Ritual, Ceremony, and Sovereignty Embodying ourselves and embodying the land
I somewhat surprised myself by watching most of the coronation of King Charles III. This was not something I intended to do (nor had a I decided not to!) but with a weekend at home alone, and the rain dampening my enthusiasm to tend to the allotment I found myself sinking into absorbing the frequency of the events as the unfolded throughout the day.
Now, by no stretch of the imagination would I consider myself a royalist - nor do I choose to label myself with any other form of identity to describe my outlook or values in the world, but, having grown up in Britain and being deeply influenced by the land and its history this day did indeed feel like a significant day to witness and reflect upon.
Embodying in the reawakening of our Celtic roots; our lost arts of herbalism, ritual and sacred ceremony are at the core of my work as a herbalist, and there was something of the essence of this that I saw at the heart of the coronation.
Although the pageantry and pomp is indeed extravagant and a hard pill to swallow when we are in times of deep austerity in the country, to have ritual and ceremony at the heart of a country that has at large lost its sense of the sacred and reverence to something greater than the sum of its parts, to me this feels deeply important to honour.
So much of our more recent history of this land has been the ideation of invasion and rule over other countries that it becomes a forgotten history that our ancestor of this land experienced the same invasion and control for many generations, and although we may now live in times of ‘peace’ the scars of this brutality are very much still just below the surface. Our small island of a country reaches it’s stretch out into the wider world, with an important political and economical role on the world stage, so much so that I feel it can often be forgotten or overlooked just how small Britain really is.
I recently was having a conversation with someone who was telling me that her mother, with olive skin and dark hair and eyes had always believed she probably had exotic blood, but then on doing a DNA test discovered she was as English as they come. What this stirred in me was to reflect that maybe England IS the exotic and magical destination that we all seek! And indeed for those that are lucky enough to spend time immersed in the vibrant countryside its is easy to discover that this is true.
It is undeniable that by stepping outside, particularly at this time of year when everything is literally growing before our eyes, rich lushness dotted with the colour of hundreds of different flowers, birds singing from the trees and the gentle rain bringing a soft blanket of sound all around, that this land is indeed beautiful. And at the core of monarchy which stretches in an unbroken lineage in this land for over a thousand years is not just a ruling over but a sense of servitude to the land - to Britannia.
Maybe it is because of who King Charles is himself that warms my heart to this. He is deep lover of plants and and the natural world and his life work outside of his royal duties has been in dedication to this. He is famously quoted “I happily talk to plants and trees and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial.”
So beneath all the extravagance, the not-so-subtle control of the church over the monarchy and the outdated military like operation, at the heart of this theatre is the lineage of a family that have care and respect for nature and the land, and to me, I pray, this can only be a good thing - an anchor if you like into what this small set of islands with its abundance of flora and fauna, landscapes stepped in mystery and mythology is really carrying. Sadly if we start to see ceremony and ritual as superfluous to life we too may unwittingly begin to see the natural world and the beauty of its abudcnae superfluous too.
Ultimately this is the work I do as an Insight Herbalist; connecting those willing to search back to their true nature and the abundance of nature that we all spring from.
This work to me is intrinsically linked to this land, my home, and there is at its core a gentle but fierce protection and honouring of the sacredness and beauty of these islands that, if we don’t pay closer attention to could be lost, forever.
To finish, here is a refection on key plant I have been connecting with over the past month - White Archangel. Often mistaken for nettle ‘with flowers’, Archangel is not related to nettle at all, but is said to mimic its stinging companion as protection from predators. For this is is often overlooked for it more common companion. But Archangel brings a gentle potent medicine, of shining sovereignty, and to me, is an earthily anchor of cosmic regality.
White Archangel
Benevolent witness of cosmic omnipresence,
Expanding compassion and sense.
Dissolving the story of individual self into itself,
Melting away the ego, not as obliteration but as a cleansing,
renewing,
and refreshing.
Quietening the body, awakening in the liminal,
serene sovereignty; a smiling buddha.
Bringing the cosmic down into the animal,
the human ,the ordinary, the magic of everyday
Life.