the apple tree

I'm on the hangingwater allotment, and david, the old gardener, is wanting to help me. He says I need to do some liming, so I show him my bag of limestone dust, but he says its not the right type. He has these huge sacks of lime, and he starts filling a large mixing bowl, and attempts to carry the large mixing bowl over to the apple tree, where there is an even larger mixing bowl in the branches of the tree. I can see he is struggling, so I offer to carry it for him, taking it off his hands and emptying it into the bowl in the tree. I've never done liming like this before, but I trust in David's experience, that he must know what he's doing. He goes back to the sack and gets out even more limestone dust, and again, I help carry it, and we keep filling up the bowl in the apple tree, until the sack is empty.

Some friends have come to help me with lifting the lime into the apple tree. There is an old swing still hanging in the tree that comes in useful, which is a bit dangerous, but still strong enough to hold weight. Four of my friends are up in the apple tree lining up the bowl, which has kept growing in size, in the apple tree.


Now the ritual magic begins.

The full moon rises over the hill. Its bright light shines down onto the giant mixing bowl in the apple tree, and the bowl in the branches has been placed at a particular point so that, when the moon reaches its zenith, the trunk of the apple tree casts a shadow over the bowl.

This is the right moment, a cosmic alignment. This is the special technique used by david to lime the land.

Now the apple tree has grown very big. We are having a large gathering under the apple tree, and anne-marie is here. The gathering is a bit like allotment soup. There are people playing games in and around the apple tree. A lot of friends from Coed are here. There are lots of interesting looking art around the trunk of tree. Anne marie tells me that there are lots of amazing stones up in the tree, and that Jo is up there somewhere. I climb up into the apple tree, which now has become like a giant tree house with many levels, and close to the top of the tree I meet a few old friends who show me the old wings I made. "Look", they say, "you made these wings". I'm sat on top of my wings. They are like an aeroplanes wings, only made out of wood. They are at the very top of the tree. I climb down off my wings into a little room. Jo is making little arty objects out of pottery, and is using a really unusual technique for making them. People are sat about watching him. He has a large bowl which he spins very fast, like a potters wheel, and he places his lump of wet clay in the bowl, and in combination with manipulating the clay with his hands, he blows it very hard. Bowl like shapes form in the spinning clay. It is quite amazing. He talks us through the process carefully. He shows us the finished objects he has made using this technique. They are small, glazed leaves and plates and some just interesting organic shapes. Jo says that he likes having something leafy like on each of the things he makes.

There are some objects that are not made out of clay, they are soft. "Are these edible?" I ask Jo. "Yeah", he says, " it does say jam on the box".

So it does! I try one of them.

A group of friends have wandered off from the apple tree to the sea side. I follow them, and we get to the shore just a dusk. all of a sudden I see a large sailing boat setting sail through the harbour entrance straight towards the setting sun. It suddenly looks like the boat is surrounded by golden yellow light and is floating in the air. "Quick! Take a picture!" I say to my friend. The light fades too fast for us to get a picture.

Now I see the boat sailing out to meet another boat, this other boat is a boat from a distant land. The people on the other boat set fire to the sails. At first this seems crazy, but then I realise that this is a symbol of there journey; they have arrived, there is no more travel to do. These travellers are natives from a country that still lives close to the land, that lives in harmony with nature.
The look on their faces are weather beaten.
They meet with the boat from our land.

I am now on a mission with anne marie. She is wandering ahead of the rest of us, and only a few are able to follow her. She is heading south, through many miles of dense forest, wandering in the tracks of a vehicle that had paved the way some years ago. She is laying out carpet into the forest. She must lay out the carpet 10000 trees long. This is the project. We wander into france, and see lots of wild life as we go. Anne marie is always a few steps ahead of the rest of us, laying out the carpet for us the follow.