Category: Animism

Working with Spirits of the Garden

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Introduction

I currently have the privilege of tending a garden. My relationship with our garden is quite unique for I have lived here, in the same house with my parents, since I was four years old, with only a couple of brief periods of living away. I’m forty-four now. So I’ve been here almost forty years.

I’ve played in the garden, ignored the garden, done bits and bobs, but only since the health of my parents has deteriorated and Covid struck, have I taken gardening and building a relationship with the garden spirits seriously. I’ve had successes and failures and learnt quite a few things along the way. 

Here, I will provide an account of the processes I’ve been through and provide some guidance for others on working with spirits of the garden.

What is a Garden?

For anybody setting out to get to know the spirits of their garden, it’s helpful to know what a garden is. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is ‘an enclosed piece of ground used to grow flowers, fruit, or vegetables.’ 

Thus, a garden is born by the act of enclosing pre-existing land. Often, a garden belongs to a house and is one amongst many in a row on a street. Sometimes, gardens are created as stand-alone green spaces, such as allotments, community gardens, botanical gardens and garden areas in parks.

The History of the Land

Because a garden is an enclosed piece of ground on pre-existing land, it is helpful to get to know what the land was used for prior to its enclosure. You can do this by looking at old Ordnance Survey maps and at your local tithe map (1). 

The OS maps for 1910 and 1890 show that there was an orchard on this land. The deeds to our house record it as cherry orchard. In Lancashire, both sweet cherry (Prunus avium) and sour cherry (Prunus cerasus) were grown. In next door’s garden there is a sweet cherry tree – perhaps a descendant. Sweet cherry seedlings are always trying to grow in our garden.

The 1840 OS map and the local tithe map, from 1839, show beforehand it was meadow. It was known as Golden Bank Croft. The land belonged to Malt Kiln Cottage and Farm and was owned by Richard Palmer, who leased it to William Mayor and his son, Robert Mayor, who is listed as owning the field. The large, irregular field patterns suggest that they date back to the medieval period. 

The ‘Bank’ refers to the bank of Fish House Brook, which is culverted beneath the gardens of the houses across the road, Bank Parade. It then flows through Greencroft Valley and north to enter the river Ribble at Fish House Bridge. The source of Fish House Brook lies 100m to the south of my house. 

I thus see the presiding land spirits to be the Spirit of Fish House Brook and the Spirit of Greencroft Valley, for they are the powers who have resided here long before we spoke those names and created meadows, houses and gardens.

It is likely that Golden Bank Croft was farmed as hay meadow. The way this worked was that fields were grazed as pasture over the winter, then in spring the cattle were shut out and the grasses were let grow and cut in the summer. 

Typical species of a lowland hay meadow in Lancashire include grasses such as: sweet vernal grass (Anthoxanthum oderatum), meadow foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), crested dog’s tail (Cynosurus cristatus), red fescue (Festuca rubra) and Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus) and wildflowers such as: ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), common knapweed (Centaurea nigra), yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis), meadow vetchling (Lathrus pratensis), and meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris). Remnants of some of the more pervasive of these species are found in our lawn and on local parks and green spaces.

I perceive the guardian spirit of my home and garden to be the former guardian of Golden Bank Meadow and the surrounding land on this side of the brook.

It is likely that, before it was enclosed as meadow, this area would have been mixed deciduous woodland, dominated by oak, with some patches of carr wood. This is suggested by the old oak trees that are remnants of former hedgerows in Greencroft Valley and by place-names such as Broad Oak, Oak Avenue, Oaklands Drive, the Oaks, Alderfield, the Carrs and Carr Wood.

The History of the Garden

The history of a house and garden is usually passed on from its previous owners. This is how we learnt our house was built during the 1940s. If you don’t have this information, you can check the Ordnance Survey maps. 

I believe our garden, when we moved in, in 1985, was close to the original design. It had a lot of conifers, shrubs and ornamental plants. All the conifers have been removed due to poor condition and my dad dug most of the plants up. 

A few things have survived. A pair of apple trees. Camellia, lilac and eschalonia that have grown to tree-like proportions. Fuchsia and astilbe.  Cloves in a pair of pots. Of my dad’s blunders only the raspberry patch remains.

When I was a child, I was far more interested in my toy horses and make-believe equine worlds than I was in the garden. I dug up the lawn to make water jumps and banks for my Playmobile cross country and show jumping competitions and ran round leaping courses made of garden canes myself.

I loved wild nature, which led me to conservation volunteering aged thirty. I didn’t care much for gardens or gardening until I developed a passion for growing native wildflowers. This expanded to include cultivated plants and fruit and vegetables when I began volunteering at Let’s Grow Preston. 

