Diabetes in my Mother Line

March 28, 2026March 28, 2026Leave a comment

Introduction

Diabetes mellitus is a deadly and debilitating metabolic disorder that is becoming more and more common throughout the world. It runs in my mother line. My grandmother had it. My mum has it. She didn’t realise for many years and only found out when she nearly died from diabetic ketoacidosis. The complications still hinder her today.

In this article, I will begin by explaining metabolism and how diabetes manifests as a metabolic disorder, then go on to share how it developed for my grandmother and mother and how, so far, I have escaped it.

Overview of Metabolism

To understand diabetes, we first need to grasp how metabolism works in a healthy human. The term ‘metabolism’ stems from the Greek metabolē ‘to change’. It refers to the chemical processes within a living organism that sustain life. These can be divided into two types. Catabolism is the breakdown of complex molecules into smaller ones resulting in the release of energy. Anabolism is the synthesis of smaller molecules into more complex ones and this uses energy.

Digestion is a catabolic process. During digestion, carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars (glucose), proteins are broken down into amino acids, and fats are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol.

The body’s favoured energy source is glucose. Glucose is broken down through glycolysis, the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – the primary energy currency of all life.

When there is more glucose in the blood stream than the body needs for fuel (ie. after eating) a signal is sent to the pancreas to create a hormone called insulin. The term ‘insulin’ comes from the Latin insula ‘island’ and refers to its production by beta cells in the Islets of Langerhans of the pancreas. Insulin binds with and activates subunits on insulin receptors on cells, acting as a ‘key’ that allows glucose into muscle, fat and liver cells to be used as energy. It helps store glucose in the liver and muscles as glycogen for future energy needs. It also plays a role in anabolism by enabling the synthesis of fats and proteins, promoting fat storage, muscle growth, and bone growth. This uses ATP.

Conversely, when blood sugar becomes too low, the pancreas secretes another hormone called glucagon. This sets in action a series of metabolic processes to ensure the body is provided with energy. It first signals to the liver to convert stored glycogen into glucose through glycogenolysis to provide ATP. Once this has been used up, fats are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol, which undergo beta-oxidation to provide acetyl-co-A, which is converted into ketones, then ATP. This is called ketosis. When fat stores are depleted, proteins are used, via gluconeogenesis. Amino acids undergo deamination, nitrogen removal and carbon skeleton conversion to convert them into gluconeogenic and ketogenic amino acids, so they can be fed into the glycolysis and citric acid cycles to produce ATP.

The complex interplay between insulin and glucagon is essential for regulating blood sugar and providing the body with the energy it needs.

Diabetes mellitus

The term Diabetes mellitus stems from the Greek diabainein ‘to pass through’ (Apollonius of Memphis 250BC) and the Latin mellitus ‘honey sweet’ (Thomas Willis 1679) in reference to sweet urine caused by excess glucose. The disease has been known since ancient times, with the first record from an Egyptian manuscript from 1500BC mentioning ‘too great emptying of urine’.

In modern medicine, there are two types and both involve dysfunctions related to insulin. In Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the beta cells in the Islands of Langerhans in the pancreas destroying their ability to produce insulin. This usually happens early in life. In Type 2 diabetes, the cells of the body fail to respond to insulin. This is called insulin resistance. Its onset is much slower and many people only find out they have it later in life.

Insulin resistance occurs when the insulin receptors on the cells stop working. This might happen for a number of reasons. Genetic mutations can affect the insulin receptor gene. If a person is overweight, excess fat can cause fat cells to release fatty acids that interfere with insulin signalling and fat buildup inside muscle cells can create toxins that disrupt the insulin receptor’s ability to signal to the cell to absorb glucose. Lack of exercise decreases insulin sensitivity and reduces the muscle mass available to absorb glucose. Chronic inflammation can also play a role in obese people.

Over time, insulin resistance forces the pancreas to over-produce insulin, which leads the beta cells to become overworked and to fail.

When there is too much glucose in the blood, it is passed out as urine. The high levels of sugar give the urine the sweet smell that characterises the disease. Excessive urination (polyuria) leads to dehydration and thus to excessive thirst (polydipsia). Because little glucose is taken up by the cells, hunger signals continue to be sent even if a person is full, causing excessive eating (polyphagia). These symptoms, together, are known as the ‘three p’s’.

As the disease progresses in severity and the pancreas produces less insulin and the cells receive less energy, the person begins to experience fatigue, weakness, blurred vision and unexplained weight loss.

As further complications, high levels of blood sugar damage the blood vessels that supply the nerves and the small blood vessels in the eyes, causing diabetic neuropathy and diabetic eye disease.

A dangerous consequence is diabetic ketoacidosis. In the absence of insulin, blood sugar levels remain high, causing excessive urination and dehydration. As the cells remain starved, the body turns to ketosis. The production of ketone bodies turn the blood acidic. This is initially buffered by the bicarbonate buffering system, which is eventually overwhelmed. This results in metabolic acidosis. The high acidity causes the body to attempt to expel carbon dioxide, resulting in heavy breathing. Other symptoms include vomiting, abdominal pain, weakness and acetone on the breath. A person can die if not hospitalised and given insulin along with fluids and electrolytes.

