"Beauty gets noticed in this world, so let’s not dawdle”
A Beltane shamrock ritual, phenomenal women and delicious cake.
A little reminder
Don’t forget you can join our online Radiating Heart session tonight (and every Sunday night for that matter) at 8:30pm via Zoom. It’s free and everyone is welcome. During the session we will practice a Heart Lock-In technique together. Learning to activate and radiate renewing emotions is incredibly beneficial for ourselves and others - and especially potent when practiced collectively.
Make a ritual of it - if you have time you might like to light a candle, switch on an essential oil diffuser or bring along a mug of something warm and comforting.
Rosemary, Orange & Olive Oil Polenta Cake
A gluten and dairy-free cake that tastes pretty good!
In classic Camille form (ask my sister - she does the same thing!), I over-complicated things and merged two recipes together.
The cake batter recipe is here and added a lemon and rosemary drizzle from this recipe, followed by a marmalade glaze (literally just melted marmalade). If I made it again, I think it could do with more lemon!
The beautifying powers of shamrock Trifolium dubium
Next Wednesday will be the first of May - Beltane in the Celtic calendar. Since listening to the audiobook of Diana Beresford-Kroeger's ‘To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest’, I’ve been waiting impatiently for the right time to share this ritual with you! I think Diana tells it best herself, so I’ve included an extract from her book below.
“Late one morning in the soft stretch of time between the first round of chores and the start of dinner preparations, Nellie was combing her beautiful silver hair when all of a sudden, as though we were in mid-conversation, she began talking to me.
“For the women of Ireland back before Christianity laid its mantle over our lives, Beltane was a special day,” she began, “and here, it still is.” Beltane, she told me, was a celebration for women on the first day of May.
That spring morning the women of the valley would rise before dawn and gather in the field in front of the altar. She gestured out the window. They would collect dew from the clover on the ground and with it perform a ritual that was, she said, the secret of their beauty. Once the sun appeared, they would look to the altar itself.
From my seat, I could see the altar had a long channel carved down its center. “As the sun rises on the first day of the month of May it centers its rays directly down that cut stone channel,” Nellie said. Out of the darkness of the night sky, a single shaft of light reaches for the altar. As it touches the stone it looks as if the altar bursts into flames. It is a symbol of all fires that have helped us in our passage through life’s lonely walk.
In the ancient past, Beltane was the womb of the Celtic world. ‘Bel’ means mouth, and ‘tane’ means fire. On the day people celebrated all that was coming into life through the fire of the sun. The female principle and all womanhood was celebrated on that special day.
…
The farmhouse was dark and creeping with shadows, the silence explosive with expectation. I was awake before I felt Nellie’s hand on my arm… She led me out into the pastures barefoot, so she and I could feel the breathing of the ground underneath us. I remember the way the cold dew squished up between my toes as we walked.
Shamrock Trifolium dubium is a flowering clover that creeps among the grasses in pasture lands all over Ireland. It has been used as a fallow crop by Irish farmers since before the construction of Rome, and its small yellow flowers are a favourite of the honey bee.
“Just after the fire lands in the mouth of the altar,” Nellie told me, “the shamrock begins to break out of their winter dormancy and push out their first green fingers of spring.” In front of the altar, we knelt in the grass to wait for the sun. All the other women of the valley were close around us. As we waited in silence, the group of us practiced controlled breathing meditation. With a gentle hand on my shoulder to get my attention, Nellie showed me the deep slow rhythms of the breaths. The first light of morning was little more than a pinprick over the lip of the alter’s channel, but within moments the whole stone had come alive with light. It seemed to vibrate with energy, as the light intensified, I closed my eyes and waited for the feel of its warmth on my cheeks. After a few moments Nellie again touched my shoulder, I opened my eyes and saw that all around me the women were bending to wipe the morning dew from the fresh leaves of the shamrock.
“Well now Diana, it’s a fact that beauty gets noticed in this world, so let’s not dawdle”. Wetting her hands on a plant, she showed me the pattern she used to apply the dew. She began running her fingers in side swipes across her fine high forehead, just under the hairline, then moved down over her eyelids, gently patting dew into the corners of each eye, next she worked her cheeks in a circular motion, then it was onto her chin which she massaged in upstrokes and finally her neck which received fifteen long strokes from her collar bone all the way up to her jaw line.
I mimicked her movements, and then, faces wet, we walked smiling our way back to the farmhouse. We left the dew to air dry and for the rest of the day, my skin had a pleasant tight feeling as though it were being delicately pulled. This ritual Nellie insisted was what gave the women of Lisheens their beautiful complexions.
Later in life, I would confirm that Trifolium dubium does contain a biochemical for beauty. The upper area of the shamrock leaf exudes a pair of related flavonoids called hesperidin and hesperetin (most commonly found in citrus fruits), the morning dew holds these beneficial chemicals in solution and when applied to the face they encourage blood flow while gently tightening the skin’s surface. Nature’s anti-ageing cream so to speak.
… At the time though, I didn’t need to fully understand Beltane to derive great happiness from it. The time with Nellie, the quiet communion with the other women, the relaxation of the wait, the fresh feeling of dew on my face, and the splendor of watching the sunrise set the hills and the altar aflame - all this was enough. That day has been fixed in my mind ever since as a source of joy and female companionship.”
Take this as an invitation to wake up at sunrise on the first of May and enjoy the cool glistening feeling of morning dew on your cheeks!
For the times we forget beauty is not only skin-deep
Whilst the ritual described in Diana’s book sounds a joyously wholesome experience, I find her aunt Nellie’s words particularly poignant - “it’s a fact that beauty gets noticed in this world.” Just last weekend I shared my own skin-deep, beauty based insecurity with a dear friend and she cured it by reading the most wonderful poem aloud to me. I trust you’ll share it with anyone you know who needs it.
Phenomenal Woman
BY MAYA ANGELOU
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Sending you all much love, and looking forward to connecting with you this evening.
Camille
I accept the invitation to get up at sunrise eon 1 May. I'm so happy Charlie has beed checking in on you and I loved the poem by Maya Angelou - a reminder that we are all fabulous just the way we are! x