourful yellow, purple and orange pansies on the patio outside. This year, my mum and I did a Birthday Nature Walk with the dogs ~ two cocker spaniels, Jeeves and Wooster ~ and this is what we found.

I hadn’t been aware of seeing these in the wild since my family and I moved up from Sussex to Yorkshire many years ago. It brought a smile to my face to encounter them again, my mum pointing them out beside the River Aire, for we used to gather them from along the banks of the River Arun, dry them and spray them with metallic silver and gold paint to use as flower arrangements in our little cottage in Pulborough. They make striking home decorations.

Next was a soft pretty pile of white Wood anemone in what my friend Rosh and I call ‘The Enchanted Wood’. Wood anemone have a long and fascinating mythology in England and are seen as a symbol of Spring and Nature’s renewal due to its early flowering season. They take a substantial time to spread on the woodland floor and thus could indicate that the area has not been disturbed for many years. A quick look at the wood’s history and I can testify to this being true ~ its name ‘Hawksworth’ being bestowed upon it by the monks of nearby Kirkstall Abbey when it was still an established monastery and they would come here to gather wood for fuel and shelter, over 500 years ago.

As we left the wood and crossed the railway line, we began to walk beside the canal back towards the car park and stumbled upon this sunny yellow Border Forsythia brightening up the path, a happy occasion as they are not so common here. Although I seem to remember quite a few in London at this time of year. It is also known as the Easter tree, a name I love as it reminds me of the lovely painted eggs at this popular festival. Thank you, Forsythia, for lightening our way and leading us to this beautiful burgeoning Blackthorn tree.

Blackthorn is a very special flowering shrub at this time of year for pagans the country over, as it is one of the first to flower among the English hedgerow in Spring and is rumoured to have been gathered at Ostara, the Spring Equinox, to be used in rituals of rebirth and fertility. Some still follow this ancient path and tradition, using a sprig of Blackthorn to bless the land for crops and flowers to grow in abundance come Summer and the Harvest.

And finally, a young Sycamore tree, which we had to identify online, being unfamiliar with its youthful blossoms, also known as a Great Maple. When fully grown, its seeds are those that ‘helicopter’ down in Autumn. The sycamore was used symbolically in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labours Lost and Othello and has been argued to be associated with romance and mourning. However, in British folklore they often offer protection and guidance and I wonder whether this is what Shakespeare’s characters were really seeking…

That’s all for now, hope you’ve all had a wonderful weekend.

In Love&Light, FS XOX