Type 1 diabetes must be treated by insulin injections as the pancreas is unable to produce insulin. Some cases of Type 2 diabetes may be managed through a low carbohydrate diet and regular exercise. The first line medical treatment is Metformin, in the form of oral tablets, which decreases the liver’s production of glucose and increases glucose storage in muscle and fat cells. Another type of treatment is GLP-1 receptor agonists. These mimic the GLP-1 hormone, when blood sugar levels are high, triggering insulin release, reducing the production of glucagon, slowing digestion and suppressing appetite. For those with Type 2 diabetes whose pancreas is unable to create any or enough insulin, insulin injections are necessary.

Diabetes in my Mother Line

My grandmother, Peggy Collison, was born in 1915 and died in 1992. She led a fairly sedentary lifestyle, working as a dinner lady and volunteering for the Samaritans. She didn’t like housework but enjoyed gardening. She ate a bar of chocolate every afternoon and was overweight. She didn’t have any other symptoms and only found out that she had diabetes when she was 72 as the result of a urine test for another illness. She was put on Metformin.

My great grandmother, Augusta Kennedy, was born in 1888 and died in 1971. She led an active life, working as a housekeeper, and was a normal weight. My mum doesn’t recall her having any symptoms of diabetes. My great, great grandmother, Cecilia Curtis, was born in 1850 and died in 1933. Photos show she was a larger lady but whether she was diabetic is unknown.

My mum didn’t have any symptoms of diabetes in her early life. She admits to having a sweet tooth, but was a normal weight. When she got pregnant with me and, again, with my brother she developed Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM). During pregnancy, to ensure the foetus receives enough glucose, the placenta releases hormones, such as prolactin and progesterone, which reduce the mother’s insulin sensitivity. GDM develops when the beta cells of the pancreas cannot create enough insulin to compensate for the heightened insulin resistance. This leads to high blood sugar for the mother and the foetus and can lead to bigger babies. I weighed 8 pounds 4 and my brother weighed 10 pounds. GDM is usually temporary and my mum was told afterwards that she no longer had the disease in both instances.

However, in the following years, my mum began to gain weight. She was reasonably active, working as a teaching assistant and walking to work, and doing all the housework. She reports only eating lunch and tea (sometimes with dessert) but experiencing cravings for sweet things and eating chocolate. This could have been caused by diabetes – if she had insulin resistance and the glucose was not getting into her cells, it would have made her crave sugary foods. This led to her becoming overweight.

My mum was not diagnosed until her early sixties, when she was admitted to hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis. In the lead-up, she had been very thirsty and people had noticed she had lost weight, but she had ignored the symptoms. Her condition was so severe that she nearly died.

Afterwards, she found out that she had Type 2 Diabetes and it was so bad she would need to take insulin, in the form of injections, for the rest of her life. She has since suffered from diabetic neuropathy which has caused her to lose the feeling in her feet. This led to a fall, where she broke her hip, and needed a hip replacement. Since then, due also to the numbness in her feet, she has struggled with walking and can walk only with a stick or with a walker.

She also suffers from diabetic eye disease. She developed diabetic retinopathy and has had laser surgery for the leaky blood vessels. She ended up with a detached retina, for which she had operations to put in gas and oil bubbles to hold the retina in place. She has also needed cataract removal.

My Escape of Diabetes?

So far, I have escaped diabetes. This might be because I’ve never been pregnant, which was obviously a precedent for my mum and maybe my grandma.

However, I was at risk of diabetes when I was young. Like my mum, I had a sweet tooth. There was always chocolate in the house. I began comfort eating, then binge eating as a coping mechanism due to bullying at the age of six. I can recall the intensity of the cravings and the loss of control even now.

This led to me being overweight throughout my childhood. Whether this was due to a genetic predisposition for diabetes and to the high levels of blood sugar when my mum was pregnant with me, I remain unsure. I might have had less insulin resistance than others, meaning I felt less full and had more cravings.

Hating myself for being fat, at the age of thirteen, I began restricting my diet and exercising more, only to have the binge eating return with increased fervour, leading to me to being at the high end of overweight aged sixteen. If I had continued that way, I might have developed diabetes and be diabetic now.

In my twenties, I beat the binge eating at the cost of becoming underweight and mildly anorexic, but continued to struggle with binge drinking. During my early thirties, my sweet tooth resurfaced as I began drinking cider and beer, including craft beers extremely high in sugars, and I put on a lot of weight. I was unaware that my heavy drinking put me at further risk of diabetes.

Alcohol can damage insulin receptors through inflammatory processes, direct toxicity and the creation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). It causes harm to the beta cells in the pancreas, leading to a decrease in insulin secretion. It’s also bad for the liver. It causes cell damage, inflammation, fat accumulation and, eventually, scarring. All of this affects the liver’s ability to store glucose and to manage glucose levels, which plays a role in diabetes.

