The Secret Garden

Sit and spin

I'm now on my sixth copful of singles, and although I say it myself, I feel that I am becoming quite a proficient spinner.....person who spins.....errrr......spinster. And there's the rub. I am now officially a spinster. It struck me as I lay in bed last night, doubled in pain from menstrual cramps, that there are several unavoidable truths that I must face (in Blackadder-meets-the-wise-woman style).

1) I am a woman
2) I am wise....errr.....single
3) I am a spinster

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this uninvited epiphany. On the one hand I live a very independent life. I have filled my days with learning new skills, reading new things, and generally improving my intellectual and spiritual self. On the other hand I have neglected my body and my emotional self. I currently feel like some slightly eccentric aunt who always has a spare toffee in her pocket and some arcane craft on the go.

And yet, some part of me feels a sense of belonging to this word. Spinning was a major occupation for women through the ages, and it feels right to reclaim that heritage. In fact, the reason spinster became a term meaning "unmarried woman" was because so many women signing the wedding register in the 1500s listed it as their occupation. It became a generic term and only then started to take on the slightly pejorative meaning we associate with the word today.

Unsurprisingly, these negative connotations are nothing new, and as late as the 1600s unmarried women of a certain age - spinsters - were regarded with suspicion and were liable to be arrested as prostitutes or witches. Perhaps that is why I feel an affinity for the word? I found this short essay on the subject interesting, but I get the sense that it finishes just as it was getting into its flow.

As a bizarre aside, while looking for a pic to go with this post I found this German-language Irish folk band called the Spinning Wheel. Look at "songtexte" for some lyrics.

Dreams are made of this

I have felt a bit of a fraud lately. While those around me have been making gris-gris and big mojo, I've been pottering in the kitchen making biscuits and cutting shapes from occult play-doh. Don't get me wrong, I've had a fantastic time doing it, but I have started to question my magical credentials.

Even as I spin my spindle on the train each morning I have been trying to make the pieces of my new Practical Magic lifestyle fit together. All I really knew when I started was that spinning was an essential outlet in a time of change. It was meditative, absorbing, and productive. When I spin I only have half an eye on the real world, and sometimes that really is all you want to see of it.

For example, yesterday I caught the Orient Express to work. Oh, only as far as Wimbledon, but it was far enough. When the train drew into my station it was different than normal, and my carriage was fitted with half-moon seats, arranged in an open almost 1960s style. As I started my spinning I could overhear a swarthy man barking Russian into his mobile phone. It rang again - a lilting Baltic accordion tune - and he barked more Russian, "Da...Da...". I glanced up and behind him saw only passing trees and a greying sky, and suddenly I was a Babushka, drafting wool against my heavy denim skirt and spinning quietly. When he got off at the next station, as if to complete the illusion a young couple took his seat and sat, hand in hand, speaking Russian softly to each other too.... but when I put my spindle away the spell was broken. As I looked up, alert again, I read an English headline, heard an English voice, recognised my station though the window.

When I spin my spindle, as my mind relaxes and focuses on the rhythmic pull and drop, pull and drop, I sense a shift and my version of reality softens. In this state I can spin the chanting of a voodoo priest into my yarn and know that while the whorl spins the energy is channelled away and stored, only to be released when the spindle drops. No wonder then that spinners say they spin their dreams.

A Cunning Plan

The very fact that I am even thinking about this stuff means that I am settling down again. I'm sleeping properly, eating properly, and generally taking a healthy interest in my surroundings. Most tellingly, my urge to procrasto-craft is finally abating. Shame really, as I almost had enough yarn spun to knit a scarf...(how do you show wry humour in words these days? I refuse to use smilies in a blog).

Anyway, I had a very interesting chat with my new housemate last night, and yesterday I found an excellent website about people who have trodden this path before me. I'm also reading Terry Pratchett's latest book, Wintersmith, and loving his irreverent and eccentric approach to life.

Seek and you shall find

Well it is still a scratchy old day, but I have found something worth sharing.

Common Ground and England in Particular

Neither site is particularly easy to navigate, but they're well worth a look. I particularly like the calendar customs and the white horses. There is also a whole page devoted to apple festivals. 'Tis nearly the time of year for the apple harvest...

Day trip to India

I knew that I was travelling a long way from home today, but I didn’t think that I would slip into another country. Today I travelled from Richmond to India and back in the space of an afternoon. Bex and I went to visit the Hindu temple in Neasden.

One road looks very much like another around the North Circular and it is uniformly grey and uninviting until from behind a drab concrete terrace looms the other-worldly Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. Even the sun seems to shine more fiercely over its marble domes.

The temple is set within a large enclosure and guarded by high fences, and we had to pass through a metal-detector to enter. I was told extremely firmly that I had to cover my shoulders NOW, before I was allowed to even approach the temple outbuildings. I was taken aback, as I had dressed as conservatively as I could this morning to avoid offence. In a floor-length skirt, twin-set and bead necklace I was the WI personified, I thought.

We stumbled into the entrance hall, removed our shoes and looked for somewhere to wash off the street. Washed and covered and feeling properly prepared at last, we walked in the direction of the Mandir, feeling every male eye turn our way. I felt suddenly naked, and ashamed of my nakedness, and it made me understand what ‘skyclad’ really means. It struck me as ironic that I have never felt naked in my birthday suit, yet here I was naked as a child despite my clothes.

As we walked through the “Understanding Hinduism” exhibition I had the sense of a people fiercely proud of their religion, of carving out their place of worship that would stand for a thousand years on British soil. I felt slightly oppressed by the un-Englishness of it all, and the endless catalogues of their achievement, of setting the historical record straight. 

We gladly left this feeling behind as we entered the Mandir. Within this inner sanctum I felt a comfortable sense of awe and reverence. Hindus believe that the spirit of God is brought into their idols, and so the place where they rest is truly the house of their god. Each day the statues are fed and their clothes are changed, and I felt privileged to witness their daily rite. Even their holy men are revered in this way, and as I walked past the statues of the spiritual forefathers of the Mandir I could sense something more than cold hard marble. They seemed to breathe.

Outside the temple, we visited the SAYA café. This was another assault on the senses, and we browsed aisles of exotic herbs and oils, spotting occasional familiar names. This was as much of a highlight for me as the temple had been. I have backpacked in Africa and Asia, and I love to feel a place through all of my senses, including taste and smell. I have no idea what we ate, since the names were in Urdu and regardless of what we pointed to I think the chef served us what he wanted to serve. But as we ate, and felt fire burn in our bellies (clearly we and the chef have differing opinions of what constitutes “mild”), I had the feeling that I had stepped outside of my home-country, and was a visitor in another.