Letter from Cressida Pryor
April 30, 2022
May Day Letter 2022
Dear Friends,
It is the season of Beltane and the cows are back!
I woke up this morning and heard the tell tale and very welcome ‘MMMOOOOO’ that heralded the return of cows, in fact mostly bullocks, to the field opposite our house for their summer grazing. These wonderful curious creatures will spend their first few days exploring their lush new territory, often cavorting and cantering around with the glee of expanded space and freedom.
What seems to happen quickly is the establishment of a herd pecking order, where one bolder bovine, perhaps ‘braver’ in human terms, leads the rest in the perambulations and ‘grandmother footstep game’ that happens behind the human walkers who share their field.
I was reminded of this yesterday when I visited a local art gallery who showed the winning lead entries to eight years of a portrait artist of the year competition…these are the pictures judged to be outstanding for many different reasons…one painting was of a well trimmed elderly gentleman who could easily, after a quick perusal, be a bank manager or accountant.
He was in fact one of Pink Floyd, a huge music phenomenon in the sixties and onwards…and the reason this hit me so forcibly…the contrast between his image now compared to the one from his past…was I had, two weeks earlier bought ‘Hey Hey Rise up’ their fund raising single with Ukrainian Andriy Khlyvnyuk. A heart stopping anthem of resistance, pain and defiance which brought my bouncy seven year old grandson to a listening stillness.
You could say that the Goddess’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. That’s what the Divine does with every new springtime, every new life, every new season, every new anything…even in the horrors we are witnessing there are moments of hope, however small that show the supremacy of love over bigotry and hatred…Julian of Norwich’s words remind us yet again that despair destroys the soul and stops us acting and reaching out to rebuild and love again…to turn death into life.
Tomorrow on May Day morning we will get up before dawn to do what Morris dancers are doing across this land and others…to find a high place, to sing and dance to celebrate and honour this time of year when a fullness of life and energy is a reminder that we must ‘Hey, Hey, Rise Up’…and celebrate the whole earth as the body of the Goddess.
Mother Isis give us strength to know our place in nature,
so we may nurture your land with humility and care
knowing all your creatures are precious and welcome
and we treat all with kindness and love.
So may it be.
Beltane Blessings,
Cressida, FOI Steward