I started giving up alcohol at the end of the year in 2019 and, after a good number of lapses, have finally given it up for good. That my liver has begun to recover is signalled by consistently high ALT levels in their 50s dropping to 32.

I’ve always been sensitive to rises and dips in blood sugar. When I was eating very little in my twenties I often felt faint and dizzy and had panic attacks. Sensitivity to glucose variability can be a symptom of diabetes. These symptoms stayed with me until I started eating a better diet.

It’s only during the last few year I have begun to eat and exercise healthily. In my late thirties, I was eating a restrictive diet for the amount of exercise I was doing. Typically, toast and jam for breakfast and a post-run snack, a cheese sandwich for lunch and one slice of bread with veg and a portion of meat for tea. Bread was safe at 80 – 100 calories a slice and was a comfort food. I was running up to thirty miles a week and working in conservation.

When I started seeing a PT at my local gym she advised that I needed to eat a lot more calories, mainly in protein, and to replace the bread, which was giving me sugar spikes, with porridge in the morning and pasta or rice for tea.

I much preferred the porridge but disliked the texture of pasta and rice. When I made these shifts, I noticed bread had also been making me bloated. I have since come to realise that gluten doesn’t agree with me and shifted to oat cakes, nuts, chickpeas and lentils.

An added bonus is that all these sources of carbs are low glycemic index. This means they are absorbed more slowly and don’t cause blood sugar spikes. When I made these changes I tested my blood sugar regularly. In a fasting state it was around 3.7 mmol/L and the most after food 5 mmol/L. This shows that I do not have insulin resistance and am not currently at risk of diabetes.

Conclusion

Diabetes runs in my mother line. I have so far escaped it, but, at the cost of developing an eating disorder which I’m still struggling with psychological symptoms from now. Looking back, if my parents had educated me on the impact on my health of binge eating and drinking, explaining the science and the risk of diabetes, I might have been less likely to engage in those behaviours. Yet, they were unaware of the damage being caused themselves. As my mum’s case shows, they weren’t educated either.

More positively, there is much more information about diabetes available now. However, there is misinformation too and a lot of stigma about the links between diabetes and being overweight and obese. Many people who fall into these categories, which are based upon a faulty BMI model, are perfectly healthy. Not all people labelled overweight or obese overeat. Conversely, not all people who overeat become overweight or obese either.

I’d recommend that anybody experiencing one of the three p’s, even if it’s ‘just’ having food cravings or overeating, get an appointment with a GP.

~

With thanks to my mum and my grandmothers for allowing me to share their stories.

Black Poplars at the Source

September 19, 2025September 18, 2025Leave a comment

Beside the source of the brook in Greencroft Valley stand two black poplars. There aren’t any known British myths about black poplars but, in Greek myth, they are associated with Hades (the Underworld) and death.

In Homer’s Odyssey, poplars, described in different translations as ‘tall’ and ‘dusky’, so likely black, with willow, form Persephone’s Grove. Springs, throughout world myth, are seen as entrances to the Underworld.

In another story from ancient Greece, Phaethon, son of the sun God, Helios, drives his father’s chariot too close to the sun. His blazing end brings deep grief to his sisters, who are transformed into black poplar trees. The amber sap is said to be their tears. Thus its associations with death and sorrow.

In more recent folklore the red male catkins are referred to as ‘Devil’s Fingers.’

This leads me to believe that there might have once been parallel British myths about black poplar, connecting it with springs at the entrance to Annwn and with the groves of Annwn’s Queen. Perhaps there was once a story in which the red male catkins were the bloody fingers of Annwn’s King?

I will admit that I’m not sure if these trees are true black poplars (Populus nigra) or hybrids because black poplars are rare. Plus, I’m not referring to the true source of Fish House Brook but to the outflow pipe that the culverted brook emerges from. The original source would have lain further south, somewhere on Penwortham Moss, which has been drained and replaced by housing. The brook is culverted under the gardens on the other side of my street, Bank Parade, also giving its name to Burnside Way. I feel this relates to my founding of the Sanctuary of Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd, a King of Annwn, very near to the ‘black poplars’ at the ‘source’.

In a shamanic journey I visited the poplars for advice on descending to the ancestors in preparation for some ancestral healing work. I was shown the left tree represented my mother line and the right my father line. I slid down the roots of the left into a cavern where a group of spirits were drinking from cups from the same source. I was told that on the new and full moons I must consecrate a cup of water and make an offering:

“To the Gods,
spirits and ancestors –
we all drink from the same source.”

I felt this related to keeping the source clean – something I have been trying to do as a volunteer in Greencroft Valley with the Friends group I set up (now part of Guardians of Nature).

Mystics of the Sacred Heart Part Seven – Peggy Allen’s Bible

May 14, 2024May 4, 20241 Comment

As a remarkable coincidence at the time of writing this series, whilst I was cleaning, I stumbled across the Bible of my grandmother on my mother’s side, Peggy Allen. My grandmother was sent away to boarding school at a Catholic convent in France when she was 12 years old. Tucked within the pages of her Bible I found two prayer cards relating to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The first features a prayer from Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus called Au Sacré-Cœur with an image of the saint and Jesus showing His Sacred Heart. In England she is known as Therese of Liseux (1841 – 1884) ‘the Little Flower of Jesus’.