Still, I ignored our garden, as I didn’t see it as ‘mine’. This changed when Covid struck and all my volunteer work parties got cancelled. By that time, it was in a state of neglect due to the deteriorating health of my parents.

Building a Relationship with a Garden

My relationship with our garden started off thorny. Quite literally. The cultivated blackberry bushes at the top of our garden had taken over the path. I battled them back. I battled the ‘weeds’. I was angry with the garden for growing so wild and I was angry with my parents for their neglect. The spirits named me ‘Mrs Angry Gardener’. We didn’t start out very well. 

Yet, as time went on, with the help of Creiddylad (2) I learnt to listen better to the garden and its needs and to the intelligence of the plants. When my comfrey plant spread from its pot down the side by the compost bin, I allowed it to grow there to provide food for pollinators and to add to the compost. I let honesty grow toward the back of the garden. When the blackberries died, I created a fern garden on advice from Creiddylad and Gwyn (3), populating it with ferns and hart’s tongue growing elsewhere as ‘weeds’.

I replaced the flower beds with a wildflower patch, growing ox-eye daisy, ragged robin, red campion, common knapweed and foxgloves from seed. I added betony and common agrimony from an ecology colleague and blue geraniums from Let’s Grow Preston and Newgate Nursery (bees love them).

When the red campion became dominant in the wildflower patch and threatened to take over the garden, I began picking the seedlings to grow to plant in Greencroft Valley and translocating the larger plants there. 

As time has gone on, I have come to know the spirit of the garden better, if something comes up in ‘the wrong place’, to ask its purpose, where else it could go. I have become more one with the movement and succession of plants.

Prayers and Offerings

My personal approach to prayers and offerings is one of practicality and simplicity. I speak morning prayers of praise and evening prayers of thanks. I treat watering and feeding the garden as an offering, doing it prayerfully. When I place items on the compost heap at the bottom of the garden, I feel it is an offering of sorts for the fay who abide in the ferns and the lilac. 

I used to make offerings of mead to Gwyn and the garden spirits beneath one of the apple trees. When the hellebores wilted, I found out that alcohol damages trees and plants. It causes dehydration, strips protective layers and kills beneficial soil bacteria. Herbal tea now forms a more suitable alternative. I also, occasionally, offer fruit. This gives nutrients back to the ground. However, I don’t do this often, due to sightings of a brown rat.

Our spirits appreciate arrangements of stones, such as my mum’s ‘god stones’ (4), as shown by the mosses and lungwort who have grown around them.

Others might prefer more elaborate ceremonies and rituals. Always check in with the spirits first make sure that what you want aligns with what they want. 

Shamanic Journeys and Dreams

It is also possible to journey to the spirits of the garden. On my journeys, I have not come across a single ‘spirit of the garden’ who has presented in an anthropomorphic or phytomorphic form. Yet, I have heard a ‘voice’ that seems to speak with the deeper being of the wider area. 

I have been shown that I’m a mere instrument in the greater design of the land. A mid-wife and foster-mother to the plants, a nurturer, a waterer. That my existence and doings here are transient against the ancientness of this place and of its inhabitants, some who outdate humans by millions of years. 

I have been shown that willowherb (Epilobium) will never stop spreading and horse tail (Equisetum) will maintain its vast subterranean system beneath the earth for millennia. My existence here is more ephemeral than the so-called ephemeral plants who will continue in their seed whereas, with me, my line ends.

As I have built a deeper relationship with the garden, it has appeared more often in my dreams. I have dreamt the Leylandii are back again. I have dreamt strange bees and wasps. I have dreamt a pond in the middle of the back lawn that my parents will never allow but might be created by a future owner.

Presence and Listening

Of all things, I have found that the main need of our garden has been that I pay attention and listen. That, instead of being in my head, listening to my internal chatter, I am embodied and present amongst the trees, plants and creatures.

In this state, I am more at one with the garden, more attentive to its needs. I notice things better. For example, how the types of bees on the oregano – honey bee (Apis mellifera) and white-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) – differ from the types of bee on the common knapweed – red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius), common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) and hairy-footed flower bee (Anthothora plumipes). I notice a hornet mimic hoverfly (Volucella zonaria) for the first time and wonder what its appearance means. 

Taking the time and effort to be present and listen, whether whilst gardening or sitting or standing still, for me forms the foundation of good relationship. It also opens the door to deeper mysteries and more intimate disclosures from the spirits. Thus, Blake’s ‘Heaven in a wildflower’ can be found in any garden. 