The other depicts Blessed Marie Deluil-Martiny (1841 – 1884) a French religious sister who was the Founder of Association of the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus. She was murdered in the convent by a gardener.

Although my grandmother was not religious when I knew her she was obviously familiar with the tradition of the Sacred Heart when growing up.

Might my draw to Gwyn’s Sacred Heart be partially based on ancestral memories?

He Will Guide The Dead Back Home

October 31, 20225 Comments

For Gwyn ap Nudd

There’s a sea behind a river,
behind a brook, behind a stream,
and when the stars within it gather
He will guide the dead back home.

There’s an ocean in the cauldron
where the stars began to burn
and as our candlelight grows dimmer
He will guide the dead back home.

His is an infinite vocation
in those dark and starry seas
and when the stars depart their stations
He will guide the dead back home.

When the seas are black and bloody
and the stars are but black holes
all souls to Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.

When the cauldron’s but a memory,
seas and stars are but a dream,
all souls in Him He’ll gather –
He will guide the dead back home.

This poem appears in the later part of my book-in-progress ‘In the Deep’ and was written by Maponos/Mabon for Vindos/Gwyn ap Nudd.

It felt fitting I share it tonight, on Nos Galan Gaeaf, as a way of honouring Gwyn as He rides out with His hunt to gather the souls of the dead.

In the background are my doorway to Annwn and photographs of my ancestors.

Wooden Idols of the Bogs

March 27, 20218 Comments

I. The Roos Carr Figures – Voyagers to the Otherworld?

A few weeks ago, fellow awenydd Greg Hill drew my attention to the Roos Carr Figures HERE. These fascinating wooden warrior figurines, eight in total, their shields, and their serpent-headed boats were sealed in a wooden box and deposited in a boggy area (‘carr’ means ‘bog or fen covered with scrub’).

They were found in a layer of blue clay by labourers cleaning a ditch in 1836. Of the eight, only five remain (the fifth was returned after one of the labourers gave him to his daughter as an ‘ancient doll’ to play with), a couple of the shields and one of conjecturally two boats due to decay.

Radiocarbon dating to 606 – 508 BCE places them in the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. Carved from yew they stand between 31cm and 45cm tall. Their faces are angular with prominent noses, slit-like mouths, and striking eyes made of quartzite pebbles set into eye-holes. Elongated trunks with drill-holes at the shoulders for arms taper into thin peg-like legs. Each has a central pubic hole.

The figures were found with a number of dis-attached appendages, some of which were arms, some of which were phalluses, to be placed in the empty holes. Typically, the Victorians mistook the phalluses for oars. Since then their manhoods have been returned to their correct positions.

I immediately fell in love with these little figures who might be interpreted to be living or dead warriors sailing their serpent-ship on a voyage to Annwn, ‘the Deep’, the ancient British Otherworld. Their representation reminded me of the medieval Welsh poem ‘Preiddu Annwn’ ‘The Spoils of the Otherworld’ in which Arthur takes three loads of warriors in his ship, Prydwen, to assault a series of otherworldly fortresses to steal the Brindled Ox and the Cauldron of Pen Annwn.

It suggested the existence of a pre-Arthurian tale in which warriors set out on a quest to Annwn to visit the dead and the deities of Annwn and perhaps bring back treasures to Thisworld.

II. Wooden Idols of Britain and Ireland – Threshold Guardians?

My research on the Roos Carr Figures led me to discovering that a number of wooden figurines have been found across Britain and Ireland. All were found in wet places which were seen as liminal – where crossings of bogs or waters needed to be made – suggesting they were threshold guardians. Some of these ‘idols’ have been interpreted to be gods and goddesses, others spirits of place, and others ancestors and, of course, the boundaries between these terms are intrinsically fluid.

The Ballachulish Goddess was found on Ballchulish Moss, in Inverness-shire, Scotland. Dated to 600 BC it stands at a height of 145cm, the size of a girl, and is the largest of our British figures. Carved from alder wood it has a large head with a long, thin nose, a full mouth, and small white quartzite eyes. Its chest is flat with two pairs of incised circles representing breasts and nipples. The objects it is holding have not yet been securely identified (a couple of scholars have suggested they are severed penises!). Its legs end in a solid block of wood.

It was discovered during building work, in 1880, in deep layers of peat ‘lying face down on the gravel of an old raised beach, around 120 metres from the shore of Loch Leven’ and may have stood beside a pool. ‘Under and above’ were ‘intertwined branches and twigs and ‘straighter poles which might have formed a ‘wickerwork container, or a little shrine’.

Its location, overlooking ‘the dangerous straits linking Loch Leven with the sea’ are suggestive of its worship as ‘the goddess of the straits’ to whom travellers made offerings for a safe crossing.

Another intriguing example is the Somerset God Dolly which is the oldest of Britain’s known wooden idols, dating to between 2285 and 3340 BCE. This hermaphroditic figure was carved from ash wood, was 16cm high, and had a ‘round featureless head, no neck, and a small stubby body with two asymmetrically placed breasts and a large horizontal penis’ ending ‘at the base of the trunk without legs.’

It was found on the Somerset Levels, ‘driven upside down’ ‘within a cluster of pegs’ ‘that formed part of Bell Track A’ and ‘stratigraphically below the Bell B Track’. This suggests it might have been a threshold guardian of the earlier trackway, then made redundant, and buried beneath.

Nearby, in Hillfarrance, an oak forked-branch figure dated to 1131-1410 BCE was retrieved from a pit in a ‘riverine peat wetland’ ‘beside two brooks, both tributaries of the river Tone.’ Only the lower limbs and torso, 45cm long, have survived. It was buried with shards of pottery, a burnt stone and worked wood. Again, this was a deliberate deposition, perhaps of a former guardian.

The Kingsteignton Idol was discovered on the banks of the river Teign, in south Devon, ‘lying up against the trunk of a fallen oak tree’. Carved from oak wood, 33cm tall, it has a ‘long thin body’, ‘elongated neck’, and ‘large head’ with ‘eyes, nose and chin’ ‘indicated’. There is a hole in his neck for insertable arms. Its ‘trunk is straight, square-shouldered, with carefully carved buttocks and erect penis’ and its ‘short, kneed legs end in stubby feet.’ It has been dated to 426-352 BC. It was likely associated with the oak tree, a threshold marker, and may have been its guardian spirit.

On the Dagenham marshes, on the bank of the Thames, down river from London, the Dagenham Idol was found in close proximity to the skeleton of a deer. It has been dated to 2250 BC. Carved from the wood of a Scots pine it stands at 46cm tall and has a large head, flat face, sockets for eyes (‘the right deeper than the left’), and no ears or hair. Its trunk is armless. It has a central pubic hole, potentially for the insertion of a penis and its legs are straight and footless. It might have been a guardian of the marshland and/or river and possibly had an association with deer and other animals.

In Ireland the Ralaghan Figure was found in a peat bog and the Lagore Figure on a crannog in a peat lake. A model dug-out canoe was discovered at Clowanstown 1, County Meath, and might be seen to resemble the serpent boat of the Roos Carr Figures, paddling the lake, and between worlds.

The existence of these idols provides evidence that, from the early Bronze Age into the Iron Age, the people of Britain and Ireland saw wet places as sacred and inspirited as well as potentially dangerous. The gods and spirits appeared to them in anthropomorphic forms and were carved into wooden idols, which were seen to embody them, and to which offerings were likely made for safe passage.

For unknown reasons some of these idols were deposed and buried in or near the place where they stood. Had they reached the end of their power and thus served their purpose? Had they requested to be returned to the waters of their origin? Were they seen as just as or more powerful when buried like the dead? The answers to these questions are as unknowable as the minds of our distant ancestors

III. Wooden Idols and Ritual Landscapes in Northern Europe

Numerous wooden idols serving a similar function have been recovered from across Northern Europe. The best example of a ritual complex is Opfermoor Vogtei in Germany. Situated on a bog, which includes a shallow lake, it was in use from the 5^th century to beyond the Roman period.

Within circular enclosures of hazel branches were altars where wooden cult figures were worshipped. Wooden idols were also found on the edges of the lake where they overlooked the waters.

During excavations on Wittemoor timber trackway across a bog in Berne, Lower Saxony, in Germany, six wooden figurines dating to the Iron Age were found. Two of them stood on either side of the track where it crossed a stream. Both were ‘carved in silhouette out of oak planks 3 to 7cm thick’. The male was 105cm tall ‘with a rectangular body’ and the female 95cm tall ‘with breasts or shoulders indicated by a slanted cut, broad hips and vulva’. The male slotted into a plank and the female stood on a mound. The other figures are described as ‘cult poles’. Fire sites ‘at each end of the crossing’ and ‘stones and worked alder sticks’ around two of the poles suggest offerings were made.

These discoveries show that wooden idols served a significant function within ritual landscapes for the Germanic peoples. As representations of gods and goddesses and spirits of place with threshold functions they were raised on altars, fires were built in their honour, and offerings were made to them.

Similar idols, such as the Braak Bog Figures, have been found elsewhere in Germany. From Denmark we have the Broddenjberg Idol and figurines were found in Wilemstad in the Netherlands.

One of the most impressive, from Russia, is the Shigir Idol. Dated to 10500 BCE, the Mesolithic period, around the end of the Ice Age, it is ‘the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world.’

Found in a peat bog in Shigir it is carved from larch and may have originally stood at at 5.3m tall. It has a small head with narrow eyes, a triangular nose, circular mouth, and pointed chin. Its body is flat and pole-like and covered in ‘geometrical motifs’ including ‘zigzag lines’ and ‘depictions of human hands and faces’. It speaks to me of a death god filled with the spirits of the dead.