*If you enjoy my writing please consider supporting me on Patreon HERE.*

Footnotes

(1) Tithe maps were created following the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 to replace the ancient system of paying tithes in goods with monetary taxes.
(2) An ancient British and Welsh goddess of sovereignty and fertility who I perceive to be connected with flowers.
(3) Gwyn ap Nudd, ‘White son of Mist’, earlier known as Vindos, is the King of Annwn / Faerie and Creiddylad is his queen.
(4) The stones, in order, from the top left, represent Creiddylad, Nodens, Anrhuna, Vindos / Gwyn, Maponos / Mabon and Gwythyr.

Coronavirus and the Wonders of the Immune System

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So far January has been pretty grim. Not only due the slippery alternation of icy weather and heavy rain, but because the UK is back in national lockdown due to a sharp rise in coronavirus cases as a result of holiday gatherings combined with a new variant that is 30 to 50 per cent more infectious. Hospitals are teetering on the brink of being overwhelmed and, on Wednesday the 13th of January, 1, 564 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded – the highest number since the pandemic begun.

My conservation volunteer work parties have been cancelled and my internship at Brockholes Nature Reserve has been limited to one day. Again we’re back to the horrible dichotomy between essential workers being stressed and overstretched whilst others have no work and feel useless.

However, unlike during the first lockdown in March, with the new vaccines and the vaccination programme underway there is hope of a return to some degree of ‘normality’ on the horizon. I have lived with the fear of catching coronavirus and passing it onto my parents, who are over seventy and have health issues for nearly a year, and am hoping they will be vaccinated by mid-February.

This moon cycle Gwyn has prompted me to look more deeply into the nature of the coronavirus and how this relates to his role as a ruler of Annwn who gathers the souls of the dead from battlefields, and arguably those who die of plagues, such as Maelgwn Gwynedd, who died of the Yellow Plague after seeing a golden-eyed monster through the keyhole where he was self-isolating in the church at Llan Rhos.

Gwyn is also said to contain the fury of the ‘devils’ of Annwn to prevent them from destroying the world. We might, perhaps, include viruses amongst this host. It is also notable that Gwyn’s father, Lludd/Nudd, put an end to three plagues in Lludd ac Llyefelys.

When I set out on and progressed with my research I was stunned by the proficiency of the coronavirus and more so by the cleverness and complexity of the human immune system and its cells. As I learnt about them and viewed their 3D representations I was filled with awe and wonder at their agency and beauty and more so because they are part of me.

Here is an account of my discoveries about the nature of coronavirus and the wonders of the immune system upon whose agency and efficacy the success of the vaccine depends. I write this for Gwyn and his father, Lludd/Nudd, defenders against plagues.

***

SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19. Like other coronaviruses it is spherical in shape and consists of a membrane, which encloses its RNA, and protein spikes (which look like a corona). These are really important as they help the virus bind onto and attack host cells.

When droplets of the virus are inhaled or transferred from surfaces to the eyes, nose, or mouth of a healthy person it is provided with passage to the mucous membranes. These epithelial barriers not only provide a barricade against pathogens, but have their own defences such as tears, saliva, and mucus.

However, coronavirus has developed a particularly smart way of penetrating them. On these surfaces is a protein called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 – ACE2 – and to this it binds its spike protein ‘like a key being inserted into a lock’. Thus ACE2 is the doorway by which it enters the host.

Once the virus gets into the membranes of the nose, throat, airways, and the lungs (where ACE2 is particularly abundant on type 2 pneumocytes in the alveoli), it hijacks the original function of the cells and turns them into ‘coronavirus factories’ in which it creates countless copies of itself, which go on to infect more cells, which go on to infect more cells, which go on to infect more cells…

Luckily, the invasion does not go unnoticed for it triggers a response from the innate immune system. (It is worth mentioning here that humans have not only one but two immune systems. The innate immune system, which is shared with other animals, plants, fungi, and insects, is the most ancient and the most primitive, having developed 500 million years ago. This provides a ‘front line’ general response. If it is unsuccessful, the adaptive immune system, which developed in vertebrates only, is activated and provides a more finely honed response, which targets a specific pathogen.)

Upon the invasion of the coronavirus, cells of the innate immune system stationed in the tissues and patrolling in the blood stream, which possess specialised pattern recognition receptors (PPRs), recognise pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), and send out chemical signals that initiate the inflammatory response.