It has been proposed that the decorations tell the story of a creation myth or ‘serve as a warning not to enter a dangerous area’. Whatever the case, it would have been a formidable figure at the centre of a ritual landscape, seen for miles around, imbued with great meaning for the early hunter-gatherers.

What strikes me the most about these wooden idols is that they seem hauntingly familiar. I’m not sure if this because, as a Smithers, I have Saxon ancestry and connections to the figures from Germany or because, when I’ve been travelling wetlands, physically and in spirit, I have caught glimpses of dark figures who might be wetland spirits or echoes of their representations.

What is certain is that the presence of spirits and the urge to carve them from wood has been felt across Northern Europe since, at least, the Ice Age. In the Norse myths, the first humans were created from ash and elm by the gods and, in the Brythonic myths, soldiers were conjured from trees by a deity. I wonder whether our creation of wooden idols was seen to mirror this divine process?

SOURCES

Bryony Coles, ‘Anthropomorphic Wooden Figures From Britain and Ireland’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 56, 1990

Clive Jonathon Bond, ‘The God-Dolly Wooden Figurine from the Somerset Levels, Britain: The Context, the Place and its Meaning’, Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Miniature Figures in Eurasia, Africa and Meso-America, Oxford: Archaeopress/BAR International Series 2138

Jeremy Clark, ‘The Intriguing Roos Carr Model Wooden Boat Figures Found Near Withersea, East Yorkshire’, The Yorkshire Journal, Issue 1, Spring 2011

‘Ballachulish Figure’, National Museums Scotland, https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/ballachulish-figure/

‘Introducing the Kingsteignton Idol’, Artefactual, https://artefactual.co.uk/2014/06/29/introducing-the-kingsteignton-idol/

‘Roos Carr Figures: Faces from the Past’, Hull Museums Collections, http://museumcollections.hullcc.gov.uk/collections/storydetail.php?irn=484&master=449

‘Shigir Idol’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigir_Idol

‘Wittemoor Timber Trackway’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittemoor_timber_trackway

On Eating Hearts

July 31, 20202 Comments

‘Gwyn son of Nudd… forced Cyldedyr to eat his father’s heart… Cyledyr went mad.’
How Culhwch Won Olwen

We have eaten the hearts of our ancestors.

We have bitten them down in pieces.
We have choked on them, retched on them,
tried to refuse to eat them at our peril.

We have swallowed them whole.

We have made them palatable with condiments –
ketchups squeezed from blood and mustards from bile.

We have been unable to stop eating even when told to stop.

We have seen our faces with blood dripping from our mouths
on the front of the newspapers and pointed our fingers
at everyone else – those heartless heart-eaters.

We have blamed the gods who told us to do it.

We have gone mad with grief and guilt.

We have wandered the Forest of Celyddon
with Cyledyr, with Culhwch, with Myrddin Wyllt,
tried to become poets and we have failed.

We have not heard your whisper in the woods~
in the little cavern within our right atrium,
thought of the hunger of the future.

I have no children so to who
will you feed my heart?

My Father’s Axe

February 23, 2020March 19, 20202 Comments

‘These three stone tools date from the Stone Age. They were mainly used to cut down trees and chop wood but sometimes as weapons. The large polished axe was found in the Broadgate area of Preston and the smaller axe and large mace head were found in the Forest of Bowland.’
The Harris Museum

It’s not
one of those
new born-of-mountain
green-blue shiny polished
“wrap it up tightly” “do not get it dirty”
ceremonial “do not touch” “the Thunder God
at the top of the mountain who stands on a bull with
a bolt of lightning in his hand will blow your head off”
“only she who has bathed in the spring at the foot
of the Green Hill on the Water then walked
round it sunwise blindfold on one leg
after fasting for a year,”
kind of things…

No, my father’s axe
was split from an old flint
abandoned on the hillside slightly lopsided
blunt at one end sharp at the other like his temper.
He worked at it all his life – knapping, sharpening,
polishing between felling trees and splitting heads.
Grumbling, cursing, like the odd dwarf who
led him to it – a gift of the Sons of Stone,
from the Lord of the Mines
tapped from his veins.

There was flint in him,
my dad, flint and river water,
bulls and lightning too when
he wanted his own way…

This is my my last piece
of him chipped from the hills
where he wandered with the cattle
brought them home safely with
the hornless skulls of men.

Yet I am no axe-wielder.
I will bury it within – return it
to the mines of the Old Ones.
Sharpen and polish the stone
axe of this voice instead.

*With thanks to the Harris Museum for use of the photograph.

Ribble Ancestors

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020Leave a comment

Fists of Stone

‘The face of a Stone Age man from the North West… about 40 years old when he died’
The Harris Museum

They’ve given you a face.

Taken your 5,500 year old skull,
added facial tissue and facial muscles –
temporalis, masseter, buccinator,
occipito frontals, nose, lips.

Decided upon your expression.

It’s 2019 and the ‘ug’ caricatures
and Flintstones references are behind us
yet there is flint and stone in your jaw.
Your shoulders are like a boxer’s

so I imagine you ‘putting them up’.

Fists of stone – you were a prize fighter.
You would have been the strong man
of your day, felling old bog oaks
with your rough stone axe,

pulling them two at a time,

the muscles in your back –
trapezius, rhomboideus, serratus,
teres minor and major, thoracolumbar fascia
straining as your broad feet sucked
in and out of the marsh.

Your children swinging from
your broad arms like long-tailed tits –
countless, twittering, as you tossed them
like juggling balls into the air.

Your wife liked to massage out
your knots and twists – tighter more oaklike
as you aged, treating each muscle
in turn like a polished stone,

tending to your calloused hands –

bathing your blisters, dabbing ointment
on your cracked knuckles, mending
your broken fingers with oaken splints.

When you fell like a tree,
not in battle but quietly on
your way back from the woods,
little birds in your branches,

muscles knotting one last time,

she did not carve your head but your fists
in stone, cast them into the river
with the oaklike log
of your corpse.

The little pebbles
of your pisiform bone,
metacarpals and phalanges
can be found on the riverbank
where she once grieved.

~

Cribra Orbitalia

‘This is the oldest skull so far dated – to between 3820 and 3640BC… This woman may have suffered from anaemia, indicated by an area of pitting in her left eye known as cribra orbitalia.’
The Harris Museum

You were a pale child.

Always the first to tire
on the walk from camp to camp,
struggling for breath, clutching at your chest.
You said your head was light as a wisp of smoke
before you lay down and floated away.
You said you were a feather.

The reddest of meat failed
to bring a blush to your cheeks,
to keep you to the ground.

Often you touched the ridge
of your left brow and pressed
as if probing for the lesion.

When your skin turned yellow
as the beak of a whooper swan,
your eyes eerie and wolf-like,

you were exalted and they listened

to your visions of flying white-winged
to the distant north where frost giants fought
with fists of ice and the claws of bears
were hungry for your children.

When you returned with
seven cygnets ghosting from
beneath your right wing

they walked on egg shells
fearing you were the daughter
of the God of the Otherworld.

When you were found
with a single feather on your breast
it was said you flew with him to Cygnus,
rising on your last swan’s breath.

Now instead they point to the pitting
of your left eye and speak of cribra orbitalia –
the hypertrophy of red bone marrow, megabolasts,
megabolastic anaemia, lack of intrinsic factor,
the uptake of coblamin (vitamin B12).

And I try to hold both science and myth
in the cavelike porosities of your left orbit….

~

Shades of Blue

‘an older man who may have lived in the Stone Age as there is evidence that he has been killed with a stone implement, similar to the axes displayed’
The Harris Museum

You had a violent reputation.

It travelled with you across
the Water Country like the flies
on the back of the aurochs

who buzzed around the heads
of your enemies clotting like blood
around their pecked out eyes.

She always knew when you
were coming back by the noise
of the bluebottle… zzz…???

A flicker across the rush light.
Zzz… zzz…. zzz… unmistakeable.
A rush of dread as it was lit up on
the wall shiny iridescent blue.

When she was little she counted
its colours and gave them names like
New Dawn Blue, Noon Blue, Happy Blue,
Deep Waters, Dwellings in the Sea-Sky Blue.
As the shadows of her marriage darkened
she named them Twilight Blue, Indigo,
Bruise Blue, Black Blue of Murder.

Her hand went to her broken cheekbone.

She took the children to the Whistler in the Rushes.

In her hands she took the sharpened stone.

Nobody questioned or regretted your death:
“A crash in the night – so many enemies.”

Except the bluebottle who buzzed in circles
around your head, spiralling, spiralling upwards.
Death Blue, Decision Blue, Tear Blue, Last Bruise,
River-mirror Blue, Bright Blue of Freedom.

It disappeared as you sunk into eternal blue.

~

Loose Tongue

‘Experts disagree whether it is a skull of a woman or man. It’s smaller than other skulls found in the dock, but it has distinct male eyebrow ridges. There is evidence that this person may have died by from a weapon entering their skull. It may be the skull of a Roman settler or someone born in Iron Age Britain.’
The Harris Museum

No-one knew
if you were Roman or Briton,
noble or commoner, male or female,
only that you were not from the North.
The names of the gods mixed on your tongue
like wine and mead in the fortresses of the Otherworld.
“Vindos-Dis, Mars-Nodens, Apollo-Maponus,
Belisama-Minerva, Taranis-Jupiter.”

Your tongue got you into trouble
stirring the desires of the young but
allowing none to lift up your robe.

Everywhere you went there was gossip.

You’d come to the High Hills in purple
wearing sandals, golden bangles, golden rings
on your fingers and toes and a jewelled golden crown.
Come back down like madness to the Water Country,
ragged as a beggar, preaching of a world where
Roman and Briton lived in unison with no
divisions between man and woman or
wrong places to put one’s tongue.