Chemicals such as histamine increase the blood flow to the infected area and cytokines attract white blood cells called phagocytes ‘eating cells’ (from Greek phagein ‘to eat’ and cyto ‘cell’) – firstly neutrophils and, within 24 hours, macrophages ‘big eaters’ (from Greek makrós ‘large’ and phagein ‘to eat’)

These phagocytes strive to destroy the virus through a process called phagocytosis that is unlike anything seen in the outside world. They engulf the virus within their membrane, enclose it within a vacuum known as a phagasome, then kill it by bombarding it with toxins. Afterwards neutrophils self-destruct via a process called apotosis. Macrophages also perform the role of devouring the dead cells. Around three days into the infection more phagocytes known as natural killer cells join the fight.

If the innate immune system fails to fend off the virus, the adaptive immune system steps in. The cells of the adaptive immune system target only specific antigens – molecules on the outside of a pathogen – and cannot recognise new antigens alone. Therefore they must be presented with them by antigen-presenting cells, such as macrophages and the dendritic cells of the membranes. These cells not only devour but process the virus and display its antigen on their surface. Thus they play an essential role in mediating between the innate and adaptive immune systems.

The main cells of the adaptive immune system are white blood cells called T-cells (because they are produced in the thymus) and B-cells (because they are produced in the bone marrow). When T-cells are activated by the presentation of an antigen they begin to mature and proliferate.

Four types of T-cell are produced. Cytotoxic T-cells specific to the coronavirus antigen bind to an infected cell and produce a chemical called perforin, which penetrates it, then cytotoxins called granzymes which destroy the cell and any virus inside by causing it to self-destruct via apoptosis.

Helper T-cells produce chemicals such as cytokines, interleukin (a pyrogen which increases molecular activity) and interferons (which cause nearby cells to heighten their viral defences) and activate B-cells. Regulatory T-cells stop the immune response and memory T-cells remember the antigen.

Once activated, B-cells produce and release antibodies that are perfectly fitted to the antigen. These perform several functions. They neutralise the virus, making it incapable of attacking the host cells; bind virus particles together in a process called agglutination; and bind to antigens, labelling them as targets. Memory B-cells, like memory T-cells, which remember the virus antigen, are also formed.

After five days, once the T-cells and B-cells are recruited, and the battle begins in earnest, the infected person starts to feel the symptoms of COVID-19. A sore throat, loss of smell and taste, and a persistent cough are caused by the inflammatory response. The mucus from a runny nose and that coughed up from the lungs is composed of dead phagocytes, dead cells, inflammatory exudate, and dead and living microbes. It is through these particles an infectious person spreads the disease.

Pyrexia, caused by the pyrogen interleukin (which you might recall increases molecular activity), is what brings about a heightened temperature, loss of appetite, and feelings of fatigue.

Most healthy people fight off the virus within 7 – 10 days. Those who do not become more seriously ill because the immune system overreacts and this leads to pneumonia, a condition in which the alveoli fill with water as a result of excess inflammation and tissue damage. This may be caused by coronavirus binding to ACE2 on type-2 pneumocytes and other membranes. ACE2 regulates a protein called angiotensin II, which raises blood pressure and causes inflammation. When coronavirus binds to ACE2, it inhibits its ability to regulate angiotensin II, thus the overreaction.

This can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which happens when the inflammation of the lungs is so severe the body cannot get enough oxygen to survive, and can lead to organ failure. At this point a person is at risk of death and is admitted to intensive care and put on a ventilator.

Knowledge of the immune system not only helps us to understand how the body fights off coronavirus but also how the vaccines work. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, like other flu vaccines, uses a weakened form of the virus to activate the immune system’s response, so the T-cells and B-cells have memory of the antigen and can respond immediately upon a repeat infection.

The Pfizer-BioNTech is more novel because it takes the genetic code from the coronavirus antigen and uses it to create a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence that tells the vaccinated person’s cells to produce antigens and present them to the T-cells and B-cells, preparing them for an immediate response.

***

My research has provided me with an illuminating revelation of hidden processes inside my body I was unaware of. In the death-eating phagocytes who process the dead virus and present its antigens it is possible to find elements of the Annuvian.

Could the white blood cells be seen as ‘guardians’ posted by Gwyn ‘White’ to help us defend ourselves from viruses like he and his host hold back the fury of the spirits of Annwn?

Perhaps… but I think truth of the matter is more complicated for Gwyn is said to contain the spirits of Annwn not only in his realm, but in his person, which is equivalent to us being able to contain the virus. This is impossible for us – for each side it is a battle to the death. It can only be contained by a god.

Paradoxically, Gwyn might be associated both with the breath-stealing life-stealing coronavirus and with the white cells who act as defenders and mediators within our bodies.

As a ‘bull of conflict’ he embodies the dark truth that, without and within, existence is ‘battle and conflict’. Yet that in this, beauty and wonder – the poetry of Annwn – can be found.

SOURCES

Anne Waugh, Alison Grant, Ross and Wilson Anatomy and Physiology, (Elsevier, 2018)

‘What is the ACE2 receptor, how is it connected to coronavirus and why might it be key to treating COVID-19? The experts explain’, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-ace2-receptor-how-is-it-connected-to-coronavirus-and-why-might-it-be-key-to-treating-covid-19-the-experts-explain-136928

‘Coronavirus: What it does the body’, BBC News, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51214864

Breathe

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‘We need to remember that our very breathing is to drink our mother’s milk – the air – made for us by countless microbial brothers and sisters in the sea and soil, and by the plant beings with whom we share the great land surfaces of our mother’s lustrous sphere.’
Stephan Harding

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Respiration (from spirare ‘breath’ and re ‘again’) is participation.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Lungs. Two. Right and left. Each enclosed in a pleural sack in the thoracic cavity of the chest. Primary bronchus, secondary bronchi, tertiary bronchi, terminal bronchiole. In the alveoli, ‘little cavities’, across the blood-air barrier, gas exchange takes place.

Breathe in: oxygen 21%, carbon dioxide 0.04%. Breathe out: oxygen 16%, carbon dioxide 4.4%. 6 carbon glucose, oxidised, forms carbon dioxide. Product: ATP (adenosine triphosphate) ‘the molecular unit of currency of intracellular energy transfer’. The spark of all life.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Respiration (from spirare ‘breath’ and re ‘again’) is participation.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Birds have lungs plus cervical, clavicular, abdominal, and thoracic air sacs. Hollow-boned they are light as balloons, breathing in, breathing out. Then there are the lungless. Through tiny holes in the abdomen called spiracles leading to the trachea, insects fill their air sacs. Earthworms and amphibians breathe in and out through moist skins. Fish breathe water in through gulpy mouth breathe it out through gapey gills.

Plants breathe through their leaves. By daylight they photosynthesise. Stomata breathe carbon dioxide. It mixes with water. The green lions of chlorophyll work their magic by sunlight. Oxygen is released. From glucose the magical hum and buzz of ATP. At night they respire glucose and oxygen back to carbon dioxide and water. 10 times more oxygen produced than used.

Underground fungi breathe the air of the soil through thread-like hyphae that mass as mycelia. They respire aerobically (with oxygen) or anaerobically (without oxygen), changing glucose to ATP (it’s all about ATP!), ethanol, carbon dioxide, and water. This old, old, metabolic pathway dates back to the days before oxygen ruled our breath and is utilised by microbes. The hidden ones of the deep, single-celled, or living colonies, breathe through their single cell walls in ancient ways – acetogenesis, methanogenesis – to gain the blessed ATP.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Respiration (from spirare ‘breath’ and re ‘again’) is participation.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

And what is this creature that does not breathe (in or out) with no metabolism or need for ATP? This simple strand of genes in a designer jacket called a capsid? Does this thing, neither dead nor living, have a spirit? Like all living things was it breathed into life by the gods?

Or is this death-bringer undead? This assaulter of lungs? Lung-cell-killer and causer of coughs – dead lung cells coughed up as sputum, mucus, the yellow remains of what was ours?

By what dark programme does it turn the body against itself – alveoli ‘little cavities’ where the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen takes place filling with water – no space to make ATP? No lungs – no breath. The pump of ventilators, breathing in, breathing out, our new iron lungs…

Did it crawl from the cauldron of inspiration like the speechless dead or is it something entirely other?

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Respiration (from spirare ‘breath’ and re ‘again’) is participation.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

To whom do we pray? To the gods and goddesses of breath and to the spirits of inspiration? To Ceridwen, Gwyn ap Nudd, Morgana and her sisters, who gave us breath, and take it away?

“Breath always leads to me,” says Gwyn. I find this reassuring and disconcerting from a death-god. From the one who releases the spirits of Annwn from the cauldron and holds them back.

So we breathe together with the lunged and lungless creatures with skin, fur, feathers, shells, scales, leaves, hyphae, the single-celled, the uncelled who ride our breath, until we return to the gods. To the winds that carry the voices of all ancestors over our 4.543 billion year old earth.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

Respiration (from spirare ‘breath’ and re ‘again’) is participation.

Inspire. Expire.
Anadlu i mewn. Anadlu i allan.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

*I adapted this meditation from an earlier version ‘The Ways We Breathe‘ previously published on Gods & Radicals following guidance from my deities to focus on my breath and being struck by the realisation that a distinguishing feature of coronavirus and other viruses is that they do not breathe.