A parochial chieftain hated your
androgyny and the hateful looseness
of your tongue so it was not long before
you were stripped naked and fishlike
beside the river before the gods.

The spear thrust into your mouth
did not stop your brazen tongue from
wagging on as the water embraced
you as both daughter and son.

*With thanks to the Harris Museum for use of the photographs.

The Broadgate Polished Stone Axe

December 28, 2019December 28, 20191 Comment

In the Harris Museum there is a beautifully polished stone axe which was found in the Ribble at Broadgate. The stone is smooth and grey-greenish. The larger cutting edge is sharp and rounded (although it looks like the lower portion may be broken) and the hafting end smaller, round, and smooth.

Hominids have been making axes for over two million years and they have taken many shapes and forms. These ubiqutous tools were used for felling trees, coppicing, in the crafting of dwellings, fencing, wooden walkways, and dug-out canoes, and in battle (one of the skulls found whilst exacavting the Riversway Docklands belonged to a Neolithic man killed by a blow to the head with a stone axe).

Polished stone axes are a Neolithic phenomenon and were made between 2750 and 2000BC. Most of the examples found in Lancashire originate from the Langdale axe industry and were made of Langdale tuff (a ‘greenstone’ formed from volcanic ash) collected and quarried from Pike of Stickle, Harrison Stickle, and Scafell Pike, on some of the highest fells in Cumbria.

These axes would have been recognised not only as special but as sacred due to the qualities of the Langdale tuff and the effort put into shaping and polishing it. Axes were polished with polishing stones, which can be recognised by the grooves made by polishing, and range in size from slightly bigger than the axe to standing stones within the landscape bearing multiple grooves.

Later oral traditions such as ‘The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain’ listing artefacts such as ‘The Sword of Rhydderch Hael’, ‘The Knife of Llawfrodedd Farchog’, and ‘The Whetstone of Tudwal Tudclyd’ suggest the axe may have borne the name of its most illustrious owner.

After use, having been passed down through generations, polished stone axes were deposited purposefully. In Prehistoric Lancashire David Barrowclough records depositions on the north coast of Morecambe Bay ‘in fissures and gaps in the out-cropping stone’and in a limestone gryke at Skelmore Heads. Nine were discovered on Pilling Moss. At Crookabreast Farm an axe was found with four polishers, one of which was pushed ‘into a cavity in the roots of an oak tree… presumably a “moss stock” or “bog oak”’.

Barrowclough notes: ‘rivers and wetlands were important places for deposition and it is notable that the axes from Lancashire have a definite riverine and mossland distribution… many of the axes must have been deposited deliberately… wet places, whether river or bog, had a specific significance.’

Gaps, grykes, fissures, rivers, wetlands, and mosslands/bogs were seen by the ancient Britons as places of access to the Otherworld and as associated with its gods and spirits and with the ancestors. It seems possible that the Broadgate axe was an offering to Belisama, ‘Most Shining One’ or ‘Most Mighty One’, the goddess of the Ribble.

What brought about the decision to deposit the axe in the Ribble remains unknown. Perhaps the last of its lineage of owners died and it was deposited with his or her body in the waters (Mick Wysocki suspects the Neolithic people disposed of their dead in the river and their passage out to sea might have been seen as representing their passage to the Otherworld which was later known as Annwn ‘the Deep’).

Another possibility is that it was offered to Belisama as a petition to prevent the rising of her waters. Between 2300 and 2000BC the climate grew colder and wetter and the Broadgate area would have been inundated at times of high tides. Again we are entering a period when the waters of our seas and rivers are rising, this time due to man-made climate change, and the Broadgate polished axe might be seen as a symbol connecting us to our ancestors and the shared dangers we face.

*With thanks to the Harris Museum for use of the photograph of the axe.

I Call to the Ancestors

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017Leave a comment

My poem ‘I Call to the Ancestors’ has been published on Gods & Radicals. As an antidote to the anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene, it forms a call to all our ancestors since life’s beginning.

GODS & RADICALS

I call to the first single-celled bacteria who divided on that fateful day.
I call to the green-blue algae sun-bathing slimily on the sea.
I call to the stromatolites, living rocks, anchors, billions of years old.
I call in the Cambrian explosion: BOOM! Let there be life!
I call to the trilobite. Come famous one, hard-shelled, scurrying,
many-legged, throwing off your shadow-fossils on the sea-floor.
I call to anomalocaris: stalk-eyed predator, lobed,
spike-armed, round-mawed.
I call to ottaia, opabinia, hallucigenia, canadaspis, marrela.
I call to the crinoids and nautiloids; many-tentacled in party hats.
I call to the sea scorpion, to jawless and jawed, ray-finned and lobe-finned fish.
I call to the sporing plants; Cooksonia, ready your sporangia.
I call to fern, horse-tail, club moss, scaly tree.
I call to the tetrapods; casineria with your five toes,
aconthostega, diadactes, eucritta from the black lagoon.
I call to the gigantic dragonfly: let…

View original post 284 